The Old Curiosity Shop

The Old Curiosity Shop

By Charles Dickens

CHAPTER 1

Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave home early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day, or even escape for days or weeks together; but, saving in the country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven be thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the earth, as much as any creature living.

I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is kinder in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built castle at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse.

That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy—is it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear it! Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin’s Court, listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect the child’s step from the man’s, the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker—think of the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come.

Then, the crowds forever passing and repassing on the bridges (on those which are free of toll at least), where many stop on fine evenings looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague idea that by and by it runs between green banks which grow wider and wider until at last it joins the broad vast sea—where some halt to rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away one’s life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness unalloyed—and where some, and a very different class, pause with heavier loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all means of suicide the easiest and best.

Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when the fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the unwholesome streams of last night’s debauchery, and driving the dusky thrush, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night long, half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all akin to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the hot hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already, while others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they shall be watered and freshened up to please more sober company, and make old clerks who pass them on their road to business, wonder what has filled their breasts with visions of the country.

But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story I am about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals, arose out of one of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of them by way of preface.

One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in my usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was arrested by an inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but which seemed to be addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft sweet voice that struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round and found at my elbow a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed to a certain street at a considerable distance, and indeed in quite another quarter of the town.

‘It is a very long way from here,’ said I, ‘my child.’

‘I know that, sir,’ she replied timidly. ‘I am afraid it is a very long way, for I came from there to-night.’

‘Alone?’ said I, in some surprise.

‘Oh, yes, I don’t mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I had lost my road.’

‘And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?’

‘I am sure you will not do that,’ said the little creature,’ you are such a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.’

I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the energy with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child’s clear eye, and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into my face.

‘Come,’ said I, ‘I’ll take you there.’

She put her hand in mine as confidingly as if she had known me from her cradle, and we trudged away together; the little creature accommodating her pace to mine, and rather seeming to lead and take care of me than I to be protecting her. I observed that every now and then she stole a curious look at my face, as if to make quite sure that I was not deceiving her, and that these glances (very sharp and keen they were too) seemed to increase her confidence at every repetition.

For my part, my curiosity and interest were at least equal to the child’s, for child she certainly was, although I thought it probably from what I could make out, that her very small and delicate frame imparted a peculiar youthfulness to her appearance. Though more scantily attired than she might have been she was dressed with perfect neatness, and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect.

‘Who has sent you so far by yourself?’ said I.

‘Someone who is very kind to me, sir.’

‘And what have you been doing?’

‘That, I must not tell,’ said the child firmly.

There was something in the manner of this reply which caused me to look at the little creature with an involuntary expression of surprise; for I wondered what kind of errand it might be that occasioned her to be prepared for questioning. Her quick eye seemed to read my thoughts, for as it met mine she added that there was no harm in what she had been doing, but it was a great secret—a secret which she did not even know herself.

This was said with no appearance of cunning or deceit, but with an unsuspicious frankness that bore the impress of truth. She walked on as before, growing more familiar with me as we proceeded and talking cheerfully by the way, but she said no more about her home, beyond remarking that we were going quite a new road and asking if it were a short one.

While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my mind a hundred different explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I really felt ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful feeling of the child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her confidence I determined to deserve it, and to do credit to the nature which had prompted her to repose it in me.

There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the person who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by night and alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found herself near home she might take farewell of me and deprive me of the opportunity, I avoided the most frequented ways and took the most intricate, and thus it was not until we arrived in the street itself that she knew where we were. Clapping her hands with pleasure and running on before me for a short distance, my little acquaintance stopped at a door and remaining on the step till I came up knocked at it when I joined her.

A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I did not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and I was anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our summons. When she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise as if some person were moving inside, and at length a faint light appeared through the glass which, as it approached very slowly, the bearer having to make his way through a great many scattered articles, enabled me to see both what kind of person it was who advanced and what kind of place it was through which he came.

It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he held the light above his head and looked before him as he approached, I could plainly see. Though much altered by age, I fancied I could recognize in his spare and slender form something of that delicate mould which I had noticed in the child. Their bright blue eyes were certainly alike, but his face was so deeply furrowed and so very full of care, that here all resemblance ceased.

The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures in china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture that might have been designed in dreams. The haggard aspect of the little old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have groped among old churches and tombs and deserted houses and gathered all the spoils with his own hands. There was nothing in the whole collection but was in keeping with himself nothing that looked older or more worn than he.

As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed me with some astonishment which was not diminished when he looked from me to my companion. The door being opened, the child addressed him as grandfather, and told him the little story of our companionship.

‘Why, bless thee, child,’ said the old man, patting her on the head, ‘how couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!’

‘I would have found my way back to YOU, grandfather,’ said the child boldly; ‘never fear.’

The old man kissed her, then turning to me and begging me to walk in, I did so. The door was closed and locked. Preceding me with the light, he led me through the place I had already seen from without, into a small sitting-room behind, in which was another door opening into a kind of closet, where I saw a little bed that a fairy might have slept in, it looked so very small and was so prettily arranged. The child took a candle and tripped into this little room, leaving the old man and me together.

‘You must be tired, sir,’ said he as he placed a chair near the fire, ‘how can I thank you?’

‘By taking more care of your grandchild another time, my good friend,’ I replied.

‘More care!’ said the old man in a shrill voice, ‘more care of Nelly! Why, who ever loved a child as I love Nell?’

He said this with such evident surprise that I was perplexed what answer to make, and the more so because coupled with something feeble and wandering in his manner, there were in his face marks of deep and anxious thought which convinced me that he could not be, as I had been at first inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or imbecility.

‘I don’t think you consider—’ I began.

‘I don’t consider!’ cried the old man interrupting me, ‘I don’t consider her! Ah, how little you know of the truth! Little Nelly, little Nelly!’

It would be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of speech might be, to express more affection than the dealer in curiosities did, in these four words. I waited for him to speak again, but he rested his chin upon his hand and shaking his head twice or thrice fixed his eyes upon the fire.

While we were sitting thus in silence, the door of the closet opened, and the child returned, her light brown hair hanging loose about her neck, and her face flushed with the haste she had made to rejoin us. She busied herself immediately in preparing supper, and while she was thus engaged I remarked that the old man took an opportunity of observing me more closely than he had done yet. I was surprised to see that all this time everything was done by the child, and that there appeared to be no other persons but ourselves in the house. I took advantage of a moment when she was absent to venture a hint on this point, to which the old man replied that there were few grown persons as trustworthy or as careful as she.

‘It always grieves me,’ I observed, roused by what I took to be his selfishness, ‘it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity—two of the best qualities that Heaven gives them—and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.’

‘It will never check hers,’ said the old man looking steadily at me, ‘the springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought and paid for.’

‘But—forgive me for saying this—you are surely not so very poor’—said I.

‘She is not my child, sir,’ returned the old man. ‘Her mother was, and she was poor. I save nothing—not a penny—though I live as you see, but’—he laid his hand upon my arm and leant forward to whisper—‘she shall be rich one of these days, and a fine lady. Don’t you think ill of me because I use her help. She gives it cheerfully as you see, and it would break her heart if she knew that I suffered anybody else to do for me what her little hands could undertake. I don’t consider!’—he cried with sudden querulousness, ‘why, God knows that this one child is the thought and object of my life, and yet he never prospers me—no, never!’

At this juncture, the subject of our conversation again returned, and the old man motioning to me to approach the table, broke off, and said no more.

We had scarcely begun our repast when there was a knock at the door by which I had entered, and Nell bursting into a hearty laugh, which I was rejoiced to hear, for it was childlike and full of hilarity, said it was no doubt dear old Kit coming back at last.

‘Foolish Nell!’ said the old man fondling with her hair. ‘She always laughs at poor Kit.’

The child laughed again more heartily than before, and I could not help smiling from pure sympathy. The little old man took up a candle and went to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels.

Kit was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad with an uncommonly wide mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the most comical expression of face I ever saw. He stopped short at the door on seeing a stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly round old hat without any vestige of a brim, and resting himself now on one leg and now on the other and changing them constantly, stood in the doorway, looking into the parlour with the most extraordinary leer I ever beheld. I entertained a grateful feeling towards the boy from that minute, for I felt that he was the comedy of the child’s life.

‘A long way, wasn’t it, Kit?’ said the little old man.

‘Why, then, it was a goodish stretch, master,’ returned Kit.

‘Of course you have come back hungry?’

‘Why, then, I do consider myself rather so, master,’ was the answer.

The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways as he spoke, and thrusting his head forward over his shoulder, as if he could not get at his voice without that accompanying action. I think he would have amused one anywhere, but the child’s exquisite enjoyment of his oddity, and the relief it was to find that there was something she associated with merriment in a place that appeared so unsuited to her, were quite irresistible. It was a great point too that Kit himself was flattered by the sensation he created, and after several efforts to preserve his gravity, burst into a loud roar, and so stood with his mouth wide open and his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently.

The old man had again relapsed into his former abstraction and took no notice of what passed, but I remarked that when her laugh was over, the child’s bright eyes were dimmed with tears, called forth by the fullness of heart with which she welcomed her uncouth favourite after the little anxiety of the night. As for Kit himself (whose laugh had been all the time one of that sort which very little would change into a cry) he carried a large slice of bread and meat and a mug of beer into a corner, and applied himself to disposing of them with great voracity.

‘Ah!’ said the old man turning to me with a sigh, as if I had spoken to him but that moment, ‘you don’t know what you say when you tell me that I don’t consider her.’

‘You must not attach too great weight to a remark founded on first appearances, my friend,’ said I.

‘No,’ returned the old man thoughtfully, ‘no. Come hither, Nell.’

The little girl hastened from her seat, and put her arm about his neck.

‘Do I love thee, Nell?’ said he. ‘Say—do I love thee, Nell, or no?’

The child only answered by her caresses, and laid her head upon his breast.

‘Why dost thou sob?’ said the grandfather, pressing her closer to him and glancing towards me. ‘Is it because thou know’st I love thee, and dost not like that I should seem to doubt it by my question? Well, well—then let us say I love thee dearly.’

‘Indeed, indeed you do,’ replied the child with great earnestness, ‘Kit knows you do.’

Kit, who in despatching his bread and meat had been swallowing two-thirds of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a juggler, stopped short in his operations on being thus appealed to, and bawled ‘Nobody isn’t such a fool as to say he doosn’t,’ after which he incapacitated himself for further conversation by taking a most prodigious sandwich at one bite.

‘She is poor now’—said the old man, patting the child’s cheek, ‘but I say again that the time is coming when she shall be rich. It has been a long time coming, but it must come at last; a very long time, but it surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing but waste and riot. When WILL it come to me!’

‘I am very happy as I am, grandfather,’ said the child.

‘Tush, tush!’ returned the old man, ‘thou dost not know—how should’st thou!’ then he muttered again between his teeth, ‘The time must come, I am very sure it must. It will be all the better for coming late’; and then he sighed and fell into his former musing state, and still holding the child between his knees appeared to be insensible to everything around him. By this time it wanted but a few minutes of midnight and I rose to go, which recalled him to himself.

‘One moment, sir,’ he said, ‘Now, Kit—near midnight, boy, and you still here! Get home, get home, and be true to your time in the morning, for there’s work to do. Good night! There, bid him good night, Nell, and let him be gone!’

‘Good night, Kit,’ said the child, her eyes lighting up with merriment and kindness.

‘Good night, Miss Nell,’ returned the boy.

‘And thank this gentleman,’ interposed the old man, ‘but for whose care I might have lost my little girl to-night.’

‘No, no, master,’ said Kit, ‘that won’t do, that won’t.’

‘What do you mean?’ cried the old man.

‘I’d have found her, master,’ said Kit, ‘I’d have found her. I’ll bet that I’d find her if she was above ground, I would, as quick as anybody, master. Ha, ha, ha!’

Once more opening his mouth and shutting his eyes, and laughing like a stentor, Kit gradually backed to the door, and roared himself out.

Free of the room, the boy was not slow in taking his departure; when he had gone, and the child was occupied in clearing the table, the old man said:

‘I haven’t seemed to thank you, sir, for what you have done to-night, but I do thank you humbly and heartily, and so does she, and her thanks are better worth than mine. I should be sorry that you went away, and thought I was unmindful of your goodness, or careless of her—I am not indeed.’

I was sure of that, I said, from what I had seen. ‘But,’ I added, ‘may I ask you a question?’

‘Ay, sir,’ replied the old man, ‘What is it?’

‘This delicate child,’ said I, ‘with so much beauty and intelligence—has she nobody to care for her but you? Has she no other companion or advisor?’

‘No,’ he returned, looking anxiously in my face, ‘no, and she wants no other.’

‘But are you not fearful,’ said I, ‘that you may misunderstand a charge so tender? I am sure you mean well, but are you quite certain that you know how to execute such a trust as this? I am an old man, like you, and I am actuated by an old man’s concern in all that is young and promising. Do you not think that what I have seen of you and this little creature to-night must have an interest not wholly free from pain?’

‘Sir,’ rejoined the old man after a moment’s silence. ‘I have no right to feel hurt at what you say. It is true that in many respects I am the child, and she the grown person—that you have seen already. But waking or sleeping, by night or day, in sickness or health, she is the one object of my care, and if you knew of how much care, you would look on me with different eyes, you would indeed. Ah! It’s a weary life for an old man—a weary, weary life—but there is a great end to gain and that I keep before me.’

Seeing that he was in a state of excitement and impatience, I turned to put on an outer coat which I had thrown off on entering the room, purposing to say no more. I was surprised to see the child standing patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, and in her hand a hat, and stick.

‘Those are not mine, my dear,’ said I.

‘No,’ returned the child, ‘they are grandfather’s.’

‘But he is not going out to-night.’

‘Oh, yes, he is,’ said the child, with a smile.

‘And what becomes of you, my pretty one?’

‘Me! I stay here of course. I always do.’

I looked in astonishment towards the old man, but he was, or feigned to be, busied in the arrangement of his dress. From him I looked back to the slight gentle figure of the child. Alone! In that gloomy place all the long, dreary night.

She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, but cheerfully helped the old man with his cloak, and when he was ready took a candle to light us out. Finding that we did not follow as she expected, she looked back with a smile and waited for us. The old man showed by his face that he plainly understood the cause of my hesitation, but he merely signed to me with an inclination of the head to pass out of the room before him, and remained silent. I had no resource but to comply.

When we reached the door, the child setting down the candle, turned to say good night and raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the old man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.

‘Sleep soundly, Nell,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and angels guard thy bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.’

‘No, indeed,’ answered the child fervently, ‘they make me feel so happy!’

‘That’s well; I know they do; they should,’ said the old man. ‘Bless thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.’

‘You’ll not ring twice,’ returned the child. ‘The bell wakes me, even in the middle of a dream.’

With this, they separated. The child opened the door (now guarded by a shutter which I had heard the boy put up before he left the house) and with another farewell whose clear and tender note I have recalled a thousand times, held it until we had passed out. The old man paused a moment while it was gently closed and fastened on the inside, and satisfied that this was done, walked on at a slow pace. At the street-corner he stopped, and regarding me with a troubled countenance said that our ways were widely different and that he must take his leave. I would have spoken, but summoning up more alacrity than might have been expected in one of his appearance, he hurried away. I could see that twice or thrice he looked back as if to ascertain if I were still watching him, or perhaps to assure himself that I was not following at a distance. The obscurity of the night favoured his disappearance, and his figure was soon beyond my sight.

I remained standing on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to depart, and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked wistfully into the street we had lately quitted, and after a time directed my steps that way. I passed and repassed the house, and stopped and listened at the door; all was dark, and silent as the grave.

Yet I lingered about, and could not tear myself away, thinking of all possible harm that might happen to the child—of fires and robberies and even murder—and feeling as if some evil must ensue if I turned my back upon the place. The closing of a door or window in the street brought me before the curiosity-dealer’s once more; I crossed the road and looked up at the house to assure myself that the noise had not come from there. No, it was black, cold, and lifeless as before.

There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and pretty well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by, and now and then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he reeled homewards, but these interruptions were not frequent and soon ceased. The clocks struck one. Still I paced up and down, promising myself that every time should be the last, and breaking faith with myself on some new plea as often as I did so.

The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks and bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I had a strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good purpose. I had only come to know the fact through the innocence of the child, and though the old man was by at the time, and saw my undisguised surprise, he had preserved a strange mystery upon the subject and offered no word of explanation. These reflections naturally recalled again more strongly than before his haggard face, his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks. His affection for the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the worst kind; even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary contradiction, or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not admit the thought, remembering what had passed between us, and the tone of voice in which he had called her by her name.

‘Stay here of course,’ the child had said in answer to my question, ‘I always do!’ What could take him from home by night, and every night! I called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and secret deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a long series of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not find one adapted to this mystery, which only became the more impenetrable, in proportion as I sought to solve it.

Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all tending to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long hours; at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered by fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first, I engaged the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me with its old familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and cheering, and in happy contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted.

But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever before me the old dark murky rooms—the gaunt suits of mail with their ghostly silent air—the faces all awry, grinning from wood and stone—the dust and rust and worm that lives in wood—and alone in the midst of all this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful child in her gentle slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams.

CHAPTER 2

After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early in the morning.

I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious that the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered this irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer’s warehouse.

The old man and another person were together in the back part, and there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my entering, and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a tremulous tone that he was very glad I had come.

‘You interrupted us at a critical moment,’ said he, pointing to the man whom I had found in company with him; ‘this fellow will murder me one of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if he had dared.’

‘Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,’ returned the other, after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; ‘we all know that!’

‘I almost think I could,’ cried the old man, turning feebly upon him. ‘If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.’

‘I know it,’ returned the other. ‘I said so, didn’t I? But neither oaths, or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and mean to live.’

‘And his mother died!’ cried the old man, passionately clasping his hands and looking upward; ‘and this is Heaven’s justice!’

The other stood lounging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty or thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the expression of his face was far from prepossessing, having in common with his manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent air which repelled one.

‘Justice or no justice,’ said the young fellow, ‘here I am and here I shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for assistance to put me out—which you won’t do, I know. I tell you again that I want to see my sister.’

‘YOUR sister!’ said the old man bitterly.

‘Ah! You can’t change the relationship,’ returned the other. ‘If you could, you’d have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and add a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly count. I want to see her; and I will.’

‘Here’s a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here’s a generous spirit to scorn scraped-up shillings!’ cried the old man, turning from him to me. ‘A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only upon those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon society which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,’ he added, in a lower voice as he drew closer to me, ‘who knows how dear she is to me, and seeks to wound me even there, because there is a stranger nearby.’

‘Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,’ said the young fellow catching at the word, ‘nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mine. There’s a friend of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to wait some time, I’ll call him in, with your leave.’

Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street beckoned several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from the air of impatience with which these signals were accompanied, required a great quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At length there sauntered up, on the opposite side of the way—with a bad pretense of passing by accident—a figure conspicuous for its dirty smartness, which after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in resistance of the invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was brought into the shop.

‘There. It’s Dick Swiveller,’ said the young fellow, pushing him in. ‘Sit down, Swiveller.’

‘But is the old min agreeable?’ said Mr Swiveller in an undertone.

Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propitiatory smile, observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and this week was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst standing by the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with a straw in his mouth issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which appearance he augured that another fine week for the ducks was approaching, and that rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore took occasion to apologize for any negligence that might be perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last night he had had ‘the sun very strong in his eyes’; by which expression he was understood to convey to his hearers in the most delicate manner possible, the information that he had been extremely drunk.

‘But what,’ said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, ‘what is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the least happiest of our existence!’

‘You needn’t act the chairman here,’ said his friend, half aside.

‘Fred!’ cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, ‘a word to the wise is sufficient for them—we may be good and happy without riches, Fred. Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only one little whisper, Fred—is the old min friendly?’

‘Never you mind,’ replied his friend.

‘Right again, quite right,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘caution is the word, and caution is the act.’ with that, he winked as if in preservation of some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity.

It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had already passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the effects of the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if no such suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair, dull eyes, and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses against him. His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable for the nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front and only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his dirty wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously folded back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a ring on its little finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these personal advantages (to which may be added a strong savour of tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of appearance) Mr Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.

The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands, looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion, as if he were utterly powerless and had no resource but to leave them to do as they pleased. The young man reclined against a table at no great distance from his friend, in apparent indifference to everything that had passed; and I—who felt the difficulty of any interference, notwithstanding that the old man had appealed to me, both by words and looks—made the best feint I could of being occupied in examining some of the goods that were disposed for sale, and paying very little attention to a person before me.

The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after favouring us with several melodious assurances that his heart was in the Highlands, and that he wanted but his Arab steed as a preliminary to the achievement of great feats of valour and loyalty, removed his eyes from the ceiling and subsided into prose again.

‘Fred,’ said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before, ‘is the old min friendly?’

‘What does it matter?’ returned his friend peevishly.

‘No, but IS he?’ said Dick.

‘Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?’

Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our attention.

He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded to observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and that the young gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their heads possessing this remarkable property; when he concluded that if the Royal Society would turn their attention to the circumstance, and endeavour to find in the resources of science a means of preventing such untoward revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as benefactors to mankind. These opinions being equally incontrovertible with those he had already pronounced, he went on to inform us that Jamaica rum, though unquestionably an agreeable spirit of great richness and flavour, had the drawback of remaining constantly present to the taste next day; and nobody being venturous enough to argue this point either, he increased in confidence and became yet more companionable and communicative.

‘It’s a devil of a thing, gentlemen,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘when relations fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never moult a feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but be always expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and grandfather peg away at each other with mutual wiolence when all might be bliss and concord. Why not jine hands and forgit it?’

‘Hold your tongue,’ said his friend.

‘Sir,’ replied Mr Swiveller, ‘don’t you interrupt the chair. Gentlemen, how does the case stand, upon the present occasion? Here is a jolly old grandfather—I say it with the utmost respect—and here is a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the wild young grandson, “I have brought you up and educated you, Fred; I have put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted a little out of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never have another chance, nor the ghost of half a one.” The wild young grandson makes answer to this and says, “You’re as rich as rich can be; you have been at no uncommon expense on my account, you’re saving up piles of money for my little sister that lives with you in a secret, stealthy, hugger-muggering kind of way and with no manner of enjoyment—why can’t you stand a trifle for your grown-up relation?” The jolly old grandfather unto this, retorts, not only that he declines to fork out with that cheerful readiness which is always so agreeable and pleasant in a gentleman of his time of life, but that he will bow up, and call names, and make reflections whenever they meet. Then the plain question is, an’t it a pity that this state of things should continue, and how much better would it be for the gentleman to hand over a reasonable amount of tin, and make it all right and comfortable?’

Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes of the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into his mouth as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his speech by adding one other word.

‘Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!’ said the old man turning to his grandson. ‘Why do you bring your prolifigate companions here? How often am I to tell you that my life is one of care and self-denial, and that I am poor?’

‘How often am I to tell you,’ returned the other, looking coldly at him, ‘that I know better?’

‘You have chosen your own path,’ said the old man. ‘Follow it. Leave Nell and me to toil and work.’

‘Nell will be a woman soon,’ returned the other, ‘and, bred in your faith, she’ll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.’

‘Take care,’ said the old man with sparkling eyes, ‘that she does not forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that the day don’t come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she rides by in a gay carriage of her own.’

‘You mean when she has your money?’ retorted the other. ‘How like a poor man he talks!’

‘And yet,’ said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one who thinks aloud, ‘how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause is a young child’s guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes well with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!’

These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the young men. Mr Swiveller appeared to think that they implied some mental struggle consequent upon the powerful effect of his address, for he poked his friend with his cane and whispered his conviction that he had administered ‘a clincher,’ and that he expected a commission on the profits. Discovering his mistake after a while, he appeared to grow rather sleepy and discontented, and had more than once suggested the propriety of an immediate departure, when the door opened, and the child herself appeared.

CHAPTER 3

The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably hard features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his mouth and chin, bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and his complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or wholesome. But what added most to the grotesque expression of his face was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of habit and to have no connection with any mirthful or complacent feeling, constantly revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet scattered in his mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. His dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair of capacious shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief sufficiently limp and crumpled to disclose the greater portion of his wiry throat. Such hair as he had was of a grizzled black, cut short and straight upon his temples, and hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands, which were of a rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his fingernails were crooked, long, and yellow.

There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some moments elapsed before any one broke silence. The child advanced timidly towards her brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we may call him so) glanced keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer, who plainly had not expected his uncouth visitor, seemed disconcerted and embarrassed.

‘Ah!’ said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes had been surveying the young man attentively, ‘that should be your grandson, neighbour!’

‘Say rather that he should not be,’ replied the old man. ‘But he is.’

‘And that?’ said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.

‘Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,’ said the old man.

‘And that?’ inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight at me.

‘A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night when she lost her way, coming from your house.’

The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and bent his head to listen.

‘Well, Nelly,’ said the young fellow aloud. ‘Do they teach you to hate me, eh?’

‘No, no. For shame. Oh, no!’ cried the child.

‘To love me, perhaps?’ pursued her brother with a sneer.

‘To do neither,’ she returned. ‘They never speak to me about you. Indeed they never do.’

‘I dare be bound for that,’ he said, darting a bitter look at the grandfather. ‘I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!’

‘But I love you dearly, Fred,’ said the child.

‘No doubt!’

‘I do indeed, and always will,’ the child repeated with great emotion, ‘but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy, then I could love you more.’

‘I see!’ said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child, and having kissed her, pushed her from him: ‘There—get you away now you have said your lesson. You needn’t whimper. We part good friends enough, if that’s the matter.’

He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained her little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf, said abruptly,

‘Harkee, Mr—’

‘Meaning me?’ returned the dwarf. ‘Quilp is my name. You might remember. It’s not a long one—Daniel Quilp.’

‘Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,’ pursued the other, ‘You have some influence with my grandfather there.’

‘Some,’ said Mr Quilp emphatically.

‘And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.’

‘A few,’ replied Quilp, with equal dryness.

‘Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and dreaded as if I brought the plague? He’ll tell you that I have no natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake, than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of coming to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see her when I please. That’s my point. I came here to-day to maintain it, and I’ll come here again fifty times with the same object and always with the same success. I said I would stop till I had gained it. I have done so, and now my visit’s ended. Come Dick.’

‘Stop!’ cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the door. ‘Sir!’

‘Sir, I am your humble servant,’ said Mr Quilp, to whom the monosyllable was addressed.

‘Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light, sir,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘I will with your permission, attempt a slight remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old min was friendly.’

‘Proceed, sir,’ said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden stop.

‘Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling as a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the sort of thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social harmony of the contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a course which is THE course to be adopted to the present occasion. Will you allow me to whisper half a syllable, sir?’

Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped up to the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to get at his ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all present,

‘The watch-word to the old min is—fork.’

‘Is what?’ demanded Quilp.

‘Is fork, sir, fork,’ replied Mr Swiveller slapping his pocket. ‘You are awake, sir?’

The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise, then drew a little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these means he in time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to attract the dwarf’s attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in dumb show, the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy. Having performed the serious pantomime that was necessary for the due conveyance of these idea, he cast himself upon his friend’s track, and vanished.

‘Humph!’ said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his shoulders, ‘so much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge none! Nor need you either,’ he added, turning to the old man, ‘if you were not as weak as a reed, and nearly as senseless.’

‘What would you have me do?’ he retorted in a kind of helpless desperation. ‘It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?’

‘What would I do if I was in your case?’ said the dwarf.

‘Something violent, no doubt.’

‘You’re right there,’ returned the little man, highly gratified by the compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a devil as he rubbed his dirty hands together. ‘Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty Mrs Quilp, obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me—I have left her all alone, and she will be anxious and know not a moment’s peace till I return. I know she’s always in that condition when I’m away, thought she doesn’t dare to say so, unless I lead her on and tell her she may speak freely and I won’t be angry with her. Oh! well-trained Mrs Quilp.’

The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and little body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round again—with something fantastic even in his manner of performing this slight action—and, dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp might have copied and appropriated to himself.

‘Here,’ he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the old man as he spoke; ‘I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as, being in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in her bag. She need be accustomed to such loads betimes though, neighbor, for she will carry weight when you are dead.’

‘Heaven send she may! I hope so,’ said the old man with something like a groan.

‘Hope so!’ echoed the dwarf, approaching close to his ear; ‘neighbour, I would I knew in what good investment all these supplies are sunk. But you are a deep man, and keep your secret close.’

‘My secret!’ said the other with a haggard look. ‘Yes, you’re right—I—I—keep it close—very close.’

He said no more, but taking the money turned away with a slow, uncertain step, and pressed his hand upon his head like a weary and dejected man. The dwarf watched him sharply, while he passed into the little sitting-room and locked it in an iron safe above the chimney-piece; and after musing for a short space, prepared to take his leave, observing that unless he made good haste, Mrs Quilp would certainly be in fits on his return.

‘And so, neighbour,’ he added, ‘I’ll turn my face homewards, leaving my love for Nelly and hoping she may never lose her way again, though her doing so HAS procured me an honour I didn’t expect.’ With that he bowed and leered at me, and with a keen glance around which seemed to comprehend every object within his range of vision, however, small or trivial, went his way.

I had several times essayed to go myself, but the old man had always opposed it and entreated me to remain. As he renewed his entreaties on our being left along, and adverted with many thanks to the former occasion of our being together, I willingly yielded to his persuasions, and sat down, pretending to examine some curious miniatures and a few old medals which he placed before me. It needed no great pressing to induce me to stay, for if my curiosity has been excited on the occasion of my first visit, it certainly was not diminished now.

Nell joined us before long, and bringing some needle-work to the table, sat by the old man’s side. It was pleasant to observe the fresh flowers in the room, the pet bird with a green bough shading his little cage, the breath of freshness and youth which seemed to rustle through the old dull house and hover round the child. It was curious, but not so pleasant, to turn from the beauty and grace of the girl, to the stooping figure, care-worn face, and jaded aspect of the old man. As he grew weaker and more feeble, what would become of this lonely little creature; poor protector as he was, say that he died—what would be her fate, then?

The old man almost answered my thoughts, as he laid his hand on hers, and spoke aloud.

‘I’ll be of better cheer, Nell,’ he said; ‘there must be good fortune in store for thee—I do not ask it for myself, but thee. Such miseries must fall on thy innocent head without it, that I cannot believe but that, being tempted, it will come at last!’

She looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer.

‘When I think,’ said he, ‘of the many years—many in thy short life—that thou has lived with me; of my monotonous existence, knowing no companions of thy own age nor any childish pleasures; of the solitude in which thou has grown to be what thou art, and in which thou hast lived apart from nearly all thy kind but one old man; I sometimes fear I have dealt hardly by thee, Nell.’

‘Grandfather!’ cried the child in unfeigned surprise.

‘Not in intention—no no,’ said he. ‘I have ever looked forward to the time that should enable thee to mix among the gayest and prettiest, and take thy station with the best. But I still look forward, Nell, I still look forward, and if I should be forced to leave thee, meanwhile, how have I fitted thee for struggles with the world? The poor bird yonder is as well qualified to encounter it, and be turned adrift upon its mercies—Hark! I hear Kit outside. Go to him, Nell, go to him.’

She rose, and hurrying away, stopped, turned back, and put her arms about the old man’s neck, then left him and hurried away again—but faster this time, to hide her falling tears.

‘A word in your ear, sir,’ said the old man in a hurried whisper. ‘I have been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can only plead that I have done all for the best—that it is too late to retract, if I could (though I cannot)—and that I hope to triumph yet. All is for her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would spare her the sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare her the miseries that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an early grave. I would leave her—not with resources which could be easily spent or squandered away, but with what would place her beyond the reach of want for ever. You mark me sir? She shall have no pittance, but a fortune—Hush! I can say no more than that, now or at any other time, and she is here again!’

The eagerness with which all this was poured into my ear, the trembling of the hand with which he clasped my arm, the strained and starting eyes he fixed upon me, the wild vehemence and agitation of his manner, filled me with amazement. All that I had heard and seen, and a great part of what he had said himself, led me to suppose that he was a wealthy man. I could form no comprehension of his character, unless he were one of those miserable wretches who, having made gain the sole end and object of their lives and having succeeded in amassing great riches, are constantly tortured by the dread of poverty, and beset by fears of loss and ruin. Many things he had said which I had been at a loss to understand, were quite reconcilable with the idea thus presented to me, and at length I concluded that beyond all doubt he was one of this unhappy race.

The opinion was not the result of hasty consideration, for which indeed there was no opportunity at that time, as the child came directly, and soon occupied herself in preparations for giving Kit a writing lesson, of which it seemed he had a couple every week, and one regularly on that evening, to the great mirth and enjoyment both of himself and his instructress. To relate how it was a long time before his modesty could be so far prevailed upon as it admit of his sitting down in the parlour, in the presence of an unknown gentleman—how, when he did set down, he tucked up his sleeves and squared his elbows and put his face close to the copy-book and squinted horribly at the lines—how, from the very first moment of having the pen in his hand, he began to wallow in blots, and to daub himself with ink up to the very roots of his hair—how, if he did by accident form a letter properly, he immediately smeared it out again with his arm in his preparations to make another—how, at every fresh mistake, there was a fresh burst of merriment from the child and louder and not less hearty laugh from poor Kit himself—and how there was all the way through, notwithstanding, a gentle wish on her part to teach, and an anxious desire on his to learn—to relate all these particulars would no doubt occupy more space and time than they deserve. It will be sufficient to say that the lesson was given—that evening passed and night came on—that the old man again grew restless and impatient—that he quitted the house secretly at the same hour as before—and that the child was once more left alone within its gloomy walls.

And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character and introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the convenience of the narrative detach myself from its further course, and leave those who have prominent and necessary parts in it to speak and act for themselves.

CHAPTER 4

Mr and Mrs Quilp resided on Tower Hill; and in her bower on Tower Hill Mrs Quilp was left to pine the absence of her lord, when he quitted her on the business which he had already seen to transact.

Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or calling, though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets and alleys by the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very nose of the Custom House, and made appointments on ‘Change with men in glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the Surrey side of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called ‘Quilp’s Wharf,’ in which were a little wooden counting-house burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp’s Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship-breaker, yet to judge from these appearances he must either have been a ship-breaker on a very small scale, or have broken his ships up very small indeed. Neither did the place present any extraordinary aspect of life or activity, as its only human occupant was an amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole change of occupation was from sitting on the head of a pile and throwing stones into the mud when the tide was out, to standing with his hands in his pockets gazing listlessly on the motion and on the bustle of the river at high-water.

The dwarf’s lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet for that lady’s mother, who resided with the couple and waged perpetual war with Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in no slight dread. Indeed, the ugly creature contrived by some means or other—whether by his ugliness or his ferocity or his natural cunning is no great matter—to impress with a wholesome fear of his anger, most of those with whom he was brought into daily contact and communication. Over nobody had he such complete ascendance as Mrs Quilp herself—a pretty little, mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman, who having allied herself in wedlock to the dwarf in one of those strange infatuations of which examples are by no means scarce, performed a sound practical penance for her folly, every day of her life.

It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her bower she was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of whom mention has recently been made, there were present some half-dozen ladies of the neighborhood who had happened by a strange accident (and also by a little understanding among themselves) to drop in one after another, just about tea-time. This being a season favourable to conversation, and the room being a cool, shady, lazy kind of place, with some plants at the open window shutting out the dust, and interposing pleasantly enough between the tea table within and the old Tower without, it is no wonder that the ladies felt an inclination to talk and linger, especially when there are taken into account the additional inducements of fresh butter, new bread, shrimps, and watercresses.

Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was extremely natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity of mankind to tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that developed upon the weaker sex to resist that tyranny and assert their rights and dignity. It was natural for four reasons: firstly, because Mrs Quilp being a young woman and notoriously under the dominion of her husband ought to be excited to rebel; secondly, because Mrs Quilp’s parent was known to be laudably shrewish in her disposition and inclined to resist male authority; thirdly, because each visitor wished to show for herself how superior she was in this respect to the generality of her sex; and fourthly, because the company being accustomed to scandalise each other in pairs, were deprived of their usual subject of conversation now that they were all assembled in close friendship, and had consequently no better employment than to attack the common enemy.

Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings by inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr Quilp was; whereunto Mr Quilp’s wife’s mother replied sharply, ‘Oh! He was well enough—nothing much was ever the matter with him—and ill weeds were sure to thrive.’ All the ladies then sighed in concert, shook their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr.

‘Ah!’ said the spokeswoman, ‘I wish you’d give her a little of your advice, Mrs Jiniwin’—Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should be observed—‘nobody knows better than you, ma’am, what us women owe to ourselves.’

‘Owe indeed, ma’am!’ replied Mrs Jiniwin. ‘When my poor husband, her dear father, was alive, if he had ever ventured a cross word to me, I’d have—’ The good old lady did not finish the sentence, but she twisted off the head of a shrimp with a vindictiveness which seemed to imply that the action was in some degree a substitute for words. In this light it was clearly understood by the other party, who immediately replied with great approbation, ‘You quite enter into my feelings, ma’am, and it’s jist what I’d do myself.’

‘But you have no call to do it,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. ‘Luckily for you, you have no more occasion to do it than I had.’

‘No woman need have, if she was true to herself,’ rejoined the stout lady.

‘Do you hear that, Betsy?’ said Mrs Jiniwin, in a warning voice. ‘How often have I said the same words to you, and almost gone down my knees when I spoke ‘em!’

Poor Mrs Quilp, who had looked in a state of helplessness from one face of condolence to another, coloured, smiled, and shook her head doubtfully. This was the signal for a general clamour, which beginning in a low murmur gradually swelled into a great noise in which everybody spoke at once, and all said that she being a young woman had no right to set up her opinions against the experiences of those who knew so much better; that it was very wrong of her not to take the advice of people who had nothing at heart but her good; that it was next door to being downright ungrateful to conduct herself in that manner; that if she had no respect for herself she ought to have some for other women, all of whom she compromised by her meekness; and that if she had no respect for other women, the time would come when other women would have no respect for her; and she would be very sorry for that, they could tell her. Having dealt out these admonitions, the ladies fell to a more powerful assault than they had yet made upon the mixed tea, new bread, fresh butter, shrimps, and watercresses, and said that their vexation was so great to see her going on like that, that they could hardly bring themselves to eat a single morsel.

It’s all very fine to talk,’ said Mrs Quilp with much simplicity, ‘but I know that if I was to die to-morrow, Quilp could marry anybody he pleased—now that he could, I know!’

There was quite a scream of indignation at this idea. Marry whom he pleased! They would like to see him dare to think of marrying any of them; they would like to see the faintest approach to such a thing. One lady (a widow) was quite certain she should stab him if he hinted at it.

‘Very well,’ said Mrs Quilp, nodding her head, ‘as I said just now, it’s very easy to talk, but I say again that I know—that I’m sure—Quilp has such a way with him when he likes, that the best looking woman here couldn’t refuse him if I was dead, and she was free, and he chose to make love to her. Come!’

Everybody bridled up at this remark, as much as to say, ‘I know you mean me. Let him try—that’s all.’ and yet for some hidden reason they were all angry with the widow, and each lady whispered in her neighbour’s ear that it was very plain that said widow thought herself the person referred to, and what a puss she was!

‘Mother knows,’ said Mrs Quilp, ‘that what I say is quite correct, for she often said so before we were married. Didn’t you say so, mother?’

This inquiry involved the respected lady in rather a delicate position, for she certainly had been an active party in making her daughter Mrs Quilp, and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to encourage the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else would have. On the other hand, to exaggerate the captivating qualities of her son-in-law would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in which all her energies were deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing considerations, Mrs Jiniwin admitted the powers of insinuation, but denied the right to govern, and with a timely compliment to the stout lady brought back the discussion to the point from which it had strayed.

‘Oh! It’s a sensible and proper thing indeed, what Mrs George has said!’ exclaimed the old lady. ‘If women are only true to themselves!—But Betsy isn’t, and more’s the shame and pity.’

‘Before I’d let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,’ said Mrs George, ‘before I’d consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of him, I’d—I’d kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it!’

This remark being loudly commended and approved of, another lady (from the Minories) put in her word:

‘Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,’ said this lady, ‘and I supposed there’s no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs Jiniwin says he is, and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still he is not quite a—what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young man neither, which might be a little excuse for him if anything could be; whereas his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman—which is the greatest thing after all.’

This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the lady went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and unreasonable with such a wife, then—

‘If he is!’ interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn declaration. ‘If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she daren’t call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn’t the spirit to give him a word back, no, not a single word.’

Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all the tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this official communication was no sooner made than they all began to talk at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility. Mrs George remarked that people would talk, that people had often said this to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had told her so twenty times, that she had always said, ‘No, Henrietta Simmons, unless I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears, I never will believe it.’ Mrs Simmons corroborated this testimony and added strong evidence of her own. The lady from the Minories recounted a successful course of treatment under which she had placed her own husband, who, from manifesting one month after marriage unequivocal symptoms of the tiger, had by this means become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another lady recounted her own personal struggle and final triumph, in the course whereof she had found it necessary to call in her mother and two aunts, and to weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third, who in the general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened herself upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The noise was at its height, and half the company had elevated their voices into a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other half, when Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her forefinger stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this clamour, was observed to be in the room, looking on and listening with profound attention.

‘Go on, ladies, go on,’ said Daniel. ‘Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and palatable.’

‘I—I—didn’t ask them to tea, Quilp,’ stammered his wife. ‘It’s quite an accident.’

‘So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always the pleasantest,’ said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he seemed to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they were encrusted, little charges for popguns. ‘What! Not going, ladies, you are not going, surely!’

His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a faint struggle to sustain the character.

‘And why not stop to supper, Quilp,’ said the old lady, ‘if my daughter had a mind?’

‘To be sure,’ rejoined Daniel. ‘Why not?’

‘There’s nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?’ said Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Surely not,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Why should there be? Nor anything unwholesome, either, unless there’s lobster-salad or prawns, which I’m told are not good for digestion.’

‘And you wouldn’t like your wife to be attacked with that, or anything else that would make her uneasy would you?’ said Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Not for a score of worlds,’ replied the dwarf with a grin. ‘Not even to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time—and what a blessing that would be!’

‘My daughter’s your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,’ said the old lady with a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be reminded of the fact; ‘your wedded wife.’

‘So she is, certainly. So she is,’ observed the dwarf.

‘And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,’ said the old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of her impish son-in-law.

‘Hope she has!’ he replied. ‘Oh! Don’t you know she has? Don’t you know she has, Mrs Jiniwin?

‘I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my way of thinking.’

‘Why an’t you of your mother’s way of thinking, my dear?’ said the dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, ‘why don’t you always imitate your mother, my dear? She’s the ornament of her sex—your father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.’

‘Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty thousand of some people,’ said Mrs Jiniwin; ‘twenty hundred million thousand.’

‘I should like to have known him,’ remarked the dwarf. ‘I dare say he was a blessed creature then; but I’m sure he is now. It was a happy release. I believe he had suffered a long time?’

The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his tongue.

‘You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too much—talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to bed.’

‘I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.’

‘But please to do now. Do please to go now,’ said the dwarf.

The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a long time without speaking.

‘Mrs Quilp,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, Quilp,’ she replead meekly.

Instead of pursuing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted her eyes and kept them on the ground.

‘Mrs Quilp.’

‘Yes, Quilp.’

‘If ever you listen to these beldames again, I’ll bite you.’

With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship’s locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted on the table.

‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ he said; ‘I feel in a smoking humour, and shall probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in case I want you.’

His wife returned no other reply than the necessary ‘Yes, Quilp,’ and the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red, but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position, and staring listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of restlessness or fatigue; and then it expanded into a grin of delight.

CHAPTER 5

Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time, or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth.

At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding him by an occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her penance had been of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her; and it was not until the sun had some time risen, and the activity and noise of city day were rife in the street, that he deigned to recognize her presence by any word or sign. He might not have done so even then, but for certain impatient tapping at the door he seemed to denote that some pretty hard knuckles were actively engaged upon the other side.

‘Why dear me!’ he said looking round with a malicious grin, ‘it’s day. Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!’

His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.

Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for, supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on the previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.

Nothing escaped the hawk’s eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly understanding what passed in the old lady’s mind, turned uglier still in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a leer or triumph.

‘Why, Betsy,’ said the old woman, ‘you haven’t been—you don’t mean to say you’ve been a—’

‘Sitting up all night?’ said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the sentence. ‘Yes she has!’

‘All night?’ cried Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?’ said Quilp, with a smile of which a frown was part. ‘Who says man and wife are bad company? Ha ha! The time has flown.’

‘You’re a brute!’ exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Come come,’ said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, ‘you mustn’t call her names. She’s married now, you know. And though she did beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly careful of me as to be out of humour with her. Bless you for a dear old lady. Here’s to your health!’

‘I am much obliged to you,’ returned the old woman, testifying by a certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her matronly fist at her son-in-law. ‘Oh! I’m very much obliged to you!’

‘Grateful soul!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Mrs Quilp.’

‘Yes, Quilp,’ said the timid sufferer.

‘Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the wharf this morning—the earlier the better, so be quick.’

Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied herself to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.

While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room, and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his complexion rather more cloudy than it was before. But, while he was thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in this short process, and stood listening for any conversation in the next room, of which he might be the theme.

‘Ah!’ he said after a short effort of attention, ‘it was not the towel over my ears, I thought it wasn’t. I’m a little hunchy villain and a monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!’

The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.

Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin happening to be behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she did so and accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye in the glass, catching her in the very act. The same glance at the mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and the next instant the dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and placid look, inquired in a tone of great affection.

‘How are you now, my dear old darling?’

Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and suffered herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the breakfast-table. Here he by no means diminished the impression he had just produced, for he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature. At last, having gone through these proceedings and many others which were equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them, reduced to a very obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the river-side, where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed his name.

It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on, some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a wrong-headed, dogged, obstinate way, bumping up against the larger craft, running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on all sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some lumbering fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands were busily engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry, taking in or discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible but two or three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to and fro upon the deck or scrambling up to look over the side and bark the louder for the view. Coming slowly on through the forests of masts was a great steamship, beating the water in short impatient strokes with her heavy paddles as though she wanted room to breathe, and advancing in her huge bulk like a sea monster among the minnows of the Thames. On either hand were long black tiers of colliers; between them vessels slowly working out of harbour with sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on board, re-echoed from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was in active motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old grey Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their chafing, restless neighbour.

Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save in so far as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused himself to be put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither through a narrow lane which, partaking of the amphibious character of its frequenters, had as much water as mud in its composition, and a very liberal supply of both. Arrived at his destination, the first object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which remarkable appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an eccentric spirit and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now standing on his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under these uncommon circumstances. He was speedily brought on his heels by the sound of his master’s voice, and as soon as his head was in its right position, Mr Quilp, to speak expressively in the absence of a better verb, ‘punched it’ for him.

‘Come, you let me alone,’ said the boy, parrying Quilp’s hand with both his elbows alternatively. ‘You’ll get something you won’t like if you don’t and so I tell you.’

‘You dog,’ snarled Quilp, ‘I’ll beat you with an iron rod, I’ll scratch you with a rusty nail, I’ll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me—I will.’

With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously diving in between the elbows and catching the boy’s head as it dodged from side to side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having now carried his point and insisted on it, he left off.

‘You won’t do it agin,’ said the boy, nodding his head and drawing back, with the elbows ready in case of the worst; ‘now—’

‘Stand still, you dog,’ said Quilp. ‘I won’t do it again, because I’ve done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.’

‘Why don’t you hit one of your size?’ said the boy approaching very slowly.

‘Where is there one of my size, you dog?’ returned Quilp. ‘Take the key, or I’ll brain you with it’—indeed he gave him a smart tap with the handle as he spoke. ‘Now, open the counting-house.’

The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he looked round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady look. And here it may be remarked, that between this boy and the dwarf there existed a strange kind of mutual liking. How born or bred, and or nourished upon blows and threats on one side, and retorts and defiances on the other, is not to the purpose. Quilp would certainly suffer nobody to contract him but the boy, and the boy would assuredly not have submitted to be so knocked about by anybody but Quilp, when he had the power to run away at any time he chose.

‘Now,’ said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, ‘you mind the wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I’ll cut one of your feet off.’

The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in, stood on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the back and stood on his head there, and then to the opposite side and repeated the performance. There were indeed four sides to the counting-house, but he avoided that one where the window was, deeming it probable that Quilp would be looking out of it. This was prudent, for in point of fact, the dwarf, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance from the sash armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and jagged and studded in many parts with broken nails, might possibly have hurt him.

It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but an old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock which hadn’t gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp pulled his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top) and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with ease of an old practitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the deprivation of last night’s rest, by a long and sound nap.

Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust in his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp was a light sleeper and started up directly.

‘Here’s somebody for you,’ said the boy.

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ask!’ said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. ‘Ask, you dog.’

Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who now presented herself at the door.

‘What, Nelly!’ cried Quilp.

‘Yes,’ said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him and a yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to behold; it’s only me, sir.’

‘Come in,’ said Quilp, without getting off the desk. ‘Come in. Stay. Just look out into the yard, and see whether there’s a boy standing on his head.’

‘No, sir,’ replied Nell. ‘He’s on his feet.’

‘You’re sure he is?’ said Quilp. ‘Well. Now, come in and shut the door. What’s your message, Nelly?’

The child handed him a letter. Mr Quilp, without changing his position further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his chin on his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its contents.

CHAPTER 6

Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this impulse and restrained it more effectually than she could possibly have done by any efforts of her own.

That Mr Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree, by the contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had got through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes very wide and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused him to scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when he came to the conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of surprise and dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he bit the nails of all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and taking it up sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all appearance as unsatisfactory as the first, and plunged him into a profound reverie from which he awakened to another assault upon his nails and a long stare at the child, who with her eyes turned towards the ground awaited his further pleasure.

‘Halloa here!’ he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness, which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her ear. ‘Nelly!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you know what’s inside this letter, Nell?’

‘No, sir!’

‘Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?’

‘Quite sure, sir.’

‘Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?’ said the dwarf.

‘Indeed I don’t know,’ returned the child.

‘Well!’ muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. ‘I believe you. Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What the devil has he done with it, that’s the mystery!’

This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once more. While he was thus employed his features gradually relaxed into what was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man would have been a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked up again she found that he was regarding her with extraordinary favour and complacency.

‘You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you tired, Nelly?’

‘No, sir. I’m in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I am away.’

‘There’s no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,’ said Quilp. ‘How should you like to be my number two, Nelly?’

‘To be what, sir?’

‘My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf.

The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more distinctly.

‘To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead, sweet Nell,’ said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him with his bent forefinger, ‘to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked, red-lipped wife. Say that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only four, you’ll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a very good girl, and see if one of these days you don’t come to be Mrs Quilp of Tower Hill.’

So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful prospect, the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled violently. Mr Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded him a constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to contemplate the death of Mrs Quilp number one, and the elevation of Mrs Quilp number two to her post and title, or because he was determined from purposes of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at that particular time, only laughed and feigned to take no heed of her alarm.

‘You shall come with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs Quilp that is, directly,’ said the dwarf. ‘She’s very fond of you, Nell, though not so fond as I am. You shall come home with me.’

‘I must go back indeed,’ said the child. ‘He told me to return directly I had the answer.’

‘But you haven’t it, Nelly,’ retorted the dwarf, ‘and won’t have it, and can’t have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your errand, you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and we’ll go directly.’ With that, Mr Quilp suffered himself to roll gradually off the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when he got upon them and led the way from the counting-house to the wharf outside, when the first objects that presented themselves were the boy who had stood on his head and another young gentleman of about his own stature, rolling in the mud together, locked in a tight embrace, and cuffing each other with mutual heartiness.

‘It’s Kit!’ cried Nelly, clasping her hand, ‘poor Kit who came with me! Oh, pray stop them, Mr Quilp!’

‘I’ll stop ‘em,’ cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and returning with a thick stick, ‘I’ll stop ‘em. Now, my boys, fight away. I’ll fight you both. I’ll take both of you, both together, both together!’

With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing round the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on the other, in a most desperate manner, always aiming at their heads and dealing such blows as none but the veriest little savage would have inflicted. This being warmer work than they had calculated upon, speedily cooled the courage of the belligerents, who scrambled to their feet and called for quarter.

‘I’ll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,’ said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to get near either of them for a parting blow. ‘I’ll bruise you until you’re copper-coloured, I’ll break your faces till you haven’t a profile between you, I will.’

‘Come, you drop that stick or it’ll be worse for you,’ said his boy, dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; ‘you drop that stick.’

‘Come a little nearer, and I’ll drop it on your skull, you dog,’ said Quilp, with gleaming eyes; ‘a little nearer—nearer yet.’

But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power, when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he fell violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as at a most irresistible jest.

‘Never mind,’ said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the same time; ‘you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because they say you’re an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a penny, that’s all.’

‘Do you mean to say, I’m not, you dog?’ returned Quilp.

‘No!’ retorted the boy.

‘Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?’ said Quilp.

‘Because he said so,’ replied the boy, pointing to Kit, ‘not because you an’t.’

‘Then why did he say,’ bawled Kit, ‘that Miss Nelly was ugly, and that she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked? Why did he say that?’

‘He said what he did because he’s a fool, and you said what you did because you’re very wise and clever—almost too clever to live, unless you’re very careful of yourself, Kit.’ said Quilp, with great suavity in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes and mouth. ‘Here’s sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth. At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring me the key.’

The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed the river.

There was only Mrs Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the return of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing slumber when the sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely time to seem to be occupied in some needle-work, when he entered, accompanied by the child; having left Kit downstairs.

‘Here’s Nelly Trent, dear Mrs Quilp,’ said her husband. ‘A glass of wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She’ll sit with you, my soul, while I write a letter.’

Mrs Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse’s face to know what this unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she saw in his gesture, followed him into the next room.

‘Mind what I say to you,’ whispered Quilp. ‘See if you can get out of her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live, or what he tells her. I’ve my reasons for knowing, if I can. You women talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you have a soft, mild way with you that’ll win upon her. Do you hear?’

‘Yes, Quilp.’

‘Go then. What’s the matter now?’

‘Dear Quilp,’ faltered his wife. ‘I love the child—if you could do without making me deceive her—’

The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some weapon with which to inflict condign punishment upon his disobedient wife. The submissive little woman hurriedly entreated him not to be angry, and promised to do as he bade her.

‘Do you hear me,’ whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; ‘worm yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I’m listening, recollect. If you’re not sharp enough, I’ll creak the door, and woe betide you if I have to creak it much. Go!’

Mrs Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband, ensconcing himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his ear close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and attention.

Poor Mrs Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or what kind of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door, creaking in a very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without further consideration, that the sound of her voice was heard.

‘How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to Mr Quilp, my dear.’

‘I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,’ returned Nell innocently.

‘And what has he said to that?’

‘Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched that if you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you could not have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!’

‘It often does.’ returned Mrs Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards it. ‘But your grandfather—he used not to be so wretched?’

‘Oh, no!’ said the child eagerly, ‘so different! We were once so happy and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad change has fallen on us since.’

‘I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!’ said Mrs Quilp. And she spoke the truth.

‘Thank you,’ returned the child, kissing her cheek, ‘you are always kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one else about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me sometimes to see him alter so.’

‘He’ll alter again, Nelly,’ said Mrs Quilp, ‘and be what he was before.’

‘Oh, if God would only let that come about!’ said the child with streaming eyes; ‘but it is a long time now, since he first began to—I thought I saw that door moving!’

‘It’s the wind,’ said Mrs Quilp, faintly. ‘Began to—’

‘To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way of spending the time in the long evenings,’ said the child. ‘I used to read to him by the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped and we began to talk, he told me about my mother, and how she once looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then he used to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that she was not lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky where nothing died or ever grew old—we were very happy once!’

‘Nelly, Nelly!’ said the poor woman, ‘I can’t bear to see one as young as you so sorrowful. Pray don’t cry.’

‘I do so very seldom,’ said Nell, ‘but I have kept this to myself a long time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into my eyes and I cannot keep them back. I don’t mind telling you my grief, for I know you will not tell it to any one again.’

Mrs Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.

‘Then,’ said the child, ‘we often walked in the fields and among the green trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark and rather dull, we used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only made us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look forward to our next one. But now we never have these walks, and though it is the same house it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be, indeed!’

She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs Quilp said nothing.

‘Mind you don’t suppose,’ said the child earnestly, ‘that grandfather is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day, and is kinder and more affectionate than he was the day before. You do not know how fond he is of me!’

‘I am sure he loves you dearly,’ said Mrs Quilp.

‘Indeed, indeed he does!’ cried Nell, ‘as dearly as I love him. But I have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never breathe again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he takes by day in his easy chair; for every night and nearly all night long he is away from home.’

‘Nelly!’

‘Hush!’ said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking round. ‘When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just before day, I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were bloodshot, and that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone to bed again, I heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him, and heard him say, before he knew that I was there, that he could not bear his life much longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish to die. What shall I do! Oh! What shall I do!’

The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by the weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she had ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been received, hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst into a passion of tears.

In a few minutes Mr Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost surprise to find her in this condition, which he did very naturally and with admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it.

‘She’s tired you see, Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf, squinting in a hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. ‘It’s a long way from her home to the wharf, and then she was alarmed to see a couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the water besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor Nell!’

Mr Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the head. Such an application from any other hand might not have produced a remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from his touch and felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach, that she rose directly and declared herself ready to return.

‘But you’d better wait, and dine with Mrs Quilp and me.’ said the dwarf.

‘I have been away too long, sir, already,’ returned Nell, drying her eyes.

‘Well,’ said Mr Quilp, ‘if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here’s the note. It’s only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next day, and that I couldn’t do that little business for him this morning. Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d’ye hear?’

Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so needless an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening manner, as if he doubted whether he might not have been the cause of Nelly shedding tears, and felt more than half disposed to revenge the fact upon him on the mere suspicion, turned about and followed his young mistress, who had by this time taken her leave of Mrs Quilp and departed.

‘You’re a keen questioner, an’t you, Mrs Quilp?’ said the dwarf, turning upon her as soon as they were left alone.

‘What more could I do?’ returned his wife mildly.

‘What more could you do!’ sneered Quilp, ‘couldn’t you have done something less? Couldn’t you have done what you had to do, without appearing in your favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?’

‘I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,’ said his wife. ‘Surely I’ve done enough. I’ve led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were alone; and you were by, God forgive me.’

‘You led her on! You did a great deal truly!’ said Quilp. ‘What did I tell you about making me creak the door? It’s lucky for you that from what she let fall, I’ve got the clue I want, for if I hadn’t, I’d have visited the failure upon you, I can tell you.’

Mrs Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband added with some exultation,

‘But you may thank your fortunate stars—the same stars that made you Mrs Quilp—you may thank them that I’m upon the old gentleman’s track, and have got a new light. So let me hear no more about this matter now or at any other time, and don’t get anything too nice for dinner, for I shan’t be home to it.’

So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quilp, who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less tender-hearted persons would have mourned a much greater offence; for, in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management and leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense with it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue.

CHAPTER 7

‘Fred,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘remember the once popular melody of Begone dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.’

Mr Richard Swiveller’s apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the advantage of being over a tobacconist’s shop, so that he was enabled to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller made use of the expressions above recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his desponding friend; and it may not be uninteresting or improper to remark that even these brief observations partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetical character of Mr Swiveller’s mind, as the rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, which was replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon the table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers which, as Mr Swiveller’s was a bachelor’s establishment, may be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as ‘apartments’ for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following up the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers, conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leaving their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls, at pleasure.

In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he cherished it.

‘Fred!’ said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been productive of no effect. ‘Pass the rosy.’

Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly roused.

‘I’ll give you, Fred,’ said his friend, stirring the mixture, ‘a little sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here’s May the—’

‘Pshaw!’ interposed the other. ‘You worry me to death with your chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.’

‘Why, Mr Trent,’ returned Dick, ‘there is a proverb which talks about being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can’t be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can’t be merry. I’m one of the first sort. If the proverb’s a good ‘un, I suppose it’s better to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I’d rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one nor t’other.’

‘Bah!’ muttered his friend, peevishly.

‘With all my heart,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘In the polite circles I believe this sort of thing isn’t usually said to a gentleman in his own apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,’ adding to this retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be rather ‘cranky’ in point of temper, Richard Swiveller finished the rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an imaginary company.

‘Gentlemen, I’ll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular—Mr Richard, gentlemen,’ said Dick with great emphasis, ‘who spends all his money on his friends and is Bah!’d for his pains. Hear, hear!’

‘Dick!’ said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the room twice or thrice, ‘will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?’

‘You’ve shown me so many,’ returned Dick; ‘and nothing has come of any one of ‘em but empty pockets—’

‘You’ll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is over,’ said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. ‘You saw my sister Nell?’

‘What about her?’ returned Dick.

‘She has a pretty face, has she not?’

‘Why, certainly,’ replied Dick. ‘I must say for her that there’s not any very strong family likeness between her and you.’

‘Has she a pretty face,’ repeated his friend impatiently.

‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of that?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ returned his friend. ‘It’s very plain that the old man and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?’

‘A bat might see that, with the sun shining,’ said Dick.

‘It’s equally plain that the money which the old flint—rot him—first taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all be hers, is it not?’

‘I should said it was,’ replied Dick; ‘unless the way in which I put the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was powerful, Fred. ‘Here is a jolly old grandfather’—that was strong, I thought—very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?’

‘It didn’t strike him,’ returned the other, ‘so we needn’t discuss it. Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.’

‘Fine girl of her age, but small,’ observed Richard Swiveller parenthetically.

‘If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,’ returned Trent, fretting at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation. ‘Now I’m coming to the point.’

‘That’s right,’ said Dick.

‘The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may, at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme would take a week to tell) what’s to prevent your marrying her?’

Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the monosyllable:

‘What!’

‘I say, what’s to prevent,’ repeated the other with a steadiness of manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured by long experience, ‘what’s to prevent your marrying her?’

‘And she “nearly fourteen”!’ cried Dick.

‘I don’t mean marrying her now’—returned the brother angrily; ‘say in two year’s time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a long-liver?’

‘He don’t look like it,’ said Dick shaking his head, ‘but these old people—there’s no trusting them, Fred. There’s an aunt of mine down in Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years old, and hasn’t kept her word yet. They’re so aggravating, so unprincipled, so spiteful—unless there’s apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can’t calculate upon ‘em, and even then they deceive you just as often as not.’

‘Look at the worst side of the question then,’ said Trent as steadily as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. ‘Suppose he lives.’

‘To be sure,’ said Dick. ‘There’s the rub.’

‘I say,’ resumed his friend, ‘suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with you. What do you think would come of that?’

‘A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep ‘em on,’ said Richard Swiveller after some reflection.

‘I tell you,’ returned the other with an increased earnestness, which, whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion, ‘that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do it. You or any other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he chooses.’

‘It seems improbable certainly,’ said Dick, musing.

‘It seems improbable because it is improbable,’ his friend returned. ‘If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you, let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between you and me—let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of course—and he’ll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks, that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a beautiful young wife.’

‘I suppose there’s no doubt about his being rich’—said Dick.

‘Doubt! Did you hear what he let fall the other day when we were there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?’

It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity, interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same side. To these impulses must be added the complete ascendancy which his friend had long been accustomed to exercise over him—an ascendancy exerted in the beginning sorely at the expense of his friend’s vices, and was in nine cases out of ten looked upon as his designing tempter when he was indeed nothing but his thoughtless, light-headed tool.

The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to their own development, require no present elucidation. The negotiation was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in the act of stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying ‘Come in.’

The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a servant-girl, who being then and there engaged in cleaning the stairs had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception of surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.

Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction, and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it was one of the inconveniences of being a lady’s man, and that it was very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten her.

‘Her. Who?’ demanded Trent.

‘Sophy Wackles,’ said Dick.

‘Who’s she?’

‘She’s all my fancy painted her, sir, that’s what she is,’ said Mr Swiveller, taking a long pull at ‘the rosy’ and looking gravely at his friend. ‘She’s lovely, she’s divine. You know her.’

‘I remember,’ said his companion carelessly. ‘What of her?’

‘Why, sir,’ returned Dick, ‘between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase, is not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell you that.’

‘Am I to believe there’s anything real in what you say?’ demanded his friend; ‘you don’t mean to say that any love-making has been going on?’

‘Love-making, yes. Promising, no,’ said Dick. ‘There can be no action for breach, that’s one comfort. I’ve never committed myself in writing, Fred.’

‘And what’s in the letter, pray?’

‘A reminder, Fred, for to-night—a small party of twenty, making two hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman to have the proper complement. I must go, if it’s only to begin breaking off the affair—I’ll do it, don’t you be afraid. I should like to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any bar to her happiness, it’s affecting, Fred.’

To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum’s sake no doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she was extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr Swiveller heard this account with a degree of admiration not altogether consistent with the project in which he had just concurred, but his friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this respect, probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to control Richard Swiveller’s proceedings in this or any other matter, whenever he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes, to exert it.

CHAPTER 8

Business disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be endangered by longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having experience of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending back for answer that if Mr Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps he would be so obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with him, as grace before meat, the amount of a certain small account which had long been outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this rebuff, but rather sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swiveller forwarded the same message to another and more distant eating-house, adding to it by way of rider that the gentleman was induced to send so far, not only by the great fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurant cook’s shop, which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The good effect of this politic course was demonstrated by the speedy arrival of a small pewter pyramid, curiously constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being resolved into its component parts afforded all things requisite and necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his friend applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.

‘May the present moment,’ said Dick, sticking his fork into a large carbuncular potato, ‘be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of sending ‘em with the peel on; there’s a charm in drawing a potato from its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and powerful are strangers. Ah! “Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long!” How true that is!—after dinner.’

‘I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may not want that little long,’ returned his companion; but I suspect you’ve no means of paying for this!’

‘I shall be passing present, and I’ll call,’ said Dick, winking his eye significantly. ‘The waiter’s quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred, and there’s an end of it.’

In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was informed by Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would call and settle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some perturbation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about ‘payment on delivery’ and ‘no trust,’ and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the beef, greens, and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time. Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety, replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven minutes past; and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation, Richard Swiveller took a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket and made an entry therein.

‘Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?’ said Trent with a sneer.

‘Not exactly, Fred,’ replied the imperturbable Richard, continuing to write with a businesslike air. ‘I enter in this little book the names of the streets that I can’t go down while the shops are open. This dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There’s only one avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every direction, that in a month’s time, unless my aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get over the way.’

‘There’s no fear of failing, in the end?’ said Trent.

‘Why, I hope not,’ returned Mr Swiveller, ‘but the average number of letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far as eight without any effect at all. I’ll write another to-morrow morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. “I’m in such a state of mind that I hardly know what I write”—blot—“if you could see me at this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct”—pepper-castor—“my hand trembles when I think”—blot again—if that don’t produce the effect, it’s all over.’

By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.

‘It’s rather sudden,’ said Dick shaking his head with a look of infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; ‘when the heart of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss Wackles appears; she’s a very nice girl. She’s like the red red rose that’s newly sprung in June—there’s no denying that—she’s also like a melody that’s sweetly played in tune. It’s really very sudden. Not that there’s any need, on account of Fred’s little sister, to turn cool directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I must begin at once, I see that. There’s the chance of an action for breach, that’s another. There’s the chance of—no, there’s no chance of that, but it’s as well to be on the safe side.’

This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller sought to conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by linking his fortunes to hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further their notable scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting about for a pretext determined in favour of groundless jealousy. Having made up his mind on this important point, he circulated the glass (from his right hand to left, and back again) pretty freely, to enable him to act his part with the greater discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of his meditations.

The spot was at Chelsea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions; a circumstance which was made known to the neighbourhood by an oval board over the front first-floor windows, whereupon appeared in circumambient flourishes the words ‘Ladies’ Seminary’; and which was further published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of tender years standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts to reach the knocker with a spelling-book. The several duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged. English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work, marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs Wackles. Miss Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty summers or thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal; Miss Sophy was a fresh, good humoured, buxom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs Wackles was an excellent but rather venomous old lady of three-score.

To this Ladies’ Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin white, embellished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted curls of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole of the preceding day screwed up tight in a yellow play-bill; and the solemn gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and her eldest daughter, which struck Mr Swiveller as being uncommon but made no further impression upon him.

The truth is—and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste so strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a wilful and malicious invention—the truth is that neither Mrs Wackles nor her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of him as ‘a gay young man’ and to sigh and shake their heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller’s conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of that vague and dilatory kind which is usually looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue one way or other. Hence she had at last consented to play off against Richard Swiveller a stricken market-gardner known to be ready with his offer on the smallest encouragement, and hence—as this occasion had been specially assigned for the purpose—that great anxiety on her part for Richard Swiveller’s presence which had occasioned her to leave the note he has been seen to receive. ‘If he has any expectations at all or any means of keeping a wife well,’ said Mrs Wackles to her eldest daughter, ‘he’ll state ‘em to us now or never.’—‘If he really cares about me,’ thought Miss Sophy, ‘he must tell me so, to-night.’

But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own sister, which would have served his turn as well, when the company came, and among them the market-gardener, whose name was Cheggs. But Mr Cheggs came not alone or unsupported, for he prudently brought along with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who making straight to Miss Sophy and taking her by both hands, and kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an audible whisper that they had not come too early.

‘Too early, no!’ replied Miss Sophy.

‘Oh, my dear,’ rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before, ‘I’ve been so tormented, so worried, that it’s a mercy we were not here at four o’clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state of impatience to come! You’d hardly believe that he was dressed before dinner-time and has been looking at the clock and teasing me ever since. It’s all your fault, you naughty thing.’

Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr Cheggs (who was bashful before ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy’s mother and sisters, to prevent Mr Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and attentions upon him, and left Richard Swiveller to take care of himself. Here was the very thing he wanted, here was good cause reason and foundation for pretending to be angry; but having this cause reason and foundation which he had come expressly to seek, not expecting to find, Richard Swiveller was angry in sound earnest, and wondered what the devil Cheggs meant by his impudence.

However, Mr Swiveller had Miss Sophy’s hand for the first quadrille (country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved through the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller had of the market-gardener, for determining to show the family what quality of man they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls as filled the company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles forgot for the moment to snub three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy, and could not repress a rising thought that to have such a dancer as that in the family would be a pride indeed.

At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous and useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles a contempt for Mr Swiveller’s accomplishments, she took every opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy’s ear expressions of condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a ridiculous creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest Alick should fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and entreating Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick gleamed with love and fury; passions, it may be observed, which being too much for his eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it with a crimson glow.

‘You must dance with Miss Cheggs,’ said Miss Sophy to Dick Swiviller, after she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and made great show of encouraging his advances. ‘She’s a nice girl—and her brother’s quite delightful.’

‘Quite delightful, is he?’ muttered Dick. ‘Quite delighted too, I should say, from the manner in which he’s looking this way.’

Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr Cheggs was.

‘Jealous! Like his impudence!’ said Richard Swiviller.

‘His impudence, Mr Swiviller!’ said Miss Jane, tossing her head. ‘Take care he don’t hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.’

‘Oh, pray, Jane—’ said Miss Sophy.

‘Nonsense!’ replied her sister. ‘Why shouldn’t Mr Cheggs be jealous if he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon if he hasn’t already. You know best about that, Sophy!’

Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister, originating in humane intentions and having for its object the inducing Mr Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are prematurely shrill and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr Swiviller retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs and conveying a defiance into his looks which that gentleman indignantly returned.

‘Did you speak to me, sir?’ said Mr Cheggs, following him into a corner. ‘Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be suspected. Did you speak to me, sir’?

Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg’s toes, then raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin, from that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg, until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up the middle of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said abruptly,

‘No, sir, I didn’t.’

‘’Hem!’ said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, ‘have the goodness to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me, sir.’

‘No, sir, I didn’t do that, either.’

‘Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,’ said Mr Cheggs fiercely.

At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr Chegg’s face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and carefully surveyed him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up the other leg, and thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his eyes, ‘No sir, I haven’t.’

‘Oh, indeed, sir!’ said Mr Cheggs. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You know where I’m to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to say to me?’

‘I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.’

‘There’s nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?’

‘Nothing more, sir’—With that they closed the tremendous dialog by frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophy, and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state.

Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking on at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the figure, and made some remark or other which was gall and wormwood to Richard Swiviller’s soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs and Miss Wackles for encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable on a couple of hard stools, were two of the day-scholars; and when Miss Wackles smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this offense they were both filed off immediately, with a dreadful promptitude that struck terror into the souls of all the pupils.

‘I’ve got such news for you,’ said Miss Cheggs approaching once more, ‘Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word, you know, it’s quite serious and in earnest, that’s clear.’

‘What’s he been saying, my dear?’ demanded Mrs Wackles.

‘All manner of things,’ replied Miss Cheggs, ‘you can’t think how out he has been speaking!’

Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs to pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was holding a flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had) with a feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr Cheggs, and by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few parting words.

‘My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass this door I will say farewell to thee,’ murmured Dick, looking gloomily upon her.

‘Are you going?’ said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at the result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference notwithstanding.

‘Am I going!’ echoed Dick bitterly. ‘Yes, I am. What then?’

‘Nothing, except that it’s very early,’ said Miss Sophy; ‘but you are your own master, of course.’

‘I would that I had been my own mistress too,’ said Dick, ‘before I had ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true, and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e’er I knew, a girl so fair yet so deceiving.’

Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.

‘I came here,’ said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he had really come, ‘with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a stifler!’

‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,’ said Miss Sophy with downcast eyes. ‘I’m very sorry if—’

‘Sorry, Ma’am!’ said Dick, ‘sorry in the possession of a Cheggs! But I wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise. It’s a gratifying circumstance which you’ll be glad to hear, that a young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account, and is now saving up for me. I thought I’d mention it. I have now merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention. Good night.’

‘There’s one good thing springs out of all this,’ said Richard Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the candle with the extinguisher in his hand, ‘which is, that I now go heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about little Nelly, and right glad he’ll be to find me so strong upon it. He shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the meantime, as it’s rather late, I’ll try and get a wink of the balmy.’

‘The balmy’ came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it into a brick-field.

CHAPTER 9

The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly described the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth. Besides that it was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and loneliness, a constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the old man to whom she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even in the midst of her heart’s overflowing, and made her timid of allusion to the main cause of her anxiety and distress.

For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. To see the old man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might, they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care about them—these were causes of depression and anxiety that might have sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that could keep such thoughts in restless action!

And yet, to the old man’s vision, Nell was still the same. When he could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted and brooded on it always, there was his young companion with the same smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same love and care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy.

She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and cheerful presence. But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and when she left her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes—hoarse from their long silence—with her voice.

In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night, alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait; at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds.

She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as they passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their heads again. There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had fancied ugly faces that were frowning over at her and trying to peer into the room; and she felt glad when it grew too dark to make them out, though she was sorry too, when the man came to light the lamps in the street—for it made it late, and very dull inside. Then, she would draw in her head to look round the room and see that everything was in its place and hadn’t moved; and looking out into the street again, would perhaps see a man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others silently following him to a house where somebody lay dead; which made her shudder and think of such things until they suggested afresh the old man’s altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and speculations. If he were to die—if sudden illness had happened to him, and he were never to come home again, alive—if, one night, he should come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had gone to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly, and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door! These thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and more silent than before. The shops were closing fast, and lights began to shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to bed. By degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were replaced, here and there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn all night. Still, there was one late shop at no great distance which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the pavement even yet, and looked bright and companionable. But, in a little time, this closed, the light was extinguished, and all was gloomy and quiet, except when some stray footsteps sounded on the pavement, or a neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at his house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates.

When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had) the child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs, thinking as she went that if one of those hideous faces below, which often mingled with her dreams, were to meet her by the way, rendering itself visible by some strange light of its own, how terrified she would be. But these fears vanished before a well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect of her own room. After praying fervently, and with many bursting tears, for the old man, and the restoration of his peace of mind and the happiness they had once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the pillow and sob herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the day-light came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary summons which had roused her from her slumber.

One night, the third after Nelly’s interview with Mrs Quilp, the old man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not leave home. The child’s eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her joy subsided when they reverted to his worn and sickly face.

‘Two days,’ he said, ‘two whole, clear, days have passed, and there is no reply. What did he tell thee, Nell?’

‘Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.’

‘True,’ said the old man, faintly. ‘Yes. But tell me again, Nell. My head fails me. What was it that he told thee? Nothing more than that he would see me to-morrow or next day? That was in the note.’

‘Nothing more,’ said the child. ‘Shall I go to him again to-morrow, dear grandfather? Very early? I will be there and back, before breakfast.’

The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her towards him.

‘’Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use. But if he deserts me, Nell, at this moment—if he deserts me now, when I should, with his assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I have lost, and all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes me what you see, I am ruined, and—worse, far worse than that—have ruined thee, for whom I ventured all. If we are beggars—!’

‘What if we are?’ said the child boldly. ‘Let us be beggars, and be happy.’

‘Beggars—and happy!’ said the old man. ‘Poor child!’

‘Dear grandfather,’ cried the girl with an energy which shone in her flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, ‘I am not a child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that we may beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty living, rather than live as we do now.’

‘Nelly!’ said the old man.

‘Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,’ the child repeated, more earnestly than before. ‘If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with you; do not let me see such change and not know why, or I shall break my heart and die. Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg our way from door to door.’

The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow of the couch on which he lay.

‘Let us be beggars,’ said the child passing an arm round his neck, ‘I have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall. Let us walk through country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank God together! Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses, any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and beg for both.’

The child’s voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man’s neck; nor did she weep alone.

These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other eyes. And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in all that passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no less a person than Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when the child first placed herself at the old man’s side, refrained—actuated, no doubt, by motives of the purest delicacy—from interrupting the conversation, and stood looking on with his accustomed grin. Standing, however, being a tiresome attitude to a gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the dwarf being one of that kind of persons who usually make themselves at home, he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon the seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for doing something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions had strong possession of him. Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked carelessly over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent grimace. And in this position the old man, happening in course of time to look that way, at length chanced to see him: to his unbounded astonishment.

The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not knowing what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked shrinkingly at it. Not at all disconcerted by this reception, Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude, merely nodding twice or thrice with great condescension. At length, the old man pronounced his name, and inquired how he came there.

‘Through the door,’ said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘I’m not quite small enough to get through key-holes. I wish I was. I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in private. With nobody present, neighbour. Good-bye, little Nelly.’

Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed her cheek.

‘Ah!’ said the dwarf, smacking his lips, ‘what a nice kiss that was—just upon the rosy part. What a capital kiss!’

Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark. Quilp looked after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the door, fell to complimenting the old man upon her charms.

‘Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,’ said Quilp, nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; ‘such a chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!’

The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience. It was not lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody else, when he could.

‘She’s so,’ said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite absorbed in the subject, ‘so small, so compact, so beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways—but bless me, you’re nervous! Why neighbour, what’s the matter? I swear to you,’ continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, ‘I swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite cool. I am pretty sure it ought to be. Yours must be out of order, neighbour.’

‘I believe it is,’ groaned the old man, clasping his head with both hands. ‘There’s burning fever here, and something now and then to which I fear to give a name.’

The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat. Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time, and then suddenly raising it, said,

‘Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?’

‘No!’ returned Quilp.

‘Then,’ said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking upwards, ‘the child and I are lost!’

‘Neighbour,’ said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention, ‘let me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more. You have no secret from me now.’

The old man looked up, trembling.

‘You are surprised,’ said Quilp. ‘Well, perhaps that’s natural. You have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one. For now, I know, that all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies that you have had from me, have found their way to—shall I say the word?’

‘Aye!’ replied the old man, ‘say it, if you will.’

‘To the gaming-table,’ rejoined Quilp, ‘your nightly haunt. This was the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the secret certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money (if I had been the fool you took me for); this was your inexhaustible mine of gold, your El Dorado, eh?’

‘Yes,’ cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, ‘it was. It is. It will be, till I die.’

‘That I should have been blinded,’ said Quilp looking contemptuously at him, ‘by a mere shallow gambler!’

‘I am no gambler,’ cried the old man fiercely. ‘I call Heaven to witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that at every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan’s name and called on Heaven to bless the venture;—which it never did. Whom did it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill, and propagating vice and evil. My winnings would have been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed to the last farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy. What would they have contracted? The means of corruption, wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have hoped in such a cause? Tell me that! Who would not have hoped as I did?’

‘When did you first begin this mad career?’ asked Quilp, his taunting inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man’s grief and wildness.

‘When did I first begin?’ he rejoined, passing his hand across his brow. ‘When was it, that I first began? When should it be, but when I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty; then it was that I began to think about it.’

‘After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to sea?’ said Quilp.

‘Shortly after that,’ replied the old man. ‘I thought of it a long time, and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no pleasure in it, I expected none. What has it ever brought me but anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!’

‘You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me. While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were) you were making yourself a beggar, eh? Dear me! And so it comes to pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a bill of sale upon the—upon the stock and property,’ said Quilp standing up and looking about him, as if to assure himself that none of it had been taken away. ‘But did you never win?’

‘Never!’ groaned the old man. ‘Never won back my loss!’

‘I thought,’ sneered the dwarf, ‘that if a man played long enough he was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a loser.’

‘And so he is,’ cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent excitement, ‘so he is; I have felt that from the first, I have always known it, I’ve seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now. Quilp, I have dreamed, three nights, of winning the same large sum, I never could dream that dream before, though I have often tried. Do not desert me, now I have this chance. I have no resource but you, give me some help, let me try this one last hope.’

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

‘See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,’ said the old man, drawing some scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the dwarf’s arm, ‘only see here. Look at these figures, the result of long calculation, and painful and hard experience. I MUST win. I only want a little help once more, a few pounds, but two score pounds, dear Quilp.’

‘The last advance was seventy,’ said the dwarf; ‘and it went in one night.’

‘I know it did,’ answered the old man, ‘but that was the very worst fortune of all, and the time had not come then. Quilp, consider, consider,’ the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind, ‘that orphan child! If I were alone, I could die with gladness—perhaps even anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally: coming, as it does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and shunning the needy and afflicted, and all who court it in their despair—but what I have done, has been for her. Help me for her sake I implore you; not for mine; for hers!’

‘I’m sorry I’ve got an appointment in the city,’ said Quilp, looking at his watch with perfect self-possession, ‘or I should have been very glad to have spent half an hour with you while you composed yourself, very glad.’

‘Nay, Quilp, good Quilp,’ gasped the old man, catching at his skirts, ‘you and I have talked together, more than once, of her poor mother’s story. The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps been bred in me by that. Do not be hard upon me, but take that into account. You are a great gainer by me. Oh spare me the money for this one last hope!’

‘I couldn’t do it really,’ said Quilp with unusual politeness, ‘though I tell you what—and this is a circumstance worth bearing in mind as showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in sometimes—I was so deceived by the penurious way in which you lived, alone with Nelly—’

‘All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her triumph greater,’ cried the old man.

‘Yes, yes, I understand that now,’ said Quilp; ‘but I was going to say, I was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation you had among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated assurances that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple the interest you paid me, that I’d have advanced you, even now, what you want, on your simple note of hand, if I hadn’t unexpectedly become acquainted with your secret way of life.’

‘Who is it,’ retorted the old man desperately, ‘that, notwithstanding all my caution, told you? Come. Let me know the name—the person.’

The crafty dwarf, bethinking himself that his giving up the child would lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed, which, as nothing was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal, stopped short in his answer and said, ‘Now, who do you think?’

‘It was Kit, it must have been the boy; he played the spy, and you tampered with him?’ said the old man.

‘How came you to think of him?’ said the dwarf in a tone of great commiseration. ‘Yes, it was Kit. Poor Kit!’

So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave: stopping when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with extraordinary delight.

‘Poor Kit!’ muttered Quilp. ‘I think it was Kit who said I was an uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn’t it. Ha ha ha! Poor Kit!’

And with that he went his way, still chuckling as he went.

CHAPTER 10

Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man’s house, unobserved. In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to one of the many passages which diverged from the main street, there lingered one, who, having taken up his position when the twilight first came on, still maintained it with undiminished patience, and leaning against the wall with the manner of a person who had a long time to wait, and being well used to it was quite resigned, scarcely changed his attitude for the hour together.

This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those who passed, and bestowed as little upon them. His eyes were constantly directed towards one object; the window at which the child was accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his sight once more in the old quarter with increased earnestness and attention.

It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was. But as the time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the clock more frequently and at the window less hopefully than before. At length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter past, and then the conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use tarrying there any longer.

That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no means willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to quit the spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it, still looking over his shoulder at the same window; and from the precipitation with which he as often returned, when a fancied noise or the changing and imperfect light induced him to suppose it had been softly raised. At length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless for that night, and suddenly breaking into a run as though to force himself away, scampered off at his utmost speed, nor once ventured to look behind him lest he should be tempted back again.

Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this mysterious individual dashed on through a great many alleys and narrow ways until he at length arrived in a square paved court, when he subsided into a walk, and making for a small house from the window of which a light was shining, lifted the latch of the door and passed in.

‘Bless us!’ cried a woman turning sharply round, ‘who’s that? Oh! It’s you, Kit!’

‘Yes, mother, it’s me.’

‘Why, how tired you look, my dear!’

‘Old master an’t gone out to-night,’ said Kit; ‘and so she hasn’t been at the window at all.’ With which words, he sat down by the fire and looked very mournful and discontented.

The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, nevertheless, which—or the spot must be a wretched one indeed—cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown very much too small for him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes, and looking as if he had thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep any more; which, as he had already declined to take his natural rest and had been brought out of bed in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and friends. It was rather a queer-looking family: Kit, his mother, and the children, being all strongly alike.

Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too often—but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping soundly, and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him to their mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured. So he rocked the cradle with his foot; made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him in high good-humour directly; and stoutly determined to be talkative and make himself agreeable.

‘Ah, mother!’ said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling upon a great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for him, hours before, ‘what a one you are! There an’t many such as you, I know.’

‘I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,’ said Mrs Nubbles; ‘and that there are, or ought to be, accordin’ to what the parson at chapel says.’

‘Much he knows about it,’ returned Kit contemptuously. ‘Wait till he’s a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does as much, and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I’ll ask him what’s o’clock and trust him for being right to half a second.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, ‘your beer’s down there by the fender, Kit.’

‘I see,’ replied her son, taking up the porter pot, ‘my love to you, mother. And the parson’s health too if you like. I don’t bear him any malice, not I!’

‘Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn’t gone out to-night?’ inquired Mrs Nubbles.

‘Yes,’ said Kit, ‘worse luck!’

‘You should say better luck, I think,’ returned his mother, ‘because Miss Nelly won’t have been left alone.’

‘Ah!’ said Kit, ‘I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I’ve been watching ever since eight o’clock, and seen nothing of her.’

‘I wonder what she’d say,’ cried his mother, stopping in her work and looking round, ‘if she knew that every night, when she—poor thing—is sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place or come home to your bed though you’re ever so tired, till such time as you think she’s safe in hers.’

‘Never mind what she’d say,’ replied Kit, with something like a blush on his uncouth face; ‘she’ll never know nothing, and consequently, she’ll never say nothing.’

Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing until she had returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and looking round with a smile, she observed:

‘I know what some people would say, Kit—’

‘Nonsense,’ interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to follow.

‘No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you’d fallen in love with her, I know they would.’

To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother ‘get out,’ and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the porter; by which artificial aids he choked himself and effected a diversion of the subject.

‘Speaking seriously though, Kit,’ said his mother, taking up the theme afresh, after a time, ‘for of course I was only in joke just now, it’s very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to know it, for I’m sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it very much. It’s a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there. I don’t wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.’

‘He don’t think it’s cruel, bless you,’ said Kit, ‘and don’t mean it to be so, or he wouldn’t do it—I do consider, mother, that he wouldn’t do it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no, that he wouldn’t. I know him better than that.’

‘Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from you?’ said Mrs Nubbles.

‘That I don’t know,’ returned her son. ‘If he hadn’t tried to keep it so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was his getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on. Hark! what’s that?’

‘It’s only somebody outside.’

‘It’s somebody crossing over here,’ said Kit, standing up to listen, ‘and coming very fast too. He can’t have gone out after I left, and the house caught fire, mother!’

The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried into the room.

‘Miss Nelly! What is the matter!’ cried mother and son together.

‘I must not stay a moment,’ she returned, ‘grandfather has been taken very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor—’

‘I’ll run for a doctor’—said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. ‘I’ll be there directly, I’ll—’

‘No, no,’ cried Nell, ‘there is one there, you’re not wanted, you—you—must never come near us any more!’

‘What!’ roared Kit.

‘Never again,’ said the child. ‘Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know. Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry, pray don’t be vexed with me! I have nothing to do with it indeed!’

Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut his mouth a great many times; but couldn’t get out one word.

‘He complains and raves of you,’ said the child, ‘I don’t know what you have done, but I hope it’s nothing very bad.’

‘I done!’ roared Kit.

‘He cried that you’re the cause of all his misery,’ returned the child with tearful eyes; ‘he screamed and called for you; they say you must not come near him or he will die. You must not return to us any more. I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should come than somebody quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you done? You, in whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend I had!’

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and silent.

‘I have brought his money for the week,’ said the child, looking to the woman and laying it on the table—‘and—and—a little more, for he was always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be done. Good night!’

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had received, the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his defence. Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery; and of the nightly absences from home for which he had accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit; flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit made no attempt to comfort her and remained quite bewildered. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket upon him, and was seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.

CHAPTER 11

Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no longer, beneath the roof that sheltered the child. Next morning, the old man was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium; and sinking under the influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks in imminent peril of his life. There was watching enough, now, but it was the watching of strangers who made a greedy trade of it, and who, in the intervals in their attendance upon the sick man huddled together with a ghastly good-fellowship, and ate and drank and made merry; for disease and death were their ordinary household gods.

Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was more alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in her devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed; alone in her unfeigned sorrow, and her unpurchased sympathy. Day after day, and night after night, found her still by the pillow of the unconscious sufferer, still anticipating his every want, still listening to those repetitions of her name and those anxieties and cares for her, which were ever uppermost among his feverish wanderings.

The house was no longer theirs. Even the sick chamber seemed to be retained, on the uncertain tenure of Mr Quilp’s favour. The old man’s illness had not lasted many days when he took formal possession of the premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain legal powers to that effect, which few understood and none presumed to call in question. This important step secured, with the assistance of a man of law whom he brought with him for the purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish himself and his coadjutor in the house, as an assertion of his claim against all comers; and then set about making his quarters comfortable, after his own fashion.

To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first put an effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop. Having looked out, from among the old furniture, the handsomest and most commodious chair he could possibly find (which he reserved for his own use) and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one (which he considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend) he caused them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in great state. The apartment was very far removed from the old man’s chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it prudent, as a precaution against infection from fever, and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to smoke, himself, without cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal friend did the like. Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the tumbling boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit himself down in another chair just inside the door, continually to smoke a great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for one minute at a time, if he dared. These arrangements completed, Mr Quilp looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked that he called that comfort.

The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he could by no exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard, angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that tobacco-smoke always caused him great internal discomposure and annoyance. But as he was quite a creature of Mr Quilp’s and had a thousand reasons for conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile, and nodded his acquiescence with the best grace he could assume.

This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey. He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.

Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking very much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered when he happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly fanned the smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee.

‘Smoke away, you dog,’ said Quilp, turning to the boy; ‘fill your pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I’ll put the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon your tongue.’

Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small lime-kiln if anybody had treated him with it. Wherefore, he only muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered.

‘Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like the Grand Turk?’ said Quilp.

Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk’s feelings were by no means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no doubt he felt very like that Potentate.

‘This is the way to keep off fever,’ said Quilp, ‘this is the way to keep off every calamity of life! We’ll never leave off, all the time we stop here—smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the pipe!’

‘Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?’ inquired his legal friend, when the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition.

‘We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is dead,’ returned Quilp.

‘He he he!’ laughed Mr Brass, ‘oh! very good!’

‘Smoke away!’ cried Quilp. ‘Never stop! You can talk as you smoke. Don’t lose time.’

‘He he he!’ cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the odious pipe. ‘But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?’

‘Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,’ returned the dwarf.

‘How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!’ said Brass. ‘Some people, Sir, would have sold or removed the goods—oh dear, the very instant the law allowed ‘em. Some people, Sir, would have been all flintiness and granite. Some people, sir, would have—’

‘Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a parrot as you,’ interposed the dwarf.

‘He he he!’ cried Brass. ‘You have such spirits!’

The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without taking his pipe from his lips, growled,

‘Here’s the gal a comin’ down.’

‘The what, you dog?’ said Quilp.

‘The gal,’ returned the boy. ‘Are you deaf?’

‘Oh!’ said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he were taking soup, ‘you and I will have such a settling presently; there’s such a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear young friend! Aha! Nelly! How is he now, my duck of diamonds?’

‘He’s very bad,’ replied the weeping child.

‘What a pretty little Nell!’ cried Quilp.

‘Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,’ said Brass. ‘Quite charming.’

‘Has she come to sit upon Quilp’s knee,’ said the dwarf, in what he meant to be a soothing tone, ‘or is she going to bed in her own little room inside here? Which is poor Nelly going to do?’

‘What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!’ muttered Brass, as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; ‘upon my word it’s quite a treat to hear him.’

‘I’m not going to stay at all,’ faltered Nell. ‘I want a few things out of that room, and then I—I—won’t come down here any more.’

‘And a very nice little room it is!’ said the dwarf looking into it as the child entered. ‘Quite a bower! You’re sure you’re not going to use it; you’re sure you’re not coming back, Nelly?’

‘No,’ replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of dress she had come to remove; ‘never again! Never again.’

‘She’s very sensitive,’ said Quilp, looking after her. ‘Very sensitive; that’s a pity. The bedstead is much about my size. I think I shall make it MY little room.’

Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any other emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try the effect. This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the bed with his pipe in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and smoking violently. Mr Brass applauding this picture very much, and the bed being soft and comfortable, Mr Quilp determined to use it, both as a sleeping place by night and as a kind of Divan by day; and in order that it might be converted to the latter purpose at once, remained where he was, and smoked his pipe out. The legal gentleman being by this time rather giddy and perplexed in his ideas (for this was one of the operations of the tobacco on his nervous system), took the opportunity of slinking away into the open air, where, in course of time, he recovered sufficiently to return with a countenance of tolerable composure. He was soon led on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into a relapse, and in that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning.

Such were Mr Quilp’s first proceedings on entering upon his new property. He was, for some days, restrained by business from performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well occupied between taking, with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute inventory of all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his other concerns which happily engaged him for several hours at a time. His avarice and caution being, now, thoroughly awakened, however, he was never absent from the house one night; and his eagerness for some termination, good or bad, to the old man’s disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time passed by, soon began to vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations of impatience.

Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf’s advances towards conversation, and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were the lawyer’s smiles less terrible to her than Quilp’s grimaces. She lived in such continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them on the stairs or in the passages if she stirred from her grandfather’s chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment, until late at night, when the silence encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer air of some empty room.

One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting there very sorrowfully—for the old man had been worse that day—when she thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the street. Looking down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to attract her attention had roused her from her sad reflections.

‘Miss Nell!’ said the boy in a low voice.

‘Yes,’ replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old favourite still; ‘what do you want?’

‘I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,’ the boy replied, ‘but the people below have driven me away and wouldn’t let me see you. You don’t believe—I hope you don’t really believe—that I deserve to be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?’

‘I must believe it,’ returned the child. ‘Or why would grandfather have been so angry with you?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Kit. ‘I’m sure I never deserved it from him, no, nor from you. I can say that, with a true and honest heart, any way. And then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how old master was—!’

‘They never told me that,’ said the child. ‘I didn’t know it indeed. I wouldn’t have had them do it for the world.’

‘Thank’ee, miss,’ returned Kit, ‘it’s comfortable to hear you say that. I said I never would believe that it was your doing.’

‘That was right!’ said the child eagerly.

‘Miss Nell,’ cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in a lower tone, ‘there are new masters down stairs. It’s a change for you.’

‘It is indeed,’ replied the child.

‘And so it will be for him when he gets better,’ said the boy, pointing towards the sick room.

‘—If he ever does,’ added the child, unable to restrain her tears.

‘Oh, he’ll do that, he’ll do that,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sure he will. You mustn’t be cast down, Miss Nell. Now don’t be, pray!’

These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said, but they affected the child and made her, for the moment, weep the more.

‘He’ll be sure to get better now,’ said the boy anxiously, ‘if you don’t give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would make him worse and throw him back, just as he was recovering. When he does, say a good word—say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!’

‘They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time,’ rejoined the child, ‘I dare not; and even if I might, what good would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor. We shall scarcely have bread to eat.’

‘It’s not that I may be taken back,’ said the boy, ‘that I ask the favour of you. It isn’t for the sake of food and wages that I’ve been waiting about so long in hopes to see you. Don’t think that I’d come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.’

The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he might speak again.

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Kit hesitating, ‘it’s something very different from that. I haven’t got much sense, I know, but if he could be brought to believe that I’d been a faithful servant to him, doing the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn’t—’

Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out, and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window.

‘Perhaps he mightn’t think it over venturesome of me to say—well then, to say this,’ cried Kit with sudden boldness. ‘This home is gone from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, but that’s better than this with all these people here; and why not come there, till he’s had time to look about, and find a better!’

The child did not speak. Kit, in the relief of having made his proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour with his utmost eloquence.

‘You think,’ said the boy, ‘that it’s very small and inconvenient. So it is, but it’s very clean. Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but there’s not a quieter court than ours in all the town. Don’t be afraid of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very good—besides, I’d mind ‘em. They wouldn’t vex you much, I’m sure. Do try, Miss Nell, do try. The little front room up stairs is very pleasant. You can see a piece of the church-clock, through the chimneys, and almost tell the time; mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would, and you’d have her to wait upon you both, and me to run of errands. We don’t mean money, bless you; you’re not to think of that! Will you try him, Miss Nell? Only say you’ll try him. Do try to make old master come, and ask him first what I have done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?’

Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the street-door opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped head called in a surly voice, ‘Who’s there!’ Kit immediately glided away, and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room.

Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the house, from the opposite side. Finding that there was nobody in sight, he presently returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting (as the child heard from the staircase), that there was a league and plot against him; that he was in danger of being robbed and plundered by a band of conspirators who prowled about the house at all seasons; and that he would delay no longer but take immediate steps for disposing of the property and returning to his own peaceful roof. Having growled forth these, and a great many other threats of the same nature, he coiled himself once more in the child’s little bed, and Nell crept softly up the stairs.

It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with Kit should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her dreams that night and her recollections for a long, long time. Surrounded by unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little regard or sympathy even from the women about her, it is not surprising that the affectionate heart of the child should have been touched to the quick by one kind and generous spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it dwelt. Thank Heaven that the temples of such spirits are not made with hands, and that they may be even more worthily hung with poor patch-work than with purple and fine linen!

CHAPTER 12

At length, the crisis of the old man’s disorder was past, and he began to mend. By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness came back; but the mind was weakened and its functions were impaired. He was patient, and quiet; often sat brooding, but not despondently, for a long space; was easily amused, even by a sun-beam on the wall or ceiling; made no complaint that the days were long, or the nights tedious; and appeared indeed to have lost all count of time, and every sense of care or weariness. He would sit, for hours together, with Nell’s small hand in his, playing with the fingers and stopping sometimes to smooth her hair or kiss her brow; and, when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes, would look, amazed, about him for the cause, and forget his wonder even while he looked.

The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and the child beside him. They were hand in hand as usual. The noise and motion in the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was not surprised, or curious, or pleased, or irritated. He was asked if he remembered this, or that. ‘O yes,’ he said, ‘quite well—why not?’ Sometimes he turned his head, and looked, with earnest gaze and outstretched neck, after some stranger in the crowd, until he disappeared from sight; but, to the question why he did this, he answered not a word.

He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool beside him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter. ‘Yes,’ he said without emotion, ‘it was Quilp, he knew. Quilp was master there. Of course he might come in.’ And so he did.

‘I’m glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, sitting down opposite him. ‘You’re quite strong now?’

‘Yes,’ said the old man feebly, ‘yes.’

‘I don’t want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, raising his voice, for the old man’s senses were duller than they had been; ‘but, as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings, the better.’

‘Surely,’ said the old man. ‘The better for all parties.’

‘You see,’ pursued Quilp after a short pause, ‘the goods being once removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.’

‘You say true,’ returned the old man. ‘Poor Nell too, what would she do?’

‘Exactly,’ bawled the dwarf nodding his head; ‘that’s very well observed. Then will you consider about it, neighbour?’

‘I will, certainly,’ replied the old man. ‘We shall not stop here.’

‘So I supposed,’ said the dwarf. ‘I have sold the things. They have not yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty well—pretty well. To-day’s Tuesday. When shall they be moved? There’s no hurry—shall we say this afternoon?’

‘Say Friday morning,’ returned the old man.

‘Very good,’ said the dwarf. ‘So be it—with the understanding that I can’t go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.’

‘Good,’ returned the old man. ‘I shall remember it.’

Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way in which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and repeated ‘on Friday morning. I shall remember it,’ he had no excuse for dwelling on the subject any further, and so took a friendly leave with many expressions of good-will and many compliments to his friend on his looking so remarkably well; and went below stairs to report progress to Mr Brass.

All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state. He wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various rooms, as if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he referred neither by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the interview of the morning or the necessity of finding some other shelter. An indistinct idea he had, that the child was desolate and in want of help; for he often drew her to his bosom and bade her be of good cheer, saying that they would not desert each other; but he seemed unable to contemplate their real position more distinctly, and was still the listless, passionless creature that suffering of mind and body had left him.

We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come? Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man. But a change came upon him that evening as he and the child sat silently together.

In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree—green and flourishing enough, for such a place—and as the air stirred among its leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall. The old man sat watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of light, until the sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon was slowly rising, he still sat in the same spot.

To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these few green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished among chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things. They suggested quiet places afar off, and rest, and peace. The child thought, more than once that he was moved: and had forborne to speak. But now he shed tears—tears that it lightened her aching heart to see—and making as though he would fall upon his knees, besought her to forgive him.

‘Forgive you—what?’ said Nell, interposing to prevent his purpose. ‘Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?’

‘All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was done in that uneasy dream,’ returned the old man.

‘Do not talk so,’ said the child. ‘Pray do not. Let us speak of something else.’

‘Yes, yes, we will,’ he rejoined. ‘And it shall be of what we talked of long ago—many months—months is it, or weeks, or days? which is it Nell?’

‘I do not understand you,’ said the child.

‘It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we have been sitting here. I bless thee for it, Nell!’

‘For what, dear grandfather?’

‘For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell. Let us speak softly. Hush! for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they would cry that I was mad and take thee from me. We will not stop here another day. We will go far away from here.’

‘Yes, let us go,’ said the child earnestly. ‘Let us begone from this place, and never turn back or think of it again. Let us wander barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.’

‘We will,’ answered the old man, ‘we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God in the places where He dwells. It is far better to lie down at night beneath an open sky like that yonder—see how bright it is—than to rest in close rooms which are always full of care and weary dreams. Thou and I together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy yet, and learn to forget this time, as if it had never been.’

‘We will be happy,’ cried the child. ‘We never can be here.’

‘No, we never can again—never again—that’s truly said,’ rejoined the old man. ‘Let us steal away to-morrow morning—early and softly, that we may not be seen or heard—and leave no trace or track for them to follow by. Poor Nell! Thy cheek is pale, and thy eyes are heavy with watching and weeping for me—I know—for me; but thou wilt be well again, and merry too, when we are far away. To-morrow morning, dear, we’ll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds.’

And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in a few broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up and down together, and never part more until Death took one or other of the twain.

The child’s heart beat high with hope and confidence. She had no thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. She saw in this, but a return of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed, a relief from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape from the heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her late time of trial, the restoration of the old man’s health and peace, and a life of tranquil happiness. Sun, and stream, and meadow, and summer days, shone brightly in her view, and there was no dark tint in all the sparkling picture.

The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she was yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight. There were a few articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him; old garments, such as became their fallen fortunes, laid out to wear; and a staff to support his feeble steps, put ready for his use. But this was not all her task; for now she must visit the old rooms for the last time.

And how different the parting with them was, from any she had expected, and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured to herself. How could she ever have thought of bidding them farewell in triumph, when the recollection of the many hours she had passed among them rose to her swelling heart, and made her feel the wish a cruelty: lonely and sad though many of those hours had been! She sat down at the window where she had spent so many evenings—darker far than this—and every thought of hope or cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place came vividly upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful associations in an instant.

Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and prayed at night—prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning now—the little room where she had slept so peacefully, and dreamed such pleasant dreams! It was hard not to be able to glance round it once more, and to be forced to leave it without one kind look or grateful tear. There were some trifles there—poor useless things—that she would have liked to take away; but that was impossible.

This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet. She wept bitterly for the loss of this little creature—until the idea occurred to her—she did not know how, or why, it came into her head—that it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit who would keep it for her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had left it behind in the hope that he might have it, and as an assurance that she was grateful to him. She was calmed and comforted by the thought, and went to rest with a lighter heart.

From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but with some vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through them all, she awoke to find that it was yet night, and that the stars were shining brightly in the sky. At length, the day began to glimmer, and the stars to grow pale and dim. As soon as she was sure of this, she arose, and dressed herself for the journey.

The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb him, she left him to slumber on, until the sun rose. He was anxious that they should leave the house without a minute’s loss of time, and was soon ready.

The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and cautiously down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and often stopping to listen. The old man had forgotten a kind of wallet which contained the light burden he had to carry; and the going back a few steps to fetch it seemed an interminable delay.

At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the snoring of Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in their ears than the roars of lions. The bolts of the door were rusty, and difficult to unfasten without noise. When they were all drawn back, it was found to be locked, and worst of all, the key was gone. Then the child remembered, for the first time, one of the nurses having told her that Quilp always locked both the house-doors at night, and kept the keys on the table in his bedroom.

It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell slipped off her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old curiosities, where Mr Brass—the ugliest piece of goods in all the stock—lay sleeping on a mattress, passed into her own little chamber.

Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at the sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he almost seemed to be standing on his head, and who, either from the uneasiness of this posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was gasping and growling with his mouth wide open, and the whites (or rather the dirty yellows) of his eyes distinctly visible. It was no time, however, to ask whether anything ailed him; so, possessing herself of the key after one hasty glance about the room, and repassing the prostrate Mr Brass, she rejoined the old man in safety. They got the door open without noise, and passing into the street, stood still.

‘Which way?’ said the child.

The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then to the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head. It was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. The child felt it, but had no doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in his, led him gently away.

It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. The streets were, as yet, nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping town.

The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate with hope and pleasure. They were alone together, once again; every object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind; church towers and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now shone in the sun; each humble nook and corner rejoiced in light; and the sky, dimmed only by excessive distance, shed its placid smile on everything beneath.

Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.

CHAPTER 13

Daniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the city of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty’s attornies of the Courts of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious and unsuspicious of any mischance, until a knocking on the street door, often repeated and gradually mounting up from a modest single rap to a perfect battery of knocks, fired in long discharges with a very short interval between, caused the said Daniel Quilp to struggle into a horizontal position, and to stare at the ceiling with a drowsy indifference, betokening that he heard the noise and rather wondered at the same, and couldn’t be at the trouble of bestowing any further thought upon the subject.

As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his lazy state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if in earnest remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that he had once opened his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to comprehend the possibility of there being somebody at the door; and thus he gradually came to recollect that it was Friday morning, and he had ordered Mrs Quilp to be in waiting upon him at an early hour.

Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes, and often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that which is usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the season, was by this time awake also. Seeing that Mr Quilp invested himself in his every-day garments, he hastened to do the like, putting on his shoes before his stockings, and thrusting his legs into his coat sleeves, and making such other small mistakes in his toilet as are not uncommon to those who dress in a hurry, and labour under the agitation of having been suddenly roused.

While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was groping under the table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and mankind in general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to Mr Brass the question, ‘what’s the matter?’

‘The key,’ said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, ‘the door-key—that’s the matter. D’ye know anything of it?’

‘How should I know anything of it, sir?’ returned Mr Brass.

‘How should you?’ repeated Quilp with a sneer. ‘You’re a nice lawyer, an’t you? Ugh, you idiot!’

Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that the loss of a key by another person could scarcely be said to affect his (Brass’s) legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr Brass humbly suggested that it must have been forgotten over night, and was, doubtless, at that moment in its native key-hole. Notwithstanding that Mr Quilp had a strong conviction to the contrary, founded on his recollection of having carefully taken it out, he was fain to admit that this was possible, and therefore went grumbling to the door where, sure enough, he found it.

Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with great astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking came again with the most irritating violence, and the daylight which had been shining through the key-hole was intercepted on the outside by a human eye. The dwarf was very much exasperated, and wanting somebody to wreak his ill-humour upon, determined to dart out suddenly, and favour Mrs Quilp with a gentle acknowledgment of her attention in making that hideous uproar.

With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the other side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another application, and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his hands and feet together, and biting the air in the fulness of his malice.

So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no resistance and implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the arms of the individual whom he had taken for his wife than he found himself complimented with two staggering blows on the head, and two more, of the same quality, in the chest; and closing with his assailant, such a shower of buffets rained down upon his person as sufficed to convince him that he was in skilful and experienced hands. Nothing daunted by this reception, he clung tight to his opponent, and bit and hammered away with such good-will and heartiness, that it was at least a couple of minutes before he was dislodged. Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp found himself, all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the street, with Mr Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him and requiring to know ‘whether he wanted any more?’

‘There’s plenty more of it at the same shop,’ said Mr Swiveller, by turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, ‘a large and extensive assortment always on hand—country orders executed with promptitude and despatch—will you have a little more, Sir—don’t say no, if you’d rather not.’

‘I thought it was somebody else,’ said Quilp, rubbing his shoulders, ‘why didn’t you say who you were?’

‘Why didn’t you say who YOU were?’ returned Dick, ‘instead of flying out of the house like a Bedlamite?’

‘It was you that—that knocked,’ said the dwarf, getting up with a short groan, ‘was it?’

‘Yes, I am the man,’ replied Dick. ‘That lady had begun when I came, but she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.’ As he said this, he pointed towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little distance.

‘Humph!’ muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, ‘I thought it was your fault! And you, sir—don’t you know there has been somebody ill here, that you knock as if you’d beat the door down?’

‘Damme!’ answered Dick, ‘that’s why I did it. I thought there was somebody dead here.’

‘You came for some purpose, I suppose,’ said Quilp. ‘What is it you want?’

‘I want to know how the old gentleman is,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller, ‘and to hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a little talk. I’m a friend of the family, sir—at least I’m the friend of one of the family, and that’s the same thing.’

‘You’d better walk in then,’ said the dwarf. ‘Go on, sir, go on. Now, Mrs Quilp—after you, ma’am.’

Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted. And it was not a contest of politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she knew very well that her husband wished to enter the house in this order, that he might have a favourable opportunity of inflicting a few pinches on her arms, which were seldom free from impressions of his fingers in black and blue colours. Mr Swiveller, who was not in the secret, was a little surprised to hear a suppressed scream, and, looking round, to see Mrs Quilp following him with a sudden jerk; but he did not remark on these appearances, and soon forgot them.

‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf when they had entered the shop, ‘go you up stairs, if you please, to Nelly’s room, and tell her that she’s wanted.’

‘You seem to make yourself at home here,’ said Dick, who was unacquainted with Mr Quilp’s authority.

‘I AM at home, young gentleman,’ returned the dwarf.

Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what the presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying down stairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty.

‘Empty, you fool!’ said the dwarf.

‘I give you my word, Quilp,’ answered his trembling wife, ‘that I have been into every room and there’s not a soul in any of them.’

‘And that,’ said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an emphasis, ‘explains the mystery of the key!’

Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and frowningly at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment from any of them, hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down again, confirming the report which had already been made.

‘It’s a strange way of going,’ he said, glancing at Swiveller, ‘very strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and intimate friend of his! Ah! he’ll write to me no doubt, or he’ll bid Nelly write—yes, yes, that’s what he’ll do. Nelly’s very fond of me. Pretty Nell!’

Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment. Still glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and observed, with assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere with the removal of the goods.

‘For indeed,’ he added, ‘we knew that they’d go away to-day, but not that they’d go so early, or so quietly. But they have their reasons, they have their reasons.’

‘Where in the devil’s name are they gone?’ said the wondering Dick.

Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which implied that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say.

‘And what,’ said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, ‘what do you mean by moving the goods?’

‘That I have bought ‘em, Sir,’ rejoined Quilp. ‘Eh? What then?’

‘Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a tranquil cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing sea?’ said Dick, in great bewilderment.

‘Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be visited too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted friends, eh?’ added the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; ‘I say nothing, but is that your meaning?’

Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration of circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the project in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip his prospects in the bud. Having only received from Frederick Trent, late on the previous night, information of the old man’s illness, he had come upon a visit of condolence and inquiry to Nell, prepared with the first instalment of that long train of fascinations which was to fire her heart at last. And here, when he had been thinking of all kinds of graceful and insinuating approaches, and meditating on the fearful retaliation which was slowly working against Sophy Wackles—here were Nell, the old man, and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he knew not whither, as if with a fore-knowledge of the scheme and a resolution to defeat it in the very outset, before a step was taken.

In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled by the flight which had been made. It had not escaped his keen eye that some indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the fugitives, and knowing the old man’s weak state of mind, he marvelled what that course of proceeding might be in which he had so readily procured the concurrence of the child. It must not be supposed (or it would be a gross injustice to Mr Quilp) that he was tortured by any disinterested anxiety on behalf of either. His uneasiness arose from a misgiving that the old man had some secret store of money which he had not suspected; and the idea of its escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him with mortification and self-reproach.

In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that Richard Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated and disappointed by the same cause. It was plain, thought the dwarf, that he had come there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole or frighten the old man out of some small fraction of that wealth of which they supposed him to have an abundance. Therefore, it was a relief to vex his heart with a picture of the riches the old man hoarded, and to expatiate on his cunning in removing himself even beyond the reach of importunity.

‘Well,’ said Dick, with a blank look, ‘I suppose it’s of no use my staying here.’

‘Not the least in the world,’ rejoined the dwarf.

‘You’ll mention that I called, perhaps?’ said Dick.

Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time he saw them.

‘And say,’ added Mr Swiveller, ‘say, sir, that I was wafted here upon the pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake of friendship, the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and to sow in their place, the germs of social harmony. Will you have the goodness to charge yourself with that commission, Sir?’

‘Certainly!’ rejoined Quilp.

‘Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,’ said Dick, producing a very small limp card, ‘that that is my address, and that I am to be found at home every morning. Two distinct knocks, sir, will produce the slavey at any time. My particular friends, Sir, are accustomed to sneeze when the door is opened, to give her to understand that they ARE my friends and have no interested motives in asking if I’m at home. I beg your pardon; will you allow me to look at that card again?’

‘Oh! by all means,’ rejoined Quilp.

‘By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,’ said Dick, substituting another in its stead, ‘I had handed you the pass-ticket of a select convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of which I have the honour to be Perpetual Grand. That is the proper document, Sir. Good morning.’

Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it carelessly on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a flourish.

By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the goods, and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of drawers and other trifles of that nature upon their heads, and performing muscular feats which heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood upon the door-steps to answer all the inquiries of curious neighbours, which was his department. His presence and example diffused such alacrity among the persons employed, that, in a few hours, the house was emptied of everything, but pieces of matting, empty porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw.

Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was prying in at the outer door. Assured that it was Kit, though he saw little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon Kit came in and demanded what he wanted.

‘Come here, you sir,’ said the dwarf. ‘Well, so your old master and young mistress have gone?’

‘Where?’ rejoined Kit, looking round.

‘Do you mean to say you don’t know where?’ answered Quilp sharply. ‘Where have they gone, eh?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kit.

‘Come,’ retorted Quilp, ‘let’s have no more of this! Do you mean to say that you don’t know they went away by stealth, as soon as it was light this morning?’

‘No,’ said the boy, in evident surprise.

‘You don’t know that?’ cried Quilp. ‘Don’t I know that you were hanging about the house the other night, like a thief, eh? Weren’t you told then?’

‘No,’ replied the boy.

‘You were not?’ said Quilp. ‘What were you told then; what were you talking about?’

Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter secret now, related the purpose for which he had come on that occasion, and the proposal he had made.

‘Oh!’ said the dwarf after a little consideration. ‘Then, I think they’ll come to you yet.’

‘Do you think they will?’ cried Kit eagerly.

‘Aye, I think they will,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Now, when they do, let me know; d’ye hear? Let me know, and I’ll give you something. I want to do ‘em a kindness, and I can’t do ‘em a kindness unless I know where they are. You hear what I say?’

Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been agreeable to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf, who had been skulking about the room in search of anything that might have been left about by accident, had not happened to cry, ‘Here’s a bird! What’s to be done with this?’

‘Wring its neck,’ rejoined Quilp.

‘Oh no, don’t do that,’ said Kit, stepping forward. ‘Give it to me.’

‘Oh yes, I dare say,’ cried the other boy. ‘Come! You let the cage alone, and let me wring its neck will you? He said I was to do it. You let the cage alone will you.’

‘Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,’ roared Quilp. ‘Fight for it, you dogs, or I’ll wring its neck myself!’

Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other, tooth and nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and chopping the ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by his taunts and cries to fight more fiercely. They were a pretty equal match, and rolled about together, exchanging blows which were by no means child’s play, until at length Kit, planting a well-directed hit in his adversary’s chest, disengaged himself, sprung nimbly up, and snatching the cage from Quilp’s hands made off with his prize.

He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl dreadfully.

‘Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been doing?’ cried Mrs Nubbles.

‘Never you mind, mother,’ answered her son, wiping his face on the jack-towel behind the door. ‘I’m not hurt, don’t you be afraid for me. I’ve been a fightin’ for a bird and won him, that’s all. Hold your noise, little Jacob. I never see such a naughty boy in all my days!’

‘You have been fighting for a bird!’ exclaimed his mother.

‘Ah! Fightin’ for a bird!’ replied Kit, ‘and here he is—Miss Nelly’s bird, mother, that they was agoin’ to wring the neck of! I stopped that though—ha ha ha! They wouldn’t wring his neck and me by, no, no. It wouldn’t do, mother, it wouldn’t do at all. Ha ha ha!’

Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking out of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother laughed, and then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and then they all laughed in concert: partly because of Kit’s triumph, and partly because they were very fond of each other. When this fit was over, Kit exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and precious rarity—it was only a poor linnet—and looking about the wall for an old nail, made a scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with great exultation.

‘Let me see,’ said the boy, ‘I think I’ll hang him in the winder, because it’s more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there, if he looks up very much. He’s such a one to sing, I can tell you!’

So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the poker for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to the immeasurable delight of the whole family. When it had been adjusted and straightened a great many times, and he had walked backwards into the fire-place in his admiration of it, the arrangement was pronounced to be perfect.

‘And now, mother,’ said the boy, ‘before I rest any more, I’ll go out and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.’

CHAPTER 14

As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house was in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his passing it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable necessity, quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he could not choose but yield. It is not uncommon for people who are much better fed and taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been, to make duties of their inclinations in matters of more doubtful propriety, and to take great credit for the self-denial with which they gratify themselves.

There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp’s boy. The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy as if it had been so for months. A rusty padlock was fastened on the door, ends of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily against the half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in the closed shutters below, were black with the darkness of the inside. Some of the glass in the window he had so often watched, had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning, and that room looked more deserted and dull than any. A group of idle urchins had taken possession of the door-steps; some were plying the knocker and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the keyhole, watching half in jest and half in earnest for ‘the ghost,’ which an hour’s gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the late inhabitants, had already raised. Standing all alone in the midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house looked a picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the cheerful fire that used to burn there on a winter’s night and the no less cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite mournfully away.

It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was by no means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that adjective in all his life. He was only a soft-hearted grateful fellow, and had nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently, instead of going home again, in his grief, to kick the children and abuse his mother (for, when your finely strung people are out of sorts, they must have everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned his thoughts to the vulgar expedient of making them more comfortable if he could.

Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding up and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held! A good city speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to a fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of money was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding horses alone. And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one, if only a twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had occasion to alight; but they had not; and it is often an ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most ingenious estimate in the world.

Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now lingering as some rider slackened his horse’s pace and looked about him; and now darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a glimpse of some distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of the road, and promising to stop, at every door. But on they all went, one after another, and there was not a penny stirring. ‘I wonder,’ thought the boy, ‘if one of these gentlemen knew there was nothing in the cupboard at home, whether he’d stop on purpose, and make believe that he wanted to call somewhere, that I might earn a trifle?’

He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest, when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling four-wheeled chaise, drawn by a little obstinate-looking rough-coated pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old gentleman. Beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady, plump and placid like himself, and the pony was coming along at his own pace and doing exactly as he pleased with the whole concern. If the old gentleman remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony replied by shaking his head. It was plain that the utmost the pony would consent to do, was to go in his own way up any street that the old gentleman particularly wished to traverse, but that it was an understanding between them that he must do this after his own fashion or not at all.

As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him. Kit rising and putting his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the pony that he wished to stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom objected to that part of his duty) graciously acceded.

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sorry you stopped, sir. I only meant did you want your horse minded.’

‘I’m going to get down in the next street,’ returned the old gentleman. ‘If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.’

Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed. The pony ran off at a sharp angle to inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and then went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side. Having satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and materials, he came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation.

‘Will you go on, sir,’ said the old gentleman, gravely, ‘or are we to wait here for you till it’s too late for our appointment?’

The pony remained immoveable.

‘Oh you naughty Whisker,’ said the old lady. ‘Fie upon you! I’m ashamed of such conduct.’

The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for he trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no more until he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the words ‘Witherden—Notary.’ Here the old gentleman got out and helped out the old lady, and then took from under the seat a nosegay resembling in shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan with the handle cut short off. This, the old lady carried into the house with a staid and stately air, and the old gentleman (who had a club-foot) followed close upon her.

They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices, into the front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office. The day being very warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were wide open; and it was easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all that passed inside.

At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet, succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed by the listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to exclaim a great many times, ‘oh, delicious!’ ‘oh, fragrant, indeed!’ and a nose, also supposed to be the property of that gentleman, was heard to inhale the scent with a snuffle of exceeding pleasure.

‘I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,’ said the old lady.

‘Ah! an occasion indeed, ma’am, an occasion which does honour to me, ma’am, honour to me,’ rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary. ‘I have had many a gentleman articled to me, ma’am, many a one. Some of them are now rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion and friend, ma’am, others are in the habit of calling upon me to this day and saying, “Mr Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours I ever spent in my life were spent in this office—were spent, Sir, upon this very stool”; but there was never one among the number, ma’am, attached as I have been to many of them, of whom I augured such bright things as I do of your only son.’

‘Oh dear!’ said the old lady. ‘How happy you do make us when you tell us that, to be sure!’

‘I tell you, ma’am,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘what I think as an honest man, which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God. I agree with the poet in every particular, ma’am. The mountainous Alps on the one hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing, in point of workmanship, to an honest man—or woman—or woman.’

‘Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,’ observed a small quiet voice, ‘I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.’

‘It’s a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,’ said the Notary, ‘to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and I hope I know how to appreciate it. I trust, Mr Garland, my dear Sir, that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this auspicious occasion.’

To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might. There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and when it was over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it who should not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort to his parents than Abel Garland had been to his.

‘Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting for a great many years, until we were well enough off—coming together when we were no longer young, and then being blessed with one child who has always been dutiful and affectionate—why, it’s a source of great happiness to us both, sir.’

‘Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,’ returned the Notary in a sympathising voice. ‘It’s the contemplation of this sort of thing, that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor. There was a young lady once, sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of the first respectability—but that’s a weakness. Chuckster, bring in Mr Abel’s articles.’

‘You see, Mr Witherden,’ said the old lady, ‘that Abel has not been brought up like the run of young men. He has always had a pleasure in our society, and always been with us. Abel has never been absent from us, for a day; has he, my dear?’

‘Never, my dear,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘except when he went to Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher at that school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he was very ill after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a dissipation.’

‘He was not used to it, you know,’ said the old lady, ‘and he couldn’t bear it, that’s the truth. Besides he had no comfort in being there without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself with.’

‘That was it, you know,’ interposed the same small quiet voice that had spoken once before. ‘I was quite abroad, mother, quite desolate, and to think that the sea was between us—oh, I never shall forget what I felt when I first thought that the sea was between us!’

‘Very natural under the circumstances,’ observed the Notary. ‘Mr Abel’s feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your nature, ma’am, and his father’s nature, and human nature. I trace the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive proceedings.—I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot of the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my finger upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am constrained to remark in a distinct tone of voice—don’t be alarmed, ma’am, it is merely a form of law—that I deliver this, as my act and deed. Mr Abel will place his name against the other wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is over. Ha ha ha! You see how easily these things are done!’

There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through the prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of feet were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of wine-glasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody. In about a quarter of an hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear and his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and condescending to address Kit by the jocose appellation of ‘Young Snob,’ informed him that the visitors were coming out.

Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby, fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with extreme politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in arm. Mr Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked nearly of the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful resemblance to him in face and figure, though wanting something of his full, round, cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a timid reserve. In all other respects, in the neatness of the dress, and even in the club-foot, he and the old gentleman were precisely alike.

Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little box behind which had evidently been made for his express accommodation, and smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning with his mother and ending with the pony. There was then a great to-do to make the pony hold up his head that the bearing-rein might be fastened; at last even this was effected; and the old gentleman, taking his seat and the reins, put his hand in his pocket to find a sixpence for Kit.

He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the Notary, nor Mr Chuckster. The old gentleman thought a shilling too much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he gave it to the boy.

‘There,’ he said jokingly, ‘I’m coming here again next Monday at the same time, and mind you’re here, my lad, to work it out.’

‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Kit. ‘I’ll be sure to be here.’

He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying so, especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to relish the joke amazingly. As the pony, with a presentiment that he was going home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere else (which was the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had no time to justify himself, and went his way also. Having expended his treasure in such purchases as he knew would be most acceptable at home, not forgetting some seed for the wonderful bird, he hastened back as fast as he could, so elated with his success and great good fortune, that he more than half expected Nell and the old man would have arrived before him.

CHAPTER 15

Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on the morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled sensation of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly seen in the clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest Kit. But although she would gladly have given him her hand and thanked him for what he had said at their last meeting, it was always a relief to find, when they came nearer to each other, that the person who approached was not he, but a stranger; for even if she had not dreaded the effect which the sight of him might have wrought upon her fellow-traveller, she felt that to bid farewell to anybody now, and most of all to him who had been so faithful and so true, was more than she could bear. It was enough to leave dumb things behind, and objects that were insensible both to her love and sorrow. To have parted from her only other friend upon the threshold of that wild journey, would have wrung her heart indeed.

Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say it? On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the whole remainder of a life.

The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain before sleepers’ eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the shadows of the night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark, felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside. The nobler beasts confined in dens, stood motionless behind their bars and gazed on fluttering boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed—then trod impatiently the track their prisoned feet had worn—and stopped and gazed again. Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the stone that no bright sky could warm. The flowers that sleep by night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light, creation’s mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power.

The two pilgrims, often pressing each other’s hands, or exchanging a smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence. Bright and happy as it was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted streets, from which, like bodies without souls, all habitual character and expression had departed, leaving but one dead uniform repose, that made them all alike. All was so still at that early hour, that the few pale people whom they met seemed as much unsuited to the scene, as the sickly lamp which had been here and there left burning, was powerless and faint in the full glory of the sun.

Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men’s abodes which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect began to melt away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place. Some straggling carts and coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm, then others came, then others yet more active, then a crowd. The wonder was, at first, to see a tradesman’s window open, but it was a rare thing soon to see one closed; then, smoke rose slowly from the chimneys, and sashes were thrown up to let in air, and doors were opened, and servant girls, looking lazily in all directions but their brooms, scattered brown clouds of dust into the eyes of shrinking passengers, or listened disconsolately to milkmen who spoke of country fairs, and told of waggons in the mews, with awnings and all things complete, and gallant swains to boot, which another hour would see upon their journey.

This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and great traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was already rife. The old man looked about him with a startled and bewildered gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun. He pressed his finger on his lip, and drew the child along by narrow courts and winding ways, nor did he seem at ease until they had left it far behind, often casting a backward look towards it, murmuring that ruin and self-murder were crouching in every street, and would follow if they scented them; and that they could not fly too fast.

Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling neighbourhood, where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and windows patched with rags and paper, told of the populous poverty that sheltered there. The shops sold goods that only poverty could buy, and sellers and buyers were pinched and griped alike. Here were poor streets where faded gentility essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its last feeble stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as elsewhere, and the poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less squalid and manifest than that which had long ago submitted and given up the game.

This was a wide, wide track—for the humble followers of the camp of wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile—but its character was still the same. Damp rotten houses, many to let, many yet building, many half-built and mouldering away—lodgings, where it would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who let or those who came to take—children, scantily fed and clothed, spread over every street, and sprawling in the dust—scolding mothers, stamping their slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the pavement—shabby fathers, hurrying with dispirited looks to the occupation which brought them ‘daily bread’ and little more—mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers, tailors, chandlers, driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and back room and garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same roof—brick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered by the flames—mounds of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusion—small dissenting chapels to teach, with no lack of illustration, the miseries of Earth, and plenty of new churches, erected with a little superfluous wealth, to show the way to Heaven.

At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering the road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of old timber or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough cabbage-stalks that grew about it, and grottoed at the seams with toad-stools and tight-sticking snails. To these succeeded pert cottages, two and two with plots of ground in front, laid out in angular beds with stiff box borders and narrow paths between, where footstep never strayed to make the gravel rough. Then came the public-house, freshly painted in green and white, with tea-gardens and a bowling green, spurning its old neighbour with the horse-trough where the waggons stopped; then, fields; and then, some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns, some even with a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife. Then came a turnpike; then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill, and on the top of that, the traveller might stop, and—looking back at old Saint Paul’s looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above the cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and casting his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he traced it down to the furthest outposts of the invading army of bricks and mortar whose station lay for the present nearly at his feet—might feel at last that he was clear of London.

Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and his little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were bound) sat down to rest. She had had the precaution to furnish her basket with some slices of bread and meat, and here they made their frugal breakfast.

The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air—deep joys to most of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well—sunk into their breasts and made them very glad. The child had repeated her artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her lips again. The old man took off his hat—he had no memory for the words—but he said amen, and that they were very good.

There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress, with strange plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where those distant countries with the curious names might be. As she looked back upon the place they had left, one part of it came strongly on her mind.

‘Dear grandfather,’ she said, ‘only that this place is prettier and a great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like it, I feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this grass all the cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.’

‘No—never to return—never to return’—replied the old man, waving his hand towards the city. ‘Thou and I are free of it now, Nell. They shall never lure us back.’

‘Are you tired?’ said the child, ‘are you sure you don’t feel ill from this long walk?’

‘I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,’ was his reply. ‘Let us be stirring, Nell. We must be further away—a long, long way further. We are too near to stop, and be at rest. Come!’

There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk again. She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her hands, and dried it with her simple dress.

‘I can do nothing for myself, my darling,’ said the grandfather; ‘I don’t know how it is, I could once, but the time’s gone. Don’t leave me, Nell; say that thou’lt not leave me. I loved thee all the while, indeed I did. If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!’

He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously. The time had been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have restrained her tears and must have wept with him. But now she soothed him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking they could ever part, and rallied him cheerfully upon the jest. He was soon calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice, like a little child.

He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey. The road was pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn, about which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled out her happy song. The air came laden with the fragrance it caught upon its way, and the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed forth their drowsy satisfaction as they floated by.

They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and scattered at long intervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put across the open door to keep the scrambling children from the road, others shut up close while all the family were working in the fields. These were often the commencement of a little village: and after an interval came a wheelwright’s shed or perhaps a blacksmith’s forge; then a thriving farm with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall and scampering away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom. There were dull pigs too, turning up the ground in search of dainty food, and grunting their monotonous grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed each other in their quest; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or strutting on the eaves; and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their own conceit, waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing glibly on its surface. The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn; the humbler beer-shop; and the village tradesman’s; then the lawyer’s and the parson’s, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled; the church then peeped out modestly from a clump of trees; then there were a few more cottages; then the cage, and pound, and not unfrequently, on a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty well. Then came the trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road again.

They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds were let to travellers. Next morning they were afoot again, and though jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long and proceeded briskly forward.

They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time, and still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the morning. It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, when drawing near another cluster of labourers’ huts, the child looked wistfully in each, doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile, and buy a draught of milk.

It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of being repulsed. Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife. In this, the people seemed too poor; in that, too many. At length she stopped at one where the family were seated round the table—chiefly because there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair beside the hearth, and she thought he was a grandfather and would feel for hers.

There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young sturdy children, brown as berries. The request was no sooner preferred, than granted. The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged two stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother’s gown, and looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand.

‘God save you, master,’ said the old cottager in a thin piping voice; ‘are you travelling far?’

‘Yes, Sir, a long way’—replied the child; for her grandfather appealed to her.

‘From London?’ inquired the old man.

The child said yes.

Ah! He had been in London many a time—used to go there often once, with waggons. It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there last, and he did hear say there were great changes. Like enough! He had changed, himself, since then. Two-and-thirty year was a long time and eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that had lived to very hard upon a hundred—and not so hearty as he, neither—no, nothing like it.

‘Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,’ said the old man, knocking his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply. ‘Take a pinch out o’ that box; I don’t take much myself, for it comes dear, but I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye’re but a boy to me. I should have a son pretty nigh as old as you if he’d lived, but they listed him for a so’ger—he come back home though, for all he had but one poor leg. He always said he’d be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb upon when he was a baby, did my poor boy, and his words come true—you can see the place with your own eyes; we’ve kept the turf up, ever since.’

He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said she needn’t be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more. He didn’t wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.

The milk arrived, and the child producing her little basket, and selecting its best fragments for her grandfather, they made a hearty meal. The furniture of the room was very homely of course—a few rough chairs and a table, a corner cupboard with their little stock of crockery and delf, a gaudy tea-tray, representing a lady in bright red, walking out with a very blue parasol, a few common, coloured scripture subjects in frames upon the wall and chimney, an old dwarf clothes-press and an eight-day clock, with a few bright saucepans and a kettle, comprised the whole. But everything was clean and neat, and as the child glanced round, she felt a tranquil air of comfort and content to which she had long been unaccustomed.

‘How far is it to any town or village?’ she asked of the husband.

‘A matter of good five mile, my dear,’ was the reply, ‘but you’re not going on to-night?’

‘Yes, yes, Nell,’ said the old man hastily, urging her too by signs. ‘Further on, further on, darling, further away if we walk till midnight.’

‘There’s a good barn hard by, master,’ said the man, ‘or there’s travellers’ lodging, I know, at the Plow an’ Harrer. Excuse me, but you do seem a little tired, and unless you’re very anxious to get on—’

‘Yes, yes, we are,’ returned the old man fretfully. ‘Further away, dear Nell, pray further away.’

‘We must go on, indeed,’ said the child, yielding to his restless wish. ‘We thank you very much, but we cannot stop so soon. I’m quite ready, grandfather.’

But the woman had observed, from the young wanderer’s gait, that one of her little feet was blistered and sore, and being a woman and a mother too, she would not suffer her to go until she had washed the place and applied some simple remedy, which she did so carefully and with such a gentle hand—rough-grained and hard though it was, with work—that the child’s heart was too full to admit of her saying more than a fervent ‘God bless you!’ nor could she look back nor trust herself to speak, until they had left the cottage some distance behind. When she turned her head, she saw that the whole family, even the old grandfather, were standing in the road watching them as they went, and so, with many waves of the hand, and cheering nods, and on one side at least not without tears, they parted company.

They trudged forward, more slowly and painfully than they had done yet, for another mile or thereabouts, when they heard the sound of wheels behind them, and looking round observed an empty cart approaching pretty briskly. The driver on coming up to them stopped his horse and looked earnestly at Nell.

‘Didn’t you stop to rest at a cottage yonder?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the child.

‘Ah! They asked me to look out for you,’ said the man. ‘I’m going your way. Give me your hand—jump up, master.’

This was a great relief, for they were very much fatigued and could scarcely crawl along. To them the jolting cart was a luxurious carriage, and the ride the most delicious in the world. Nell had scarcely settled herself on a little heap of straw in one corner, when she fell asleep, for the first time that day.

She was awakened by the stopping of the cart, which was about to turn up a bye-lane. The driver kindly got down to help her out, and pointing to some trees at a very short distance before them, said that the town lay there, and that they had better take the path which they would see leading through the churchyard. Accordingly, towards this spot, they directed their weary steps.

CHAPTER 16

The sun was setting when they reached the wicket-gate at which the path began, and, as the rain falls upon the just and unjust alike, it shed its warm tint even upon the resting-places of the dead, and bade them be of good hope for its rising on the morrow. The church was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble men: twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to executors and mourning legatees.

The clergyman’s horse, stumbling with a dull blunt sound among the graves, was cropping the grass; at once deriving orthodox consolation from the dead parishioners, and enforcing last Sunday’s text that this was what all flesh came to; a lean ass who had sought to expound it also, without being qualified and ordained, was pricking his ears in an empty pound hard by, and looking with hungry eyes upon his priestly neighbour.

The old man and the child quitted the gravel path, and strayed among the tombs; for there the ground was soft, and easy to their tired feet. As they passed behind the church, they heard voices near at hand, and presently came on those who had spoken.

They were two men who were seated in easy attitudes upon the grass, and so busily engaged as to be at first unconscious of intruders. It was not difficult to divine that they were of a class of itinerant showmen—exhibitors of the freaks of Punch—for, perched cross-legged upon a tombstone behind them, was a figure of that hero himself, his nose and chin as hooked and his face as beaming as usual. Perhaps his imperturbable character was never more strikingly developed, for he preserved his usual equable smile notwithstanding that his body was dangling in a most uncomfortable position, all loose and limp and shapeless, while his long peaked cap, unequally balanced against his exceedingly slight legs, threatened every instant to bring him toppling down.

In part scattered upon the ground at the feet of the two men, and in part jumbled together in a long flat box, were the other persons of the Drama. The hero’s wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the doctor, the foreign gentleman who not being familiar with the language is unable in the representation to express his ideas otherwise than by the utterance of the word ‘Shallabalah’ three distinct times, the radical neighbour who will by no means admit that a tin bell is an organ, the executioner, and the devil, were all here. Their owners had evidently come to that spot to make some needful repairs in the stage arrangements, for one of them was engaged in binding together a small gallows with thread, while the other was intent upon fixing a new black wig, with the aid of a small hammer and some tacks, upon the head of the radical neighbour, who had been beaten bald.

They raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion were close upon them, and pausing in their work, returned their looks of curiosity. One of them, the actual exhibitor no doubt, was a little merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose, who seemed to have unconsciously imbibed something of his hero’s character. The other—that was he who took the money—had rather a careful and cautious look, which was perhaps inseparable from his occupation also.

The merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod; and following the old man’s eyes, he observed that perhaps that was the first time he had ever seen a Punch off the stage. (Punch, it may be remarked, seemed to be pointing with the tip of his cap to a most flourishing epitaph, and to be chuckling over it with all his heart.)

‘Why do you come here to do this?’ said the old man, sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight.

‘Why you see,’ rejoined the little man, ‘we’re putting up for to-night at the public-house yonder, and it wouldn’t do to let ‘em see the present company undergoing repair.’

‘No!’ cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, ‘why not, eh? why not?’

‘Because it would destroy all the delusion, and take away all the interest, wouldn’t it?’ replied the little man. ‘Would you care a ha’penny for the Lord Chancellor if you know’d him in private and without his wig?—certainly not.’

‘Good!’ said the old man, venturing to touch one of the puppets, and drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh. ‘Are you going to show ‘em to-night? are you?’

‘That is the intention, governor,’ replied the other, ‘and unless I’m much mistaken, Tommy Codlin is a calculating at this minute what we’ve lost through your coming upon us. Cheer up, Tommy, it can’t be much.’

The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink, expressive of the estimate he had formed of the travellers’ finances.

To this Mr Codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied, as he twitched Punch off the tombstone and flung him into the box, ‘I don’t care if we haven’t lost a farden, but you’re too free. If you stood in front of the curtain and see the public’s faces as I do, you’d know human natur’ better.’

‘Ah! it’s been the spoiling of you, Tommy, your taking to that branch,’ rejoined his companion. ‘When you played the ghost in the reg’lar drama in the fairs, you believed in everything—except ghosts. But now you’re a universal mistruster. I never see a man so changed.’

‘Never mind,’ said Mr Codlin, with the air of a discontented philosopher. ‘I know better now, and p’raps I’m sorry for it.’

Turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised them, Mr Codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of his friend:

‘Look here; here’s all this judy’s clothes falling to pieces again. You haven’t got a needle and thread I suppose?’

The little man shook his head, and scratched it ruefully as he contemplated this severe indisposition of a principal performer. Seeing that they were at a loss, the child said timidly:

‘I have a needle, Sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me try to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could.’

Even Mr Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable. Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task, and accomplishing it to a miracle.

While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with an interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced at her helpless companion. When she had finished her work he thanked her, and inquired whither they were travelling.

‘N—no further to-night, I think,’ said the child, looking towards her grandfather.

‘If you’re wanting a place to stop at,’ the man remarked, ‘I should advise you to take up at the same house with us. That’s it. The long, low, white house there. It’s very cheap.’

The old man, notwithstanding his fatigue, would have remained in the churchyard all night if his new acquaintances had remained there too. As he yielded to this suggestion a ready and rapturous assent, they all rose and walked away together; he keeping close to the box of puppets in which he was quite absorbed, the merry little man carrying it slung over his arm by a strap attached to it for the purpose, Nelly having hold of her grandfather’s hand, and Mr Codlin sauntering slowly behind, casting up at the church tower and neighbouring trees such looks as he was accustomed in town-practice to direct to drawing-room and nursery windows, when seeking for a profitable spot on which to plant the show.

The public-house was kept by a fat old landlord and landlady who made no objection to receiving their new guests, but praised Nelly’s beauty and were at once prepossessed in her behalf. There was no other company in the kitchen but the two showmen, and the child felt very thankful that they had fallen upon such good quarters. The landlady was very much astonished to learn that they had come all the way from London, and appeared to have no little curiosity touching their farther destination. The child parried her inquiries as well as she could, and with no great trouble, for finding that they appeared to give her pain, the old lady desisted.

‘These two gentlemen have ordered supper in an hour’s time,’ she said, taking her into the bar; ‘and your best plan will be to sup with them. Meanwhile you shall have a little taste of something that’ll do you good, for I’m sure you must want it after all you’ve gone through to-day. Now, don’t look after the old gentleman, because when you’ve drank that, he shall have some too.’

As nothing could induce the child to leave him alone, however, or to touch anything in which he was not the first and greatest sharer, the old lady was obliged to help him first. When they had been thus refreshed, the whole house hurried away into an empty stable where the show stood, and where, by the light of a few flaring candles stuck round a hoop which hung by a line from the ceiling, it was to be forthwith exhibited.

And now Mr Thomas Codlin, the misanthrope, after blowing away at the Pan’s pipes until he was intensely wretched, took his station on one side of the checked drapery 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 dismal feint of being his most intimate private friend, of believing in him to the fullest and most unlimited extent, of knowing that he enjoyed day and night a merry and glorious existence in that temple, and that he was at all times and under every circumstance the same intelligent and joyful person that the spectators then beheld him. All this Mr Codlin did with the air of a man who had made up his mind for the worst and was quite resigned; his eye slowly wandering about during the briskest repartee to observe the effect upon the audience, and particularly the impression made upon the landlord and landlady, which might be productive of very important results in connexion with the supper.

Upon this head, however, he had no cause for any anxiety, for the whole performance was applauded to the echo, and voluntary contributions 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 participation 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 friend said; and it was not until they retired yawning to their room, that he followed the child up stairs.

It was but a loft partitioned into two compartments, where they were to rest, but they were well pleased with their lodging and had hoped for none so good. The old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many nights. She hastened to him, and sat there till he slept.

There was a little window, hardly more than a chink in the wall, in her room, and when she left him, she opened it, quite wondering at the silence. The sight of the old church, and the graves about it in the moonlight, and the dark trees whispering among themselves, made her more thoughtful than before. She closed the window again, and sitting down upon the bed, thought of the life that was before them.

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 an emergency might come when its worth to them would be increased a hundred fold. It would be best to hide this coin, and never produce it unless their case was absolutely desperate, and no other resource 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.

CHAPTER 17

Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and claiming fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her. At sight of the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she started up in alarm, wondering how she had been moved from the familiar chamber in which she seemed to have fallen asleep last night, and whither she had been conveyed. But, another glance around called to her mind all that had lately passed, and she sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.

It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked out into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with her feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer than in others, that she might not tread upon the graves. She felt a curious kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the dead, and read the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a great number of good people were buried there), passing on from one to another with increasing interest.

It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the air. First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as it swung and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance as it would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but talking to himself. Another answered, and he called again, but louder than before; then another spoke and then another; and each time the first, aggravated by contradiction, insisted on his case more strongly. Other voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs lower down and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and from the tree-tops; and others, arriving hastily from the grey church turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamour which rose and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and lighting on fresh branches, and frequent change of place, which satirised the old restlessness of those who lay so still beneath the moss and turf below, and the strife in which they had worn away their lives.

Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came down, and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than perfect silence would have done, the child loitered from grave to grave, now stopping to replace with careful hands the bramble which had started from some green mound it helped to keep in shape, and now peeping through one of the low latticed windows into the church, with its worm-eaten books upon the desks, and baize of whitened-green mouldering from the pew sides and leaving the naked wood to view. There were the seats where the poor old people sat, worn spare, and yellow like themselves; the rugged font where children had their names, the homely altar where they knelt in after life, the plain black tressels that bore their weight on their last visit to the cool old shady church. Everything told of long use and quiet slow decay; the very bell-rope in the porch was frayed into a fringe, and hoary with old age.

She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had died at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she heard a faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble woman bent with the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of that same grave and asked her to read the writing on the stone. The old woman thanked her when she had done, saying that she had had the words by heart for many a long, long year, but could not see them now.

‘Were you his mother?’ said the child.

‘I was his wife, my dear.’

She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty! Ah, true! It was fifty-five years ago.

‘You wonder to hear me say that,’ remarked the old woman, shaking her head. ‘You’re not the first. Older folk than you have wondered at the same thing before now. Yes, I was his wife. Death doesn’t change us more than life, my dear.’

‘Do you come here often?’ asked the child.

‘I sit here very often in the summer time,’ she answered, ‘I used to come here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago, bless God!’

‘I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,’ said the old woman after a short silence. ‘I like no flowers so well as these, and haven’t for five-and-fifty years. It’s a long time, and I’m getting very old.’

Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener though it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and moaned and prayed to die herself, when this happened; and how when she first came to that place, a young creature strong in love and grief, she had hoped that her heart was breaking as it seemed to be. But that time passed by, and although she continued to be sad when she came there, still she could bear to come, and so went on until it was pain no longer, but a solemn pleasure, and a duty she had learned to like. And now that five-and-fifty years were gone, she spoke of the dead man as if he had been her son or grandson, with a kind of pity for his youth, growing out of her own old age, and an exalting of his strength and manly beauty as compared with her own weakness and decay; and yet she spoke about him as her husband too, and thinking of herself in connexion with him, as she used to be and not as she was now, talked of their meeting in another world, as if he were dead but yesterday, and she, separated from her former self, were thinking of the happiness of that comely girl who seemed to have died with him.

The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave, and thoughtfully retraced her steps.

The old man was by this time up and dressed. Mr Codlin, still doomed to contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing among his linen the candle-ends which had been saved from the previous night’s performance; while his companion received the compliments of all the loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to separate him from the master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in importance to that merry outlaw, and loved him scarcely less. When he had sufficiently acknowledged his popularity he came in to breakfast, at which meal they all sat down together.

‘And where are you going to-day?’ said the little man, addressing himself to Nell.

‘Indeed I hardly know—we have not determined 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 shan’t trouble you.’

‘We’ll go with you,’ said the old man. ‘Nell—with them, with them.’

The child considered for a moment, and reflecting 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 assembled together for purposes of enjoyment and festivity, determined to accompany these men so far. She therefore thanked the little man for his offer, and said, glancing timidly towards his friend, that if there was no objection to their accompanying them as far as the race town—

‘Objection!’ said the little man. ‘Now be gracious for once, Tommy, and say that you’d rather they went with us. I know you would. Be gracious, Tommy.’

‘Trotters,’ said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very greedily, as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes; ‘you’re too free.’

‘Why what harm can it do?’ urged the other.

‘No harm at all in this particular case, perhaps,’ replied Mr Codlin; ‘but the principle’s a dangerous one, and you’re too free I tell you.’

‘Well, are they to go with us or not?’

‘Yes, they are,’ said Mr Codlin; ‘but you might have made a favour of it, mightn’t you?’

The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually merged into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the prefatory adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason of the small size of his legs. Short Trotters however, being a compound name, inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, the gentleman on whom it had been bestowed was known among his intimates either as ‘Short,’ or ‘Trotters,’ and was seldom accosted at full length as Short Trotters, except in formal conversations and on occasions of ceremony.

Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer calculated to turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with great relish to the cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and butter, strongly impressed upon his companions that they should do the like. Mr Codlin indeed required no such persuasion, as he had already eaten as much as he could possibly carry and was now moistening his clay with strong ale, whereof he took deep draughts with a silent relish and invited nobody to partake—thus again strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of mind.

Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and charging the ale to the company generally (a practice also savouring of misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and equal parts, assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the other to Nelly and her grandfather. These being duly discharged and all things ready for their departure, they took farewell of the landlord and landlady and resumed their journey.

And here Mr Codlin’s false position in society and the effect it wrought upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for whereas he had been last night accosted by Mr Punch as ‘master,’ and had by inference left the audience to understand that he maintained that individual for his own luxurious entertainment and delight, here he was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of that same Punch’s temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders on a sultry day and along a dusty road. In place of enlivening his patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and acquaintance, here was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck, and not one of his social qualities remaining.

Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally. Short led the way; with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not extensive) tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his shoulder-blade. Nell and her grandfather walked next him on either hand, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear.

When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house of good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and carolled a fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to Punches and their consorts. If people hurried to the windows, Mr Codlin pitched the temple, and hastily unfurling the drapery and concealing Short therewith, flourished hysterically on the pipes and performed an air. Then the entertainment began as soon as might be; Mr Codlin having the responsibility of deciding on its length and of protracting or expediting the time for the hero’s final triumph over the enemy of mankind, according as he judged that the after-crop of half-pence would be plentiful or scant. When it had been gathered in to the last farthing, he resumed his load and on they went again.

Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and once exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the collector, being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to have it to himself. There was one small place of rich promise in which their hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the play having gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling wooden-headed fellow was held to be a libel on the beadle, for which reason the authorities enforced a quick retreat; but they were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a troop of ragged children shouting at their heels.

They made a long day’s journey, despite these interruptions, and were yet upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky. Short beguiled the time with songs and jests, and made the best of everything that happened. Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his fate, and all the hollow things of earth (but Punch especially), and limped along with the theatre on his back, a prey to the bitterest chagrin.

They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads met, and Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery and seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal eyes and disdainful of the company of his fellow creatures, when two monstrous shadows were seen stalking towards them from a turning in the road by which they had come. The child was at first quite terrified by the sight of these gaunt giants—for such they looked as they advanced with lofty strides beneath the shadow of the trees—but Short, telling her there was nothing to fear, blew a blast upon the trumpet, which was answered by a cheerful shout.

‘It’s Grinder’s lot, an’t it?’ cried Mr Short in a loud key.

‘Yes,’ replied a couple of shrill voices.

‘Come on then,’ said Short. ‘Let’s have a look at you. I thought it was you.’

Thus invited, ‘Grinder’s lot’ approached with redoubled speed and soon came up with the little party.

Mr Grinder’s company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who used his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his back a drum. The public costume of the young people was of the Highland kind, but the night being damp and cold, the young gentleman wore over his kilt a man’s pea jacket reaching to his ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was muffled in an old cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her head. Their Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr Grinder carried on his instrument.

‘Bound for the races, I see,’ said Mr Grinder coming up out of breath. ‘So are we. How are you, Short?’ With that they shook hands in a very friendly manner. The young people being too high up for the ordinary salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion. The young gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on the shoulder, and the young lady rattled her tambourine.

‘Practice?’ said Short, pointing to the stilts.

‘No,’ returned Grinder. ‘It comes either to walkin’ in ‘em or carryin’ of ‘em, and they like walkin’ in ‘em best. It’s wery pleasant for the prospects. Which road are you takin’? We go the nighest.’

‘Why, the fact is,’ said Short, ‘that we are going the longest way, because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on. But three or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and if you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.’

‘Where’s your partner?’ inquired Grinder.

‘Here he is,’ cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face in the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of countenance not often seen there; ‘and he’ll see his partner boiled alive before he’ll go on to-night. That’s what he says.’

‘Well, don’t say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted to something pleasanter,’ urged Short. ‘Respect associations, Tommy, even if you do cut up rough.’

‘Rough or smooth,’ said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of his legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to exhibit them to popular admiration, ‘rough or smooth, I won’t go further than the mile and a half to-night. I put up at the Jolly Sandboys and nowhere else. If you like to come there, come there. If you like to go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without me if you can.’

So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately presented himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at a jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility.

Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was fain to part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his morose companion. After lingering at the finger-post for a few minutes to see the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the bearer of the drum toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes upon the trumpet as a parting salute, and hastened with all speed to follow Mr Codlin. With this view he gave his unoccupied hand to Nell, and bidding her be of good cheer as they would soon be at the end of their journey for that night, and stimulating the old man with a similar assurance, led them at a pretty swift pace towards their destination, which he was the less unwilling to make for, as the moon was now overcast and the clouds were threatening rain.

CHAPTER 18

The Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn of pretty ancient date, with a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed that day many indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race town, such as gipsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths and their appurtenances, itinerant showmen of various kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree, all wending their way in the same direction, Mr Codlin was fearful of finding the accommodations forestalled; this fear increasing as he diminished the distance between himself and the hostelry, he quickened his pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had to carry, maintained a round trot until he reached the threshold. Here he had the gratification of finding that his fears were without foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the door-post looking lazily at the rain, which had by this time begun to descend heavily, and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor boisterous shout, nor noisy chorus, gave note of company within.

‘All alone?’ said Mr Codlin, putting down his burden and wiping his forehead.

‘All alone as yet,’ rejoined the landlord, glancing at the sky, ‘but we shall have more company to-night I expect. Here one of you boys, carry that show into the barn. Make haste in out of the wet, Tom; when it came on to rain I told ‘em to make the fire up, and there’s a glorious blaze in the kitchen, I can tell you.’

Mr Codlin followed with a willing mind, and soon found that the landlord had not commended his preparations without good reason. A mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney with a cheerful sound, which a large iron cauldron, bubbling and simmering in the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell. There was a deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the landlord stirred the fire, sending the flames skipping and leaping up—when he took off the lid of the iron pot and there rushed out a savoury smell, while the bubbling sound grew deeper and more rich, and an unctuous steam came floating out, hanging in a delicious mist above their heads—when he did this, Mr Codlin’s heart was touched. He sat down in the chimney-corner and smiled.

Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as with a roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning that his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery, suffered the delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest. The glow of the fire was upon the landlord’s bald head, and upon his twinkling eye, and upon his watering mouth, and upon his pimpled face, and upon his round fat figure. Mr Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips, and said in a murmuring voice, ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord smacking his lips, ‘and cow-heel,’ smacking them again, ‘and bacon,’ smacking them once more, ‘and steak,’ smacking them for the fourth time, ‘and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy.’ Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.

‘At what time will it be ready?’ asked Mr Codlin faintly.

‘It’ll be done to a turn,’ said the landlord looking up to the clock—and the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and looked a clock for jolly Sandboys to consult—‘it’ll be done to a turn at twenty-two minutes before eleven.’

‘Then,’ said Mr Codlin, ‘fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don’t let nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time arrives.’

Nodding his approval of this decisive and manly course of procedure, the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it, applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire and getting at the bright places. This was soon done, and he handed it over to Mr Codlin with that creamy froth upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances attendant on mulled malt.

Greatly softened by this soothing beverage, Mr Codlin now bethought him of his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys that their arrival might be shortly looked for. The rain was rattling against the windows and pouring down in torrents, and such was Mr Codlin’s extreme amiability of mind, that he more than once expressed his earnest hope that they would not be so foolish as to get wet.

At length they arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a most miserable appearance, notwithstanding that Short had sheltered the child as well as he could under the skirts of his own coat, and they were nearly breathless from the haste they had made. But their steps were no sooner heard upon the road than the landlord, who had been at the outer door anxiously watching for their coming, rushed into the kitchen and took the cover off. The effect was electrical. They all came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping from their clothes upon the floor, and Short’s first remark was, ‘What a delicious smell!’

It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a cheerful fire, and in a bright room. They were furnished with slippers and such dry garments as the house or their own bundles afforded, and ensconcing themselves, as Mr Codlin had already done, in the warm chimney-corner, soon forgot their late troubles or only remembered them as enhancing the delights of the present time. Overpowered by the warmth and comfort and the fatigue they had undergone, Nelly and the old man had not long taken their seats here, when they fell asleep.

‘Who are they?’ whispered the landlord.

Short shook his head, and wished he knew himself.

‘Don’t you know?’ asked the host, turning to Mr Codlin.

‘Not I,’ he replied. ‘They’re no good, I suppose.’

‘They’re no harm,’ said Short. ‘Depend upon that. I tell you what—it’s plain that the old man an’t in his right mind—’

‘If you haven’t got anything newer than that to say,’ growled Mr Codlin, glancing at the clock, ‘you’d better let us fix our minds upon the supper, and not disturb us.’

‘Hear me out, won’t you?’ retorted his friend. ‘It’s very plain to me, besides, that they’re not used to this way of life. Don’t tell me that that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about as she’s done these last two or three days. I know better.’

‘Well, who DOES tell you she has?’ growled Mr Codlin, again glancing at the clock and from it to the cauldron, ‘can’t you think of anything more suitable to present circumstances than saying things and then contradicting ‘em?’

‘I wish somebody would give you your supper,’ returned Short, ‘for there’ll be no peace till you’ve got it. Have you seen how anxious the old man is to get on—always wanting to be furder away—furder away. Have you seen that?’

‘Ah! what then?’ muttered Thomas Codlin.

‘This, then,’ said Short. ‘He has given his friends the slip. Mind what I say—he has given his friends the slip, and persuaded this delicate young creetur all along of her fondness for him to be his guide and travelling companion—where to, he knows no more than the man in the moon. Now I’m not a going to stand that.’

‘YOU’RE not a going to stand that!’ cried Mr Codlin, glancing at the clock again and pulling his hair with both hands in a kind of frenzy, but whether occasioned by his companion’s observation or the tardy pace of Time, it was difficult to determine. ‘Here’s a world to live in!’

‘I,’ repeated Short emphatically and slowly, ‘am not a-going to stand it. I am not a-going to see this fair young child a falling into bad hands, and getting among people that she’s no more fit for, than they are to get among angels as their ordinary chums. Therefore when they dewelope an intention of parting company from us, I shall take measures for detaining of ‘em, and restoring ‘em to their friends, who I dare say have had their disconsolation pasted up on every wall in London by this time.’

‘Short,’ said Mr Codlin, who with his head upon his hands, and his elbows on his knees, had been shaking himself impatiently from side to side up to this point and occasionally stamping on the ground, but who now looked up with eager eyes; ‘it’s possible that there may be uncommon good sense in what you’ve said. If there is, and there should be a reward, Short, remember that we’re partners in everything!’

His companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this position, for the child awoke at the instant. They had drawn close together during the previous whispering, and now hastily separated and were rather awkwardly endeavouring to exchange some casual remarks in their usual tone, when strange footsteps were heard without, and fresh company entered.

These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in one after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly mournful aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had got as far as the door, erected himself upon his hind legs and looked round at his companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs, in a grave and melancholy row. Nor was this the only remarkable circumstance about these dogs, for each of them wore a kind of little coat of some gaudy colour trimmed with tarnished spangles, and one of them had a cap upon his head, tied very carefully under his chin, which had fallen down upon his nose and completely obscured one eye; add to this, that the gaudy coats were all wet through and discoloured with rain, and that the wearers were splashed and dirty, and some idea may be formed of the unusual appearance of these new visitors to the Jolly Sandboys.

Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in the least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry’s dogs and that Jerry could not be far behind. So there the dogs stood, patiently winking and gaping and looking extremely hard at the boiling pot, until Jerry himself appeared, when they all dropped down at once and walked about the room in their natural manner. This posture it must be confessed did not much improve their appearance, as their own personal tails and their coat tails—both capital things in their way—did not agree together.

Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-whiskered man in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the landlord and his guests and accosted them with great cordiality. Disencumbering himself of a barrel organ which he placed upon a chair, and retaining in his hand a small whip wherewith to awe his company of comedians, he came up to the fire to dry himself, and entered into conversation.

‘Your people don’t usually travel in character, do they?’ said Short, pointing to the dresses of the dogs. ‘It must come expensive if they do?’

‘No,’ replied Jerry, ‘no, it’s not the custom with us. But we’ve been playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a new wardrobe at the races, so I didn’t think it worth while to stop to undress. Down, Pedro!’

This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who being a new member of the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his unobscured eye anxiously on his master, and was perpetually starting upon his hind legs when there was no occasion, and falling down again.

‘I’ve got a animal here,’ said Jerry, putting his hand into the capacious pocket of his coat, and diving into one corner as if he were feeling for a small orange or an apple or some such article, ‘a animal here, wot I think you know something of, Short.’

‘Ah!’ cried Short, ‘let’s have a look at him.’

‘Here he is,’ said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his pocket. ‘He was once a Toby of yours, warn’t he!’

In some versions of the great drama of Punch there is a small dog—a modern innovation—supposed to be the private property of that gentleman, whose name is always Toby. This Toby has been stolen in youth from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the confiding hero, who having no guile himself has no suspicion that it lurks in others; but Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection of his old master, and scorning to attach himself to any new patrons, not only refuses to smoke a pipe at the bidding of Punch, but to mark his old fidelity more strongly, seizes him by the nose and wrings the same with violence, at which instance of canine attachment the spectators are deeply affected. This was the character which the little terrier in question had once sustained; if there had been any doubt upon the subject he would speedily have resolved it by his conduct; for not only did he, on seeing Short, give the strongest tokens of recognition, but catching sight of the flat box he barked so furiously at the pasteboard nose which he knew was inside, that his master was obliged to gather him up and put him into his pocket again, to the great relief of the whole company.

The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which process Mr Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own knife and fork in the most convenient place and establishing himself behind them. When everything was ready, the landlord took off the cover for the last time, and then indeed there burst forth such a goodly promise of supper, that if he had offered to put it on again or had hinted at postponement, he would certainly have been sacrificed on his own hearth.

However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead thereof assisted a stout servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into a large tureen; a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various hot splashes which fell upon their noses, watched with terrible eagerness. At length the dish was lifted on the table, and mugs of ale having been previously set round, little Nell ventured to say grace, and supper began.

At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind legs quite surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about to cast some morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself, hungry though she was, when their master interposed.

‘No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody’s hand but mine if you please. That dog,’ said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, ‘lost a halfpenny to-day. He goes without his supper.’

The unfortunate creature dropped upon his fore-legs directly, wagged his tail, and looked imploringly at his master.

‘You must be more careful, Sir,’ said Jerry, walking coolly to the chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop. ‘Come here. Now, Sir, you play away at that, while we have supper, and leave off if you dare.’

The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music. His master having shown him the whip resumed his seat and called up the others, who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright as a file of soldiers.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Jerry, looking at them attentively. ‘The dog whose name’s called, eats. The dogs whose names an’t called, keep quiet. Carlo!’

The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle. In this manner they were fed at the discretion of their master. Meanwhile the dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick time, sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant. When the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short howl, but he immediately checked it on his master looking round, and applied himself with increased diligence to the Old Hundredth.

CHAPTER 19

Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys two more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had been walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and heavy with water. One of these was the proprietor of a giant, and a little lady without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a van; the other, a silent gentleman who earned his living by showing tricks upon the cards, and who had rather deranged the natural expression of his countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into his eyes and bringing them out at his mouth, which was one of his professional accomplishments. The name of the first of these newcomers was Vuffin; the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon his ugliness, was called Sweet William. To render them as comfortable as he could, the landlord bestirred himself nimbly, and in a very short time both gentlemen were perfectly at their ease.

‘How’s the Giant?’ said Short, when they all sat smoking round the fire.

‘Rather weak upon his legs,’ returned Mr Vuffin. ‘I begin to be afraid he’s going at the knees.’

‘That’s a bad look-out,’ said Short.

‘Aye! Bad indeed,’ replied Mr Vuffin, contemplating the fire with a sigh. ‘Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more about him than they do for a dead cabbage stalk.’

‘What becomes of old giants?’ said Short, turning to him again after a little reflection.

‘They’re usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,’ said Mr Vuffin.

‘The maintaining of ‘em must come expensive, when they can’t be shown, eh?’ remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.

‘It’s better that, than letting ‘em go upon the parish or about the streets,’ said Mr Vuffin. ‘Once make a giant common and giants will never draw again. Look at wooden legs. If there was only one man with a wooden leg what a property he’d be!’

‘So he would!’ observed the landlord and Short both together. ‘That’s very true.’

‘Instead of which,’ pursued Mr Vuffin, ‘if you was to advertise Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs, it’s my belief you wouldn’t draw a sixpence.’

‘I don’t suppose you would,’ said Short. And the landlord said so too.

‘This shows, you see,’ said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an argumentative air, ‘this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop there. There was one giant—a black ‘un—as left his carawan some year ago and took to carrying coach-bills about London, making himself as cheap as crossing-sweepers. He died. I make no insinuation against anybody in particular,’ said Mr Vuffin, looking solemnly round, ‘but he was ruining the trade;—and he died.’

The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the dogs, who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered.

‘I know you do, Jerry,’ said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning. ‘I know you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served him right. Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had three-and-twenty wans—I remember the time when old Maunders had in his cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season was over, eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows: and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his giant wasn’t quick enough to please him, used to stick pins in his legs, not being able to reach up any higher. I know that’s a fact, for Maunders told it me himself.’

‘What about the dwarfs when they get old?’ inquired the landlord.

‘The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,’ returned Mr Vuffin; ‘a grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But a giant weak in the legs and not standing upright!—keep him in the carawan, but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be offered.’

While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth of halfpence for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to the company, who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed. At length the weary child prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they withdrew, leaving the company yet seated round the fire, and the dogs fast asleep at a humble distance.

After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor garret, but had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped at. She opened it directly, and was a little startled by the sight of Mr Thomas Codlin, whom she had left, to all appearance, fast asleep down stairs.

‘What is the matter?’ said the child.

‘Nothing’s the matter, my dear,’ returned her visitor. ‘I’m your friend. Perhaps you haven’t thought so, but it’s me that’s your friend—not him.’

‘Not who?’ the child inquired.

‘Short, my dear. I tell you what,’ said Codlin, ‘for all his having a kind of way with him that you’d be very apt to like, I’m the real, open-hearted man. I mayn’t look it, but I am indeed.’

The child began to be alarmed, considering that the ale had taken effect upon Mr Codlin, and that this commendation of himself was the consequence.

‘Short’s very well, and seems kind,’ resumed the misanthrope, ‘but he overdoes it. Now I don’t.’

Certainly if there were any fault in Mr Codlin’s usual deportment, it was that he rather underdid his kindness to those about him, than overdid it. But the child was puzzled, and could not tell what to say.

‘Take my advice,’ said Codlin: ‘don’t ask me why, but take it. As long as you travel with us, keep as near me as you can. Don’t offer to leave us—not on any account—but always stick to me and say that I’m your friend. Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and always say that it was me that was your friend?’

‘Say so where—and when?’ inquired the child innocently.

‘O, nowhere in particular,’ replied Codlin, a little put out as it seemed by the question; ‘I’m only anxious that you should think me so, and do me justice. You can’t think what an interest I have in you. Why didn’t you tell me your little history—that about you and the poor old gentleman? I’m the best adviser that ever was, and so interested in you—so much more interested than Short. I think they’re breaking up down stairs; you needn’t tell Short, you know, that we’ve had this little talk together. God bless you. Recollect the friend. Codlin’s the friend, not Short. Short’s very well as far as he goes, but the real friend is Codlin—not Short.’

Eking out these professions with a number of benevolent and protecting looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole away on tiptoe, leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise. She was still ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor of the crazy stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the other travellers who were passing to their beds. When they had all passed, and the sound of their footsteps had died away, one of them returned, and after a little hesitation and rustling in the passage, as if he were doubtful what door to knock at, knocked at hers.

‘Yes,’ said the child from within.

‘It’s me—Short’—a voice called through the keyhole. ‘I only wanted to say that we must be off early to-morrow morning, my dear, because unless we get the start of the dogs and the conjuror, the villages won’t be worth a penny. You’ll be sure to be stirring early and go with us? I’ll call you.’

The child answered in the affirmative, and returning his ‘good night’ heard him creep away. She felt some uneasiness at the anxiety of these men, increased by the recollection of their whispering together down stairs and their slight confusion when she awoke, nor was she quite free from a misgiving that they were not the fittest companions she could have stumbled on. Her uneasiness, however, was nothing, weighed against her fatigue; and she soon forgot it in sleep.

Very early next morning, Short fulfilled his promise, and knocking softly at her door, entreated that she would get up directly, as the proprietor of the dogs was still snoring, and if they lost no time they might get a good deal in advance both of him and the conjuror, who was talking in his sleep, and from what he could be heard to say, appeared to be balancing a donkey in his dreams. She started from her bed without delay, and roused the old man with so much expedition that they were both ready as soon as Short himself, to that gentleman’s unspeakable gratification and relief.

After a very unceremonious and scrambling breakfast, of which the staple commodities were bacon and bread, and beer, they took leave of the landlord and issued from the door of the jolly Sandboys. The morning was fine and warm, the ground cool to the feet after the late rain, the hedges gayer and more green, the air clear, and everything fresh and healthful. Surrounded by these influences, they walked on pleasantly enough.

They had not gone very far, when the child was again struck by the altered behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on sulkily by himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her, and when he had an opportunity of looking at her unseen by his companion, warned her by certain wry faces and jerks of the head not to put any trust in Short, but to reserve all confidences for Codlin. Neither did he confine himself to looks and gestures, for when she and her grandfather were walking on beside the aforesaid Short, and that little man was talking with his accustomed cheerfulness on a variety of indifferent subjects, Thomas Codlin testified his jealousy and distrust by following close at her heels, and occasionally admonishing her ankles with the legs of the theatre in a very abrupt and painful manner.

All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to perform outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while he went through his share of the entertainments kept his eye steadily upon her and the old man, or with a show of great friendship and consideration invited the latter to lean upon his arm, and so held him tight until the representation was over and they again went forward. Even Short seemed to change in this respect, and to mingle with his good-nature something of a desire to keep them in safe custody. This increased the child’s misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy.

Meanwhile, they were drawing near the town where the races were to begin next day; for, from passing numerous groups of gipsies and trampers on the road, wending their way towards it, and straggling out from every by-way and cross-country lane, they gradually fell into a stream of people, some walking by the side of covered carts, others with horses, others with donkeys, others toiling on with heavy loads upon their backs, but all tending to the same point. The public-houses by the wayside, from being empty and noiseless as those in the remoter parts had been, now sent out boisterous shouts and clouds of smoke; and, from the misty windows, clusters of broad red faces looked down upon the road. On every piece of waste or common ground, some small gambler drove his noisy trade, and bellowed to the idle passersby to stop and try their chance; the crowd grew thicker and more noisy; gilt gingerbread in blanket-stalls exposed its glories to the dust; and often a four-horse carriage, dashing by, obscured all objects in the gritty cloud it raised, and left them, stunned and blinded, far behind.

It was dark before they reached the town itself, and long indeed the few last miles had been. Here all was tumult and confusion; the streets were filled with throngs of people—many strangers were there, it seemed, by the looks they cast about—the church-bells rang out their noisy peals, and flags streamed from windows and house-tops. In the large inn-yards waiters flitted to and fro and ran against each other, horses clattered on the uneven stones, carriage steps fell rattling down, and sickening smells from many dinners came in a heavy lukewarm breath upon the sense. In the smaller public-houses, fiddles with all their might and main were squeaking out the tune to staggering feet; drunken men, oblivious of the burden of their song, joined in a senseless howl, which drowned the tinkling of the feeble bell and made them savage for their drink; vagabond groups assembled round the doors to see the stroller woman dance, and add their uproar to the shrill flageolet and deafening drum.

Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by all she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her conductor, and trembling lest in the press she should be separated from him and left to find her way alone. Quickening their steps to get clear of all the roar and riot, they at length passed through the town and made for the race-course, which was upon an open heath, situated on an eminence, a full mile distant from its furthest bounds.

Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or best clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground, and hurrying to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath—although there were tired children cradled on heaps of straw between the wheels of carts, crying themselves to sleep—and poor lean horses and donkeys just turned loose, grazing among the men and women, and pots and kettles, and half-lighted fires, and ends of candles flaring and wasting in the air—for all this, the child felt it an escape from the town and drew her breath more freely. After a scanty supper, the purchase of which reduced her little stock so low, that she had only a few halfpence with which to buy a breakfast on the morrow, she and the old man lay down to rest in a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the busy preparations that were going on around them all night long.

And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, 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 employed; when she returned and was seated beside the old man in one corner of the tent, tying her flowers together, while the two men lay dozing in another corner, she plucked him by the sleeve, and slightly glancing towards 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 an aspect 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, these men suspect 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 Nelly, 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.’

‘Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?’ said Mr Codlin, raising his head, and yawning. Then observing that his companion was fast asleep, he added in an earnest whisper, ‘Codlin’s the friend, remember—not Short.’

‘Making some nosegays,’ the child replied; ‘I am going to try and 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 towards him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, ‘Tom Codlin’s the friend, by G—!’

As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a gayer and more brilliant appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling softly on the turf. Men who had lounged about all night in smock-frocks and leather leggings, came out in silken vests and hats and plumes, as jugglers or mountebanks; or in gorgeous liveries as soft-spoken servants at gambling booths; or in sturdy yeoman dress as decoys at unlawful games. Black-eyed gipsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes, and pale slender women with consumptive faces lingered upon the footsteps of ventriloquists and conjurors, 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 intricate spots, 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, emerged 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 revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went Thomas Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on Nelly 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 other adepts 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 dismounted 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 unfavourably at them), and left her to herself. She motioned away a gipsy-woman urgent to tell her fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some years, but called the child towards her, and taking her flowers put money into her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at home for God’s sake.

Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang 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 zenith of his humour, but all this while the eye of Thomas Codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice was impracticable.

At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, had been thinking how strange it was that horses who were such fine honest creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men they drew about them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous witticism of Mr Short’s, having allusion to the circumstances of the day, roused her from her meditation and caused her to look around.

If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment. Short was plying the quarter-staves vigorously and knocking the characters in the fury of the combat against the sides of the show, the people were looking on with laughing faces, and Mr Codlin had relaxed into a grim smile as his roving eye detected hands going into waistcoat pockets and groping secretly for sixpences. If they 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 insensible to the shouts and screeching that assailed them for breaking in upon its sanctity, and creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields.

CHAPTER 20

Day after day as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some new effort to procure employment, Kit raised his eyes to the window of the little room he had so much commended to the child, and hoped to see some indication of her presence. His own earnest wish, coupled with the assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him with the belief that she would yet arrive to claim the humble shelter he had offered, and from the death of each day’s hope another hope sprung up to live to-morrow.

‘I think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh mother?’ said Kit, laying aside his hat with a weary air and sighing as he spoke. ‘They have been gone a week. They surely couldn’t stop away more than a week, could they now?’

The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been disappointed already.

‘For the matter of that,’ said Kit, ‘you speak true and sensible enough, as you always do, mother. Still, I do consider that a week is quite long enough for ‘em to be rambling about; don’t you say so?’

‘Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come back for all that.’

Kit was for a moment disposed to be vexed by this contradiction, and not the less so from having anticipated it in his own mind and knowing how just it was. But the impulse was only momentary, and the vexed look became a kind one before it had crossed the room.

‘Then what do you think, mother, has become of ‘em? You don’t think they’ve gone to sea, anyhow?’

‘Not gone for sailors, certainly,’ returned the mother with a smile. ‘But I can’t help thinking that they have gone to some foreign country.’

‘I say,’ cried Kit with a rueful face, ‘don’t talk like that, mother.’

‘I am afraid they have, and that’s the truth,’ she said. ‘It’s the talk of all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of their having been seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of the place they’ve gone to, which is more than I can, my dear, for it’s a very hard one.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Kit. ‘Not a word of it. A set of idle chatterboxes, how should they know!’

‘They may be wrong of course,’ returned the mother, ‘I can’t tell about that, though I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that they’re in the right, for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a little money that nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you talk to me about—what’s his name—Quilp; and that he and Miss Nell have gone to live abroad where it can’t be taken from them, and they will never be disturbed. That don’t seem very far out of the way now, do it?’

Kit scratched his head mournfully, in reluctant admission that it did not, and clambering up to the old nail took down the cage and set himself to clean it and to feed the bird. His thoughts reverting from this occupation to the little old gentleman who had given him the shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the very day—nay, nearly the very hour—at which the little old gentleman had said he should be at the Notary’s house again. He no sooner remembered this, than he hung up the cage with great precipitation, and hastily explaining the nature of his errand, went off at full speed to the appointed place.

It was some two minutes after the time when he reached the spot, which was a considerable distance from his home, but by great good luck the little old gentleman had not yet arrived; at least there was no pony-chaise to be seen, and it was not likely that he had come and gone again in so short a space. Greatly relieved to find that he was not too late, Kit leant against a lamp-post to take breath, and waited the advent of the pony and his charge.

Sure enough, before long the pony came trotting round the corner of the street, looking as obstinate as pony might, and picking his steps as if he were spying about for the cleanest places, and would by no means dirty his feet or hurry himself inconveniently. Behind the pony sat the little old gentleman, and by the old gentleman’s side sat the little old lady, carrying just such a nosegay as she had brought before.

The old gentleman, the old lady, the pony, and the chaise, came up the street in perfect unanimity, until they arrived within some half a dozen doors of the Notary’s house, when the pony, deceived by a brass-plate beneath a tailor’s knocker, came to a halt, and maintained by a sturdy silence, that that was the house they wanted.

‘Now, Sir, will you ha’ the goodness to go on; this is not the place,’ said the old gentleman.

The pony looked with great attention into a fire-plug which was near him, and appeared to be quite absorbed in contemplating it.

‘Oh dear, such a naughty Whisker!’ cried the old lady. ‘After being so good too, and coming along so well! I am quite ashamed of him. I don’t know what we are to do with him, I really don’t.’

The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and properties of the fire-plug, looked into the air after his old enemies the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling his ear at that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail, after which he appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and collected. The old gentleman having exhausted his powers of persuasion, alighted to lead him; whereupon the pony, perhaps because he held this to be a sufficient concession, perhaps because he happened to catch sight of the other brass-plate, or perhaps because he was in a spiteful humour, darted off with the old lady and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come panting on behind.

It was then that Kit presented himself at the pony’s head, and touched his hat with a smile.

‘Why, bless me,’ cried the old gentleman, ‘the lad is here! My dear, do you see?’

‘I said I’d be here, Sir,’ said Kit, patting Whisker’s neck. ‘I hope you’ve had a pleasant ride, sir. He’s a very nice little pony.’

‘My dear,’ said the old gentleman. ‘This is an uncommon lad; a good lad, I’m sure.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ rejoined the old lady. ‘A very good lad, and I am sure he is a good son.’

Kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his hat again and blushing very much. The old gentleman then handed the old lady out, and after looking at him with an approving smile, they went into the house—talking about him as they went, Kit could not help feeling. Presently Mr Witherden, smelling very hard at the nosegay, came to the window and looked at him, and after that Mr Abel came and looked at him, and after that the old gentleman and lady came and looked at him again, and after that they all came and looked at him together, which Kit, feeling very much embarrassed by, made a pretence of not observing. Therefore he patted the pony more and more; and this liberty the pony most handsomely permitted.

The faces had not disappeared from the window many moments, when Mr Chuckster in his official coat, and with his hat hanging on his head just as it happened to fall from its peg, appeared upon the pavement, and telling him he was wanted inside, bade him go in and he would mind the chaise the while. In giving him this direction Mr Chuckster remarked that he wished that he might be blessed if he could make out whether he (Kit) was ‘precious raw’ or ‘precious deep,’ but intimated by a distrustful shake of the head, that he inclined to the latter opinion.

Kit entered the office in a great tremor, for he was not used to going among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and bundles of dusty papers had in his eyes an awful and venerable air. Mr Witherden too was a bustling gentleman who talked loud and fast, and all eyes were upon him, and he was very shabby.

‘Well, boy,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘you came to work out that shilling;—not to get another, hey?’

‘No indeed, sir,’ replied Kit, taking courage to look up. ‘I never thought of such a thing.’

‘Father alive?’ said the Notary.

‘Dead, sir.’

‘Mother?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Married again—eh?’

Kit made answer, not without some indignation, that she was a widow with three children, and that as to her marrying again, if the gentleman knew her he wouldn’t think of such a thing. At this reply Mr Witherden buried his nose in the flowers again, and whispered behind the nosegay to the old gentleman that he believed the lad was as honest a lad as need be.

‘Now,’ said Mr Garland when they had made some further inquiries of him, ‘I am not going to give you anything—’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Kit replied; and quite seriously too, for this announcement seemed to free him from the suspicion which the Notary had hinted.

‘—But,’ resumed the old gentleman, ‘perhaps I may want to know something more about you, so tell me where you live, and I’ll put it down in my pocket-book.’

Kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his pencil. He had scarcely done so, when there was a great uproar in the street, and the old lady hurrying to the window cried that Whisker had run away, upon which Kit darted out to the rescue, and the others followed.

It seemed that Mr Chuckster had been standing with his hands in his pockets looking carelessly at the pony, and occasionally insulting him with such admonitions as ‘Stand still,’—‘Be quiet,’—‘Woa-a-a,’ and the like, which by a pony of spirit cannot be borne. Consequently, the pony being deterred by no considerations of duty or obedience, and not having before him the slightest fear of the human eye, had at length started off, and was at that moment rattling down the street—Mr Chuckster, with his hat off and a pen behind his ear, hanging on in the rear of the chaise and making futile attempts to draw it the other way, to the unspeakable admiration of all beholders. Even in running away, however, Whisker was perverse, for he had not gone very far when he suddenly stopped, and before assistance could be rendered, commenced backing at nearly as quick a pace as he had gone forward. By these means Mr Chuckster was pushed and hustled to the office again, in a most inglorious manner, and arrived in a state of great exhaustion and discomfiture.

The old lady then stepped into her seat, and Mr Abel (whom they had come to fetch) into his. The old gentleman, after reasoning with the pony on the extreme impropriety of his conduct, and making the best amends in his power to Mr Chuckster, took his place also, and they drove away, waving a farewell to the Notary and his clerk, and more than once turning to nod kindly to Kit as he watched them from the road.

CHAPTER 21

Kit turned away and very soon forgot the pony, and the chaise, and the little old lady, and the little old gentleman, and the little young gentleman to boot, in thinking what could have become of his late master and his lovely grandchild, who were the fountain-head of all his meditations. Still casting about for some plausible means of accounting for their non-appearance, and of persuading himself that they must soon return, he bent his steps towards home, intending to finish the task which the sudden recollection of his contract had interrupted, and then to sally forth once more to seek his fortune for the day.

When he came to the corner of the court in which he lived, lo and behold there was the pony again! Yes, there he was, looking more obstinate than ever; and alone in the chaise, keeping a steady watch upon his every wink, sat Mr Abel, who, lifting up his eyes by chance and seeing Kit pass by, nodded to him as though he would have nodded his head off.

Kit wondered to see the pony again, so near his own home too, but it never occurred to him for what purpose the pony might have come there, or where the old lady and the old gentleman had gone, until he lifted the latch of the door, and walking in, found them seated in the room in conversation with his mother, at which unexpected sight he pulled off his hat and made his best bow in some confusion.

‘We are here before you, you see, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland smiling.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his mother for an explanation of the visit.

‘The gentleman’s been kind enough, my dear,’ said she, in reply to this mute interrogation, ‘to ask me whether you were in a good place, or in any place at all, and when I told him no, you were not in any, he was so good as to say that—’

‘—That we wanted a good lad in our house,’ said the old gentleman and the old lady both together, ‘and that perhaps we might think of it, if we found everything as we would wish it to be.’

As this thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit, he immediately partook of his mother’s anxiety and fell into a great flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious, and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid there was no chance of his success.

‘You see, my good woman,’ said Mrs Garland to Kit’s mother, ‘that it’s necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter as this, for we’re only three in family, and are very quiet regular folks, and it would be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake, and found things different from what we hoped and expected.’

To this, Kit’s mother replied, that certainly it was quite true, and quite right, and quite proper, and Heaven forbid that she should shrink, or have cause to shrink, from any inquiry into her character or that of her son, who was a very good son though she was his mother, in which respect, she was bold to say, he took after his father, who was not only a good son to HIS mother, but the best of husbands and the best of fathers besides, which Kit could and would corroborate she knew, and so would little Jacob and the baby likewise if they were old enough, which unfortunately they were not, though as they didn’t know what a loss they had had, perhaps it was a great deal better that they should be as young as they were; and so Kit’s mother wound up a long story by wiping her eyes with her apron, and patting little Jacob’s head, who was rocking the cradle and staring with all his might at the strange lady and gentleman.

When Kit’s mother had done speaking, the old lady struck in again, and said that she was quite sure she was a very honest and very respectable person or she never would have expressed herself in that manner, and that certainly the appearance of the children and the cleanliness of the house deserved great praise and did her the utmost credit, whereat Kit’s mother dropped a curtsey and became consoled. Then the good woman entered in a long and minute account of Kit’s life and history from the earliest period down to that time, not omitting to make mention of his miraculous fall out of a back-parlour window when an infant of tender years, or his uncommon sufferings in a state of measles, which were illustrated by correct imitations of the plaintive manner in which he called for toast and water, day and night, and said, ‘don’t cry, mother, I shall soon be better;’ for proof of which statements reference was made to Mrs Green, lodger, at the cheesemonger’s round the corner, and divers other ladies and gentlemen in various parts of England and Wales (and one Mr Brown who was supposed to be then a corporal in the East Indies, and who could of course be found with very little trouble), within whose personal knowledge the circumstances had occurred. This narration ended, Mr Garland put some questions to Kit respecting his qualifications and general acquirements, while Mrs Garland noticed the children, and hearing from Kit’s mother certain remarkable circumstances which had attended the birth of each, related certain other remarkable circumstances which had attended the birth of her own son, Mr Abel, from which it appeared that both Kit’s mother and herself had been, above and beyond all other women of what condition or age soever, peculiarly hemmed in with perils and dangers. Lastly, inquiry was made into the nature and extent of Kit’s wardrobe, and a small advance being made to improve the same, he was formally hired at an annual income of Six Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by Mr and Mrs Garland, of Abel Cottage, Finchley.

It would be difficult to say which party appeared most pleased with this arrangement, the conclusion of which was hailed with nothing but pleasant looks and cheerful smiles on both sides. It was settled that Kit should repair to his new abode on the next day but one, in the morning; and finally, the little old couple, after bestowing a bright half-crown on little Jacob and another on the baby, took their leaves; being escorted as far as the street by their new attendant, who held the obdurate pony by the bridle while they took their seats, and saw them drive away with a lightened heart.

‘Well, mother,’ said Kit, hurrying back into the house, ‘I think my fortune’s about made now.’

‘I should think it was indeed, Kit,’ rejoined his mother. ‘Six pound a year! Only think!’

‘Ah!’ said Kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the consideration of such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in spite of himself. ‘There’s a property!’

Kit drew a long breath when he had said this, and putting his hands deep into his pockets as if there were one year’s wages at least in each, looked at his mother, as though he saw through her, and down an immense perspective of sovereigns beyond.

‘Please God we’ll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such a scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the one up stairs! Six pound a year!’

‘Hem!’ croaked a strange voice. ‘What’s that about six pound a year? What about six pound a year?’ And as the voice made this inquiry, Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his heels.

‘Who said he was to have six pound a year?’ said Quilp, looking sharply round. ‘Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it? And what’s he to have it for, and where are they, eh!’

The good woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this unknown piece of ugliness, that she hastily caught the baby from its cradle and retreated into the furthest corner of the room; while little Jacob, sitting upon his stool with his hands on his knees, looked full at him in a species of fascination, roaring lustily all the time. Richard Swiveller took an easy observation of the family over Mr Quilp’s head, and Quilp himself, with his hands in his pockets, smiled in an exquisite enjoyment of the commotion he occasioned.

‘Don’t be frightened, mistress,’ said Quilp, after a pause. ‘Your son knows me; I don’t eat babies; I don’t like ‘em. It will be as well to stop that young screamer though, in case I should be tempted to do him a mischief. Holloa, sir! Will you be quiet?’

Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing out of his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror.

‘Mind you don’t break out again, you villain,’ said Quilp, looking sternly at him, ‘or I’ll make faces at you and throw you into fits, I will. Now you sir, why haven’t you been to me as you promised?’

‘What should I come for?’ retorted Kit. ‘I hadn’t any business with you, no more than you had with me.’

‘Here, mistress,’ said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from Kit to his mother. ‘When did his old master come or send here last? Is he here now? If not, where’s he gone?’

‘He has not been here at all,’ she replied. ‘I wish we knew where they have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his mind, and me too. If you’re the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should have thought you’d have known, and so I told him only this very day.’

‘Humph!’ muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that this was true. ‘That’s what you tell this gentleman too, is it?’

‘If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can’t tell him anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,’ was the reply.

Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met him on the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some intelligence of the fugitives. He supposed he was right?

‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘that was the object of the present expedition. I fancied it possible—but let us go ring fancy’s knell. I’ll begin it.’

‘You seem disappointed,’ observed Quilp.

‘A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that’s all,’ returned Dick. ‘I have entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being of brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs’s altar. That’s all, sir.’

The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had been taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not, and continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks. Quilp plainly discerned that there was some secret reason for this visit and his uncommon disappointment, and, in the hope that there might be means of mischief lurking beneath it, resolved to worm it out. He had no sooner adopted this resolution, than he conveyed as much honesty into his face as it was capable of expressing, and sympathised with Mr Swiveller exceedingly.

‘I am disappointed myself,’ said Quilp, ‘out of mere friendly feeling for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have no doubt, for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier than mine.’

‘Why, of course it does,’ Dick observed, testily.

‘Upon my word, I’m very sorry, very sorry. I’m rather cast down myself. As we are companions in adversity, shall we be companions in the surest way of forgetting it? If you had no particular business, now, to lead you in another direction,’ urged Quilp, plucking him by the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out of the corners of his eyes, ‘there is a house by the water-side where they have some of the noblest Schiedam—reputed to be smuggled, but that’s between ourselves—that can be got in all the world. The landlord knows me. There’s a little summer-house overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this delicious liquor with a whiff of the best tobacco—it’s in this case, and of the rarest quality, to my certain knowledge—and be perfectly snug and happy, could we possibly contrive it; or is there any very particular engagement that peremptorily takes you another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?’

As the dwarf spoke, Dick’s face relaxed into a compliant smile, and his brows slowly unbent. By the time he had finished, Dick was looking down at Quilp in the same sly manner as Quilp was looking up at him, and there remained nothing more to be done but to set out for the house in question. This they did, straightway. The moment their backs were turned, little Jacob thawed, and resumed his crying from the point where Quilp had frozen him.

The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river’s mud, and threatened to slide down into it. The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by great bars of wood which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up so long that even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and of a windy night might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to come toppling down. The house stood—if anything so old and feeble could be said to stand—on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank of iron wheels and rush of troubled water. Its internal accommodations amply fulfilled the promise of the outside. The rooms were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes, the rotten floors had sunk from their level, the very beams started from their places and warned the timid stranger from their neighbourhood.

To this inviting spot, entreating him to observe its beauties as they passed along, Mr Quilp led Richard Swiveller, and on the table of the summer-house, scored deep with many a gallows and initial letter, there soon appeared a wooden keg, full of the vaunted liquor. Drawing it off into the glasses with the skill of a practised hand, and mixing it with about a third part of water, Mr Quilp assigned to Richard Swiveller his portion, and lighting his pipe from an end of a candle in a very old and battered lantern, drew himself together upon a seat and puffed away.

‘Is it good?’ said Quilp, as Richard Swiveller smacked his lips, ‘is it strong and fiery? Does it make you wink, and choke, and your eyes water, and your breath come short—does it?’

‘Does it?’ cried Dick, throwing away part of the contents of his glass, and filling it up with water, ‘why, man, you don’t mean to tell me that you drink such fire as this?’

‘No!’ rejoined Quilp, ‘Not drink it! Look here. And here. And here again. Not drink it!’

As he spoke, Daniel Quilp drew off and drank three small glassfuls of the raw spirit, and then with a horrible grimace took a great many pulls at his pipe, and swallowing the smoke, discharged it in a heavy cloud from his nose. This feat accomplished he drew himself together in his former position, and laughed excessively.

‘Give us a toast!’ cried Quilp, rattling on the table in a dexterous manner with his fist and elbow alternately, in a kind of tune, ‘a woman, a beauty. Let’s have a beauty for our toast and empty our glasses to the last drop. Her name, come!’

‘If you want a name,’ said Dick, ‘here’s Sophy Wackles.’

‘Sophy Wackles,’ screamed the dwarf, ‘Miss Sophy Wackles that is—Mrs Richard Swiveller that shall be—that shall be—ha ha ha!’

‘Ah!’ said Dick, ‘you might have said that a few weeks ago, but it won’t do now, my buck. Immolating herself upon the shrine of Cheggs—’

‘Poison Cheggs, cut Cheggs’s ears off,’ rejoined Quilp. ‘I won’t hear of Cheggs. Her name is Swiveller or nothing. I’ll drink her health again, and her father’s, and her mother’s; and to all her sisters and brothers—the glorious family of the Wackleses—all the Wackleses in one glass—down with it to the dregs!’

‘Well,’ said Richard Swiveller, stopping short in the act of raising the glass to his lips and looking at the dwarf in a species of stupor as he flourished his arms and legs about: ‘you’re a jolly fellow, but of all the jolly fellows I ever saw or heard of, you have the queerest and most extraordinary way with you, upon my life you have.’

This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr Quilp’s eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see him in such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself, for company—began imperceptibly to become more companionable and confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew at last very confiding indeed. Having once got him into this mood, and knowing now the key-note to strike whenever he was at a loss, Daniel Quilp’s task was comparatively an easy one, and he was soon in possession of the whole details of the scheme contrived between the easy Dick and his more designing friend.

‘Stop!’ said Quilp. ‘That’s the thing, that’s the thing. It can be brought about, it shall be brought about. There’s my hand upon it; I am your friend from this minute.’

‘What! do you think there’s still a chance?’ inquired Dick, in surprise at this encouragement.

‘A chance!’ echoed the dwarf, ‘a certainty! Sophy Wackles may become a Cheggs or anything else she likes, but not a Swiveller. Oh you lucky dog! He’s richer than any Jew alive; you’re a made man. I see in you now nothing but Nelly’s husband, rolling in gold and silver. I’ll help you. It shall be done. Mind my words, it shall be done.’

‘But how?’ said Dick.

‘There’s plenty of time,’ rejoined the dwarf, ‘and it shall be done. We’ll sit down and talk it over again all the way through. Fill your glass while I’m gone. I shall be back directly—directly.’

With these hasty words, Daniel Quilp withdrew into a dismantled skittle- ground behind the public-house, and, throwing himself upon the ground actually screamed and rolled about in uncontrollable delight.

‘Here’s sport!’ he cried, ‘sport ready to my hand, all invented and arranged, and only to be enjoyed. It was this shallow-pated fellow who made my bones ache t’other day, was it? It was his friend and fellow-plotter, Mr Trent, that once made eyes at Mrs Quilp, and leered and looked, was it? After labouring for two or three years in their precious scheme, to find that they’ve got a beggar at last, and one of them tied for life. Ha ha ha! He shall marry Nell. He shall have her, and I’ll be the first man, when the knot’s tied hard and fast, to tell ‘em what they’ve gained and what I’ve helped ‘em to. Here will be a clearing of old scores, here will be a time to remind ‘em what a capital friend I was, and how I helped them to the heiress. Ha ha ha!’

In the height of his ecstasy, Mr Quilp had like to have met with a disagreeable check, for rolling very near a broken dog-kennel, there leapt forth a large fierce dog, who, but that his chain was of the shortest, would have given him a disagreeable salute. As it was, the dwarf remained upon his back in perfect safety, taunting the dog with hideous faces, and triumphing over him in his inability to advance another inch, though there were not a couple of feet between them.

‘Why don’t you come and bite me, why don’t you come and tear me to pieces, you coward?’ said Quilp, hissing and worrying the animal till he was nearly mad. ‘You’re afraid, you bully, you’re afraid, you know you are.’

The dog tore and strained at his chain with starting eyes and furious bark, but there the dwarf lay, snapping his fingers with gestures of defiance and contempt. When he had sufficiently recovered from his delight, he rose, and with his arms a-kimbo, achieved a kind of demon-dance round the kennel, just without the limits of the chain, driving the dog quite wild. Having by this means composed his spirits and put himself in a pleasant train, he returned to his unsuspicious companion, whom he found looking at the tide with exceeding gravity, and thinking of that same gold and silver which Mr Quilp had mentioned.

CHAPTER 22

The remainder of that day and the whole of the next were a busy time for the Nubbles family, to whom everything connected with Kit’s outfit and departure was matter of as great moment as if he had been about to penetrate into the interior of Africa, or to take a cruise round the world. It would be difficult to suppose that there ever was a box which was opened and shut so many times within four-and-twenty hours, as that which contained his wardrobe and necessaries; and certainly there never was one which to two small eyes presented such a mine of clothing, as this mighty chest with its three shirts and proportionate allowance of stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the astonished vision of little Jacob. At last it was conveyed to the carrier’s, at whose house at Finchley Kit was to find it next day; and the box being gone, there remained but two questions for consideration: firstly, whether the carrier would lose, or dishonestly feign to lose, the box upon the road; secondly, whether Kit’s mother perfectly understood how to take care of herself in the absence of her son.

‘I don’t think there’s hardly a chance of his really losing it, but carriers are under great temptation to pretend they lose things, no doubt,’ said Mrs Nubbles apprehensively, in reference to the first point.

‘No doubt about it,’ returned Kit, with a serious look; ‘upon my word, mother, I don’t think it was right to trust it to itself. Somebody ought to have gone with it, I’m afraid.’

‘We can’t help it now,’ said his mother; ‘but it was foolish and wrong. People oughtn’t to be tempted.’

Kit inwardly resolved that he would never tempt a carrier any more, save with an empty box; and having formed this Christian determination, he turned his thoughts to the second question.

‘You know you must keep up your spirits, mother, and not be lonesome because I’m not at home. I shall very often be able to look in when I come into town I dare say, and I shall send you a letter sometimes, and when the quarter comes round, I can get a holiday of course; and then see if we don’t take little Jacob to the play, and let him know what oysters means.’

‘I hope plays mayn’t be sinful, Kit, but I’m a’most afraid,’ said Mrs Nubbles.

‘I know who has been putting that in your head,’ rejoined her son disconsolately; ‘that’s Little Bethel again. Now I say, mother, pray don’t take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your good-humoured face that has always made home cheerful, turned into a grievous one, and the baby trained to look grievous too, and to call itself a young sinner (bless its heart) and a child of the devil (which is calling its dead father names); if I was to see this, and see little Jacob looking grievous likewise, I should so take it to heart that I’m sure I should go and list for a soldier, and run my head on purpose against the first cannon-ball I saw coming my way.’

‘Oh, Kit, don’t talk like that.’

‘I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me feel very wretched and uncomfortable, you’ll keep that bow on your bonnet, which you’d more than half a mind to pull off last week. Can you suppose there’s any harm in looking as cheerful and being as cheerful as our poor circumstances will permit? Do I see anything in the way I’m made, which calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, sneaking about as if I couldn’t help it, and expressing myself in a most unpleasant snuffle? on the contrary, don’t I see every reason why I shouldn’t? just hear this! Ha ha ha! An’t that as nat’ral as walking, and as good for the health? Ha ha ha! An’t that as nat’ral as a sheep’s bleating, or a pig’s grunting, or a horse’s neighing, or a bird’s singing? Ha ha ha! Isn’t it, mother?’

There was something contagious in Kit’s laugh, for his mother, who had looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell to joining in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew it was natural, and to laugh the more. Kit and his mother, laughing together in a pretty loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that there was something very jovial and agreeable in progress, was no sooner in its mother’s arms than it began to kick and laugh, most vigorously. This new illustration of his argument so tickled Kit, that he fell backward in his chair in a state of exhaustion, pointing at the baby and shaking his sides till he rocked again. After recovering twice or thrice, and as often relapsing, he wiped his eyes and said grace; and a very cheerful meal their scanty supper was.

With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen who start upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind them, would deem within the bounds of probability (if matter so low could be herein set down), Kit left the house at an early hour next morning, and set out to walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient pride in his appearance to have warranted his excommunication from Little Bethel from that time forth, if he had ever been one of that mournful congregation.

Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it may be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustre of a new pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny hat, which on being struck anywhere with the knuckles, sounded like a drum. And in this attire, rather wondering that he attracted so little attention, and attributing the circumstance to the insensibility of those who got up early, he made his way towards Abel Cottage.

Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road, than meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his old one, on whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit arrived in course of time at the carrier’s house, where, to the lasting honour of human nature, he found the box in safety. Receiving from the wife of this immaculate man, a direction to Mr Garland’s, he took the box upon his shoulder and repaired thither directly.

To be sure, it was a beautiful little cottage with a thatched roof and little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in some of the windows, almost as large as pocket-books. On one side of the house was a little stable, just the size for the pony, with a little room over it, just the size for Kit. White curtains were fluttering, and birds in cages that looked as bright as if they were made of gold, were singing at the windows; plants were arranged on either side of the path, and clustered about the door; and the garden was bright with flowers in full bloom, which shed a sweet odour all round, and had a charming and elegant appearance. Everything within the house and without, seemed to be the perfection of neatness and order. In the garden there was not a weed to be seen, and to judge from some dapper gardening-tools, a basket, and a pair of gloves which were lying in one of the walks, old Mr Garland had been at work in it that very morning.

Kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, and this a great many times before he could make up his mind to turn his head another way and ring the bell. There was abundance of time to look about him again though, when he had rung it, for nobody came, so after ringing it twice or thrice he sat down upon his box, and waited.

He rang the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came. But at last, as he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants’ castles, and princesses tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads, and dragons bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of the like nature, common in story-books to youths of low degree on their first visit to strange houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl, very tidy, modest, and demure, but very pretty too, appeared.

‘I suppose you’re Christopher, sir,’ said the servant-girl.

Kit got off the box, and said yes, he was.

‘I’m afraid you’ve rung a good many times perhaps,’ she rejoined, ‘but we couldn’t hear you, because we’ve been catching the pony.’

Kit rather wondered what this meant, but as he couldn’t stop there, asking questions, he shouldered the box again and followed the girl into the hall, where through a back-door he descried Mr Garland leading Whisker in triumph up the garden, after that self-willed pony had (as he afterwards learned) dodged the family round a small paddock in the rear, for one hour and three quarters.

The old gentleman received him very kindly and so did the old lady, whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his wiping his boots on the mat until the soles of his feet burnt again. He was then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his new clothes; and when he had been surveyed several times, and had afforded by his appearance unlimited satisfaction, he was taken into the stable (where the pony received him with uncommon complaisance); and thence into the little chamber he had already observed, which was very clean and comfortable: and thence into the garden, in which the old gentleman told him he would be taught to employ himself, and where he told him, besides, what great things he meant to do to make him comfortable, and happy, if he found he deserved it. All these kindnesses, Kit acknowledged with various expressions of gratitude, and so many touches of the new hat, that the brim suffered considerably. When the old gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise and advice, and Kit had said all he had to say in the way of assurance and thankfulness, he was handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning the little servant-girl (whose name was Barbara) instructed her to take him down stairs and give him something to eat and drink, after his walk.

Down stairs, therefore, Kit went; and at the bottom of the stairs there was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out of a toy-shop window, with everything in it as bright and glowing, and as precisely ordered too, as Barbara herself. And in this kitchen, Kit sat himself down at a table as white as a tablecloth, to eat cold meat, and drink small ale, and use his knife and fork the more awkwardly, because there was an unknown Barbara looking on and observing him.

It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very quiet life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and uncertain what she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be. When he had sat for some little time, attentive to the ticking of the sober clock, he ventured to glance curiously at the dresser, and there, among the plates and dishes, were Barbara’s little work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of cotton, and Barbara’s prayer-book, and Barbara’s hymn-book, and Barbara’s Bible. Barbara’s little looking-glass hung in a good light near the window, and Barbara’s bonnet was on a nail behind the door. From all these mute signs and tokens of her presence, he naturally glanced at Barbara herself, who sat as mute as they, shelling peas into a dish; and just when Kit was looking at her eyelashes and wondering—quite in the simplicity of his heart—what colour her eyes might be, it perversely happened that Barbara raised her head a little to look at him, when both pair of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit leant over his plate, and Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme confusion at having been detected by the other.

CHAPTER 23

Mr Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such was the appropriate name of Quilp’s choice retreat), after a sinuous and corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after stopping suddenly and staring about him, then as suddenly running forward for a few paces, and as suddenly halting again and shaking his head; doing everything with a jerk and nothing by premeditation;—Mr Richard Swiveller wending his way homeward after this fashion, which is considered by evil-minded men to be symbolical of intoxication, and is not held by such persons to denote that state of deep wisdom and reflection in which the actor knows himself to be, began to think that possibly he had misplaced his confidence and that the dwarf might not be precisely the sort of person to whom to entrust a secret of such delicacy and importance. And being led and tempted on by this remorseful thought into a condition which the evil-minded class before referred to would term the maudlin state or stage of drunkenness, it occurred to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the ground, and moan, crying aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if he had not been an unhappy orphan things had never come to this.

‘Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,’ said Mr Swiveller, bewailing his hard lot, ‘cast upon the world in my tenderest period, and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can wonder at my weakness! Here’s a miserable orphan for you. Here,’ said Mr Swiveller raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking sleepily round, ‘is a miserable orphan!’

‘Then,’ said somebody hard by, ‘let me be a father to you.’

Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance, and, looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at last perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he observed after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and mouth. Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with reference to a man’s face, his legs are usually to be found, he observed that the face had a body attached; and when he looked more intently he was satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed had been in his company all the time, but whom he had some vague idea of having left a mile or two behind.

‘You have deceived an orphan, Sir,’ said Mr Swiveller solemnly.’

‘I! I’m a second father to you,’ replied Quilp.

‘You my father, Sir!’ retorted Dick. ‘Being all right myself, Sir, I request to be left alone—instantly, Sir.’

‘What a funny fellow you are!’ cried Quilp.

‘Go, Sir,’ returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his hand. ‘Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p’r’aps you’ll waken, from pleasure’s dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken. Will you go, Sir?’

The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced with the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement. But forgetting his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to him, he seized his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring with an agreeable frankness that from that time forth they were brothers in everything but personal appearance. Then he told his secret over again, with the addition of being pathetic on the subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave Mr Quilp to understand, was the occasion of any slight incoherency he might observe in his speech at that moment, which was attributable solely to the strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other fermented liquor. And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly together.

‘I’m as sharp,’ said Quilp to him, at parting, ‘as sharp as a ferret, and as cunning as a weazel. You bring Trent to me; assure him that I’m his friend though I fear he a little distrusts me (I don’t know why, I have not deserved it); and you’ve both of you made your fortunes—in perspective.’

‘That’s the worst of it,’ returned Dick. ‘These fortunes in perspective look such a long way off.’

‘But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,’ said Quilp, pressing his arm. ‘You’ll have no conception of the value of your prize until you draw close to it. Mark that.’

‘D’ye think not?’ said Dick.

‘Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that’s better,’ returned the dwarf. ‘You bring Trent to me. Tell him I am his friend and yours—why shouldn’t I be?’

‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, certainly,’ replied Dick, ‘and perhaps there are a great many why you should—at least there would be nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you were a choice spirit, but then you know you’re not a choice spirit.’

‘I not a choice spirit?’ cried Quilp.

‘Devil a bit, sir,’ returned Dick. ‘A man of your appearance couldn’t be. If you’re any spirit at all, sir, you’re an evil spirit. Choice spirits,’ added Dick, smiting himself on the breast, ‘are quite a different looking sort of people, you may take your oath of that, sir.’

Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression of cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same moment, declared that he was an uncommon character and had his warmest esteem. With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the best of his way home and sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate upon the discovery he had made, and exult in the prospect of the rich field of enjoyment and reprisal it opened to him.

It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr Swiveller, next morning, his head racked by the fumes of the renowned Schiedam, repaired to the lodging of his friend Trent (which was in the roof of an old house in an old ghostly inn), and recounted by very slow degrees what had yesterday taken place between him and Quilp. Nor was it without great surprise and much speculation on Quilp’s probable motives, nor without many bitter comments on Dick Swiveller’s folly, that his friend received the tale.

‘I don’t defend myself, Fred,’ said the penitent Richard; ‘but the fellow has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog, that first of all he set me upon thinking whether there was any harm in telling him, and while I was thinking, screwed it out of me. If you had seen him drink and smoke, as I did, you couldn’t have kept anything from him. He’s a Salamander you know, that’s what he is.’

Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good confidential agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of course trustworthy, Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair, and, burying his head in his hands, endeavoured to fathom the motives which had led Quilp to insinuate himself into Richard Swiveller’s confidence;—for that the disclosure was of his seeking, and had not been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was sufficiently plain from Quilp’s seeking his company and enticing him away.

The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to obtain intelligence of the fugitives. This, perhaps, as he had not shown any previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken suspicion in the breast of a creature so jealous and distrustful by nature, setting aside any additional impulse to curiosity that he might have derived from Dick’s incautious manner. But knowing the scheme they had planned, why should he offer to assist it? This was a question more difficult of solution; but as knaves generally overreach themselves by imputing their own designs to others, the idea immediately presented itself that some circumstances of irritation between Quilp and the old man, arising out of their secret transactions and not unconnected perhaps with his sudden disappearance, now rendered the former desirous of revenging himself upon him by seeking to entrap the sole object of his love and anxiety into a connexion of which he knew he had a dread and hatred. As Frederick Trent himself, utterly regardless of his sister, had this object at heart, only second to the hope of gain, it seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp’s main principle of action. Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in abetting them, which the attainment of their purpose would serve, it was easy to believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as there could be no doubt of his proving a powerful and useful auxiliary, Trent determined to accept his invitation and go to his house that night, and if what he said and did confirmed him in the impression he had formed, to let him share the labour of their plan, but not the profit.

Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his meditations as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly satisfied with less), and giving him the day to recover himself from his late salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr Quilp’s house.

Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to be; and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs Jiniwin; and very sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she was affected by the recognition of young Trent. Mrs Quilp was as innocent as her own mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant, which the sight of him awakened, but as her husband’s glance made her timid and confused, and uncertain what to do or what was required of her, Mr Quilp did not fail to assign her embarrassment to the cause he had in his mind, and while he chuckled at his penetration was secretly exasperated by his jealousy.

Nothing of this appeared, however. On the contrary, Mr Quilp was all blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum with extraordinary open-heartedness.

‘Why, let me see,’ said Quilp. ‘It must be a matter of nearly two years since we were first acquainted.’

‘Nearer three, I think,’ said Trent.

‘Nearer three!’ cried Quilp. ‘How fast time flies. Does it seem as long as that to you, Mrs Quilp?’

‘Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,’ was the unfortunate reply.

‘Oh indeed, ma’am,’ thought Quilp, ‘you have been pining, have you? Very good, ma’am.’

‘It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the Mary Anne,’ said Quilp; ‘but yesterday, I declare. Well, I like a little wildness. I was wild myself once.’

Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink, indicative of old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was indignant, and could not forbear from remarking under her breath that he might at least put off his confessions until his wife was absent; for which act of boldness and insubordination Mr Quilp first stared her out of countenance and then drank her health ceremoniously.

‘I thought you’d come back directly, Fred. I always thought that,’ said Quilp setting down his glass. ‘And when the Mary Anne returned with you on board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart you had, and how happy you were in the situation that had been provided for you, I was amused—exceedingly amused. Ha ha ha!’

The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most agreeable one that could have been selected for his entertainment; and for that reason Quilp pursued it.

‘I always will say,’ he resumed, ‘that when a rich relation having two young people—sisters or brothers, or brother and sister—dependent on him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts off the other, he does wrong.’

The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as calmly as if he were discussing some abstract question in which nobody present had the slightest personal interest.

‘It’s very true,’ said Quilp, ‘that your grandfather urged repeated forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but as I told him “these are common faults.” “But he’s a scoundrel,” said he. “Granting that,” said I (for the sake of argument of course), “a great many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels too!” But he wouldn’t be convinced.’

‘I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,’ said the young man sarcastically.

‘Well, so did I at the time,’ returned Quilp, ‘but he was always obstinate. He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always obstinate and wrong-headed. Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming girl, but you’re her brother, Frederick. You’re her brother after all; as you told him the last time you met, he can’t alter that.’

‘He would if he could, confound him for that and all other kindnesses,’ said the young man impatiently. ‘But nothing can come of this subject now, and let us have done with it in the Devil’s name.’

‘Agreed,’ returned Quilp, ‘agreed on my part readily. Why have I alluded to it? Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always stood your friend. You little knew who was your friend, and who your foe; now did you? You thought I was against you, and so there has been a coolness between us; but it was all on your side, entirely on your side. Let’s shake hands again, Fred.’

With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short arm across the table. After a moment’s hesitation, the young man stretched out his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip that for the moment stopped the current of the blood within them, and pressing his other hand upon his lip and frowning towards the unsuspicious Richard, released them and sat down.

This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard Swiveller was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his designs than he thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf perfectly understood their relative position, and fully entered into the character of his friend. It is something to be appreciated, even in knavery. This silent homage to his superior abilities, no less than a sense of the power with which the dwarf’s quick perception had already invested him, inclined the young man towards that ugly worthy, and determined him to profit by his aid.

It being now Mr Quilp’s cue to change the subject with all convenient expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness should reveal anything which it was inexpedient for the women to know, he proposed a game at four-handed cribbage, and partners being cut for, Mrs Quilp fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself to Quilp. Mrs Jiniwin being very fond of cards was carefully excluded by her son-in-law from any participation in the game, and had assigned to her the duty of occasionally replenishing the glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp from that moment keeping one eye constantly upon her, lest she should by any means procure a taste of the same, and thereby tantalising the wretched old lady (who was as much attached to the case-bottle as the cards) in a double degree and most ingenious manner.

But it was not to Mrs Jiniwin alone that Mr Quilp’s attention was restricted, as several other matters required his constant vigilance. Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous one of always cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part, not only a close observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in counting and scoring, but also involved the constant correction, by looks, and frowns, and kicks under the table, of Richard Swiveller, who being bewildered by the rapidity with which his cards were told, and the rate at which the pegs travelled down the board, could not be prevented from sometimes expressing his surprise and incredulity. Mrs Quilp too was the partner of young Trent, and for every look that passed between them, and every word they spoke, and every card they played, the dwarf had eyes and ears; not occupied alone with what was passing above the table, but with signals that might be exchanging beneath it, which he laid all kinds of traps to detect; besides often treading on his wife’s toes to see whether she cried out or remained silent under the infliction, in which latter case it would have been quite clear that Trent had been treading on her toes before. Yet, in the most of all these distractions, the one eye was upon the old lady always, and if she so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one sup of its sweet contents, Quilp’s hand would overset it in the very moment of her triumph, and Quilp’s mocking voice implore her to regard her precious health. And in any one of these his many cares, from first to last, Quilp never flagged nor faltered.

At length, when they had played a great many rubbers and drawn pretty freely upon the case-bottle, Mr Quilp warned his lady to retire to rest, and that submissive wife complying, and being followed by her indignant mother, Mr Swiveller fell asleep. The dwarf beckoning his remaining companion to the other end of the room, held a short conference with him in whispers.

‘It’s as well not to say more than one can help before our worthy friend,’ said Quilp, making a grimace towards the slumbering Dick. ‘Is it a bargain between us, Fred? Shall he marry little rosy Nell by-and-by?’

‘You have some end of your own to answer, of course,’ returned the other.

‘Of course I have, dear Fred,’ said Quilp, grinning to think how little he suspected what the real end was. ‘It’s retaliation perhaps; perhaps whim. I have influence, Fred, to help or oppose. Which way shall I use it? There are a pair of scales, and it goes into one.’

‘Throw it into mine then,’ said Trent.

‘It’s done, Fred,’ rejoined Quilp, stretching out his clenched hand and opening it as if he had let some weight fall out. ‘It’s in the scale from this time, and turns it, Fred. Mind that.’

‘Where have they gone?’ asked Trent.

Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be discovered, which it might be, easily. When it was, they would begin their preliminary advances. He would visit the old man, or even Richard Swiveller might visit him, and by affecting a deep concern in his behalf, and imploring him to settle in some worthy home, lead to the child’s remembering him with gratitude and favour. Once impressed to this extent, it would be easy, he said, to win her in a year or two, for she supposed the old man to be poor, as it was a part of his jealous policy (in common with many other misers) to feign to be so, to those about him.

‘He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,’ said Trent.

‘Oh! and to me too!’ replied the dwarf. ‘Which is more extraordinary, as I know how rich he really is.’

‘I suppose you should,’ said Trent.

‘I think I should indeed,’ rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at least, he spoke the truth.

After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and the young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was waiting to depart. This was welcome news to Dick, who started up directly. After a few words of confidence in the result of their project had been exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good night.

Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and listened. Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to marry such a misshapen wretch as he. The dwarf after watching their retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet displayed, stole softly in the dark to bed.

In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had one thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell. It would have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the butt of both, had been harassed by any such consideration; for his high opinion of his own merits and deserts rendered the project rather a laudable one than otherwise; and if he had been visited by so unwonted a guest as reflection, he would—being a brute only in the gratification of his appetites—have soothed his conscience with the plea that he did not mean to beat or kill his wife, and would therefore, after all said and done, be a very tolerable, average husband.

CHAPTER 24

It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer maintain the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that the old man and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest upon the borders of a little wood. Here, though the course was hidden from their view, they could yet faintly distinguish the noise of distant shouts, the hum of voices, and the beating of drums. Climbing the eminence which lay between them and the spot they had left, the child could even discern the fluttering flags and white tops of booths; but no person was approaching towards them, and their resting-place was solitary and still.

Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling companion, or restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity. His disordered imagination represented to him a crowd of persons stealing towards them beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in every ditch, and peeping from the boughs of every rustling tree. He was haunted by apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy place where he would be chained and scourged, and worse than all, where Nell could never come to see him, save through iron bars and gratings in the wall. His terrors affected the child. Separation from her grandfather was the greatest evil she could dread; and feeling for the time as though, go where they would, they were to be hunted down, and could never be safe but in hiding, her heart failed her, and her courage drooped.

In one so young, and so unused to the scenes in which she had lately moved, this sinking of the spirit was not surprising. But, Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms—oftenest, God bless her, in female breasts—and when the child, casting her tearful eyes upon the old man, remembered how weak he was, and how destitute and helpless he would be if she failed him, her heart swelled within her, and animated her with new strength and fortitude.

‘We are quite safe now, and have nothing to fear indeed, dear grandfather,’ she said.

‘Nothing to fear!’ returned the old man. ‘Nothing to fear if they took me from thee! Nothing to fear if they parted us! Nobody is true to me. No, not one. Not even Nell!’

‘Oh! do not say that,’ replied the child, ‘for if ever anybody was true at heart, and earnest, I am. I am sure you know I am.’

‘Then how,’ said the old man, looking fearfully round, ‘how can you bear to think that we are safe, when they are searching for me everywhere, and may come here, and steal upon us, even while we’re talking?’

‘Because I’m sure we have not been followed,’ said the child. ‘Judge for yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how quiet and still it is. We are alone together, and may ramble where we like. Not safe! Could I feel easy—did I feel at ease—when any danger threatened you?’

‘True, too,’ he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking anxiously about. ‘What noise was that?’

‘A bird,’ said the child, ‘flying into the wood, and leading the way for us to follow.’ You remember that we said we would walk in woods and fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would be—you remember that? But here, while the sun shines above our heads, and everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly down, and losing time. See what a pleasant path; and there’s the bird—the same bird—now he flies to another tree, and stays to sing. Come!’

When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which led them through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny footsteps in the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure and gave it back as mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured the old man on, with many a backward look and merry beck, now pointing stealthily to some lone bird as it perched and twittered on a branch that strayed across their path, now stopping to listen to the songs that broke the happy silence, or watch the sun as it trembled through the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied trunks of stout old trees, opened long paths of light. As they passed onward, parting the boughs that clustered in their way, the serenity which the child had first assumed, stole into her breast in earnest; the old man cast no longer fearful looks behind, but felt at ease and cheerful, for the further they passed into the deep green shade, the more they felt that the tranquil mind of God was there, and shed its peace on them.

At length the path becoming clearer and less intricate, brought them to the end of the wood, and into a public road. Taking their way along it for a short distance, they came to a lane, so shaded by the trees on either hand that they met together over-head, and arched the narrow way. A broken finger-post announced that this led to a village three miles off; and thither they resolved to bend their steps.

The miles appeared so long that they sometimes thought they must have missed their road. But at last, to their great joy, it led downwards in a steep descent, with overhanging banks over which the footpaths led; and the clustered houses of the village peeped from the woody hollow below.

It was a very small place. The men and boys were playing at cricket on the green; and as the other folks were looking on, they wandered up and down, uncertain where to seek a humble lodging. There was but one old man in the little garden before his cottage, and him they were timid of approaching, for he was the schoolmaster, and had ‘School’ written up over his window in black letters on a white board. He was a pale, simple-looking man, of a spare and meagre habit, and sat among his flowers and beehives, smoking his pipe, in the little porch before his door.

‘Speak to him, dear,’ the old man whispered.

‘I am almost afraid to disturb him,’ said the child timidly. ‘He does not seem to see us. Perhaps if we wait a little, he may look this way.’

They waited, but the schoolmaster cast no look towards them, and still sat, thoughtful and silent, in the little porch. He had a kind face. In his plain old suit of black, he looked pale and meagre. They fancied, too, a lonely air about him and his house, but perhaps that was because the other people formed a merry company upon the green, and he seemed the only solitary man in all the place.

They were very tired, and the child would have been bold enough to address even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which seemed to denote that he was uneasy or distressed. As they stood hesitating at a little distance, they saw that he sat for a few minutes at a time like one in a brown study, then laid aside his pipe and took a few turns in his garden, then approached the gate and looked towards the green, then took up his pipe again with a sigh, and sat down thoughtfully as before.

As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length took courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured to draw near, leading her grandfather by the hand. The slight noise they made in raising the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his attention. He looked at them kindly but seemed disappointed too, and slightly shook his head.

Nell dropped a curtsey, and told him they were poor travellers who sought a shelter for the night which they would gladly pay for, so far as their means allowed. The schoolmaster looked earnestly at her as she spoke, laid aside his pipe, and rose up directly.

‘If you could direct us anywhere, sir,’ said the child, ‘we should take it very kindly.’

‘You have been walking a long way,’ said the schoolmaster.

‘A long way, Sir,’ the child replied.

‘You’re a young traveller, my child,’ he said, laying his hand gently on her head. ‘Your grandchild, friend?’

‘Aye, Sir,’ cried the old man, ‘and the stay and comfort of my life.’

‘Come in,’ said the schoolmaster.

Without further preface he conducted them into his little school-room, which was parlour and kitchen likewise, and told them that they were welcome to remain under his roof till morning. Before they had done thanking him, he spread a coarse white cloth upon the table, with knives and platters; and bringing out some bread and cold meat and a jug of beer, besought them to eat and drink.

The child looked round the room as she took her seat. There were a couple of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal desk perched on four legs, at which no doubt the master sat; a few dog’s-eared books upon a high shelf; and beside them a motley collection of peg-tops, balls, kites, fishing-lines, marbles, half-eaten apples, and other confiscated property of idle urchins. Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors, were the cane and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the dunce’s cap, made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring wafers of the largest size. But, the great ornaments of the walls were certain moral sentences fairly copied in good round text, and well-worked sums in simple addition and multiplication, evidently achieved by the same hand, which were plentifully pasted all round the room: for the double purpose, as it seemed, of bearing testimony to the excellence of the school, and kindling a worthy emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.

‘Yes,’ said the old schoolmaster, observing that her attention was caught by these latter specimens. ‘That’s beautiful writing, my dear.’

‘Very, Sir,’ replied the child modestly, ‘is it yours?’

‘Mine!’ he returned, taking out his spectacles and putting them on, to have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart. ‘I couldn’t write like that, now-a-days. No. They’re all done by one hand; a little hand it is, not so old as yours, but a very clever one.’

As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had been thrown on one of the copies, so he took a penknife from his pocket, and going up to the wall, carefully scraped it out. When he had finished, he walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring it as one might contemplate a beautiful picture, but with something of sadness in his voice and manner which quite touched the child, though she was unacquainted with its cause.

‘A little hand indeed,’ said the poor schoolmaster. ‘Far beyond all his companions, in his learning and his sports too, how did he ever come to be so fond of me! That I should love him is no wonder, but that he should love me—’ and there the schoolmaster stopped, and took off his spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim.

‘I hope there is nothing the matter, sir,’ said Nell anxiously.

‘Not much, my dear,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘I hoped to have seen him on the green to-night. He was always foremost among them. But he’ll be there to-morrow.’

‘Has he been ill?’ asked the child, with a child’s quick sympathy.

‘Not very. They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear boy, and so they said the day before. But that’s a part of that kind of disorder; it’s not a bad sign—not at all a bad sign.’

The child was silent. He walked to the door, and looked wistfully out. The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still.

‘If he could lean upon anybody’s arm, he would come to me, I know,’ he said, returning into the room. ‘He always came into the garden to say good night. But perhaps his illness has only just taken a favourable turn, and it’s too late for him to come out, for it’s very damp and there’s a heavy dew. It’s much better he shouldn’t come to-night.’

The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter, and closed the door. But after he had done this, and sat silent a little time, he took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy himself, if Nell would sit up till he returned. The child readily complied, and he went out.

She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange and lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed, and there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock, and the whistling of the wind among the trees. When he returned, he took his seat in the chimney corner, but remained silent for a long time. At length he turned to her, and speaking very gently, hoped she would say a prayer that night for a sick child.

‘My favourite scholar!’ said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe he had forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the walls. ‘It is a little hand to have done all that, and waste away with sickness. It is a very, very little hand!’

CHAPTER 25

After a sound night’s rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in which it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but which he had lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own, the child rose early in the morning and descended to the room where she had supped last night. As the schoolmaster had already left his bed and gone out, she bestirred herself to make it neat and comfortable, and had just finished its arrangement when the kind host returned.

He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually did such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom he had told her of. The child asked how he was, and hoped he was better.

‘No,’ rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, ‘no better. They even say he is worse.’

‘I am very sorry for that, Sir,’ said the child.

The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest manner, but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily that anxious people often magnified an evil and thought it greater than it was; ‘for my part,’ he said, in his quiet, patient way, ‘I hope it’s not so. I don’t think he can be worse.’

The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather coming down stairs, they all three partook of it together. While the meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man seemed much fatigued, and evidently stood in need of rest.

‘If the journey you have before you is a long one,’ he said, ‘and don’t press you for one day, you’re very welcome to pass another night here. I should really be glad if you would, friend.’

He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept or decline his offer; and added,

‘I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day. If you can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the same time, do so. If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you well through it, and will walk a little way with you before school begins.’

‘What are we to do, Nell?’ said the old man irresolutely, ‘say what we’re to do, dear.’

It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that they had better accept the invitation and remain. She was happy to show her gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in the performance of such household duties as his little cottage stood in need of. When these were done, she took some needle-work from her basket, and sat herself down upon a stool beside the lattice, where the honeysuckle and woodbine entwined their tender stems, and stealing into the room filled it with their delicious breath. Her grandfather was basking in the sun outside, breathing the perfume of the flowers, and idly watching the clouds as they floated on before the light summer wind.

As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order, took his seat behind his desk and made other preparations for school, the child was apprehensive that she might be in the way, and offered to withdraw to her little bedroom. But this he would not allow, and as he seemed pleased to have her there, she remained, busying herself with her work.

‘Have you many scholars, sir?’ she asked.

The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely filled the two forms.

‘Are the others clever, sir?’ asked the child, glancing at the trophies on the wall.

‘Good boys,’ returned the schoolmaster, ‘good boys enough, my dear, but they’ll never do like that.’

A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came in and took his seat upon one of the forms. The white-headed boy then put an open book, astonishingly dog’s-eared upon his knees, and thrusting his hands into his pockets began counting the marbles with which they were filled; displaying in the expression of his face a remarkable capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his eyes were fixed. Soon afterwards another white-headed little boy came straggling in, and after him a red-headed lad, and after him two more with white heads, and then one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the forms were occupied by a dozen boys or thereabouts, with heads of every colour but grey, and ranging in their ages from four years old to fourteen years or more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way from the floor when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a heavy good-tempered foolish fellow, about half a head taller than the schoolmaster.

At the top of the first form—the post of honour in the school—was the vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of the row of pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont to hang them up, one was left empty. No boy attempted to violate the sanctity of seat or peg, but many a one looked from the empty spaces to the schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind his hand.

Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by heart, the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and drawl of school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster, the very image of meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his mind upon the duties of the day, and to forget his little friend. But the tedium of his office reminded him more strongly of the willing scholar, and his thoughts were rambling from his pupils—it was plain.

None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder with impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even under the master’s eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke, pinching each other in sport or malice without the least reserve, and cutting their autographs in the very legs of his desk. The puzzled dunce, who stood beside it to say his lesson out of book, looked no longer at the ceiling for forgotten words, but drew closer to the master’s elbow and boldly cast his eye upon the page; the wag of the little troop squinted and made grimaces (at the smallest boy of course), holding no book before his face, and his approving audience knew no constraint in their delight. If the master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive to what was going on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes met his but wore a studious and a deeply humble look; but the instant he relapsed again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder than before.

Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how they looked at the open door and window, as if they half meditated rushing violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and savages from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling day! Heat! ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to the door gave him opportunities of gliding out into the garden and driving his companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket of the well and then rolling on the grass—ask him if there were ever such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey no more. The day was made for laziness, and lying on one’s back in green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one’s eyes and go to sleep; and was this a time to be poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by the very sun itself? Monstrous!

Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still to all that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous boys. The lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one desk and that the master’s, each boy sat at it in turn and laboured at his crooked copy, while the master walked about. This was a quieter time; for he would come and look over the writer’s shoulder, and tell him mildly to observe how such a letter was turned in such a copy on the wall, praise such an up-stroke here and such a down-stroke there, and bid him take it for his model. Then he would stop and tell them what the sick child had said last night, and how he had longed to be among them once again; and such was the poor schoolmaster’s gentle and affectionate manner, that the boys seemed quite remorseful that they had worried him so much, and were absolutely quiet; eating no apples, cutting no names, inflicting no pinches, and making no grimaces, for full two minutes afterwards.

‘I think, boys,’ said the schoolmaster when the clock struck twelve, ‘that I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon.’

At this intelligence, the boys, led on and headed by the tall boy, raised a great shout, in the midst of which the master was seen to speak, but could not be heard. As he held up his hand, however, in token of his wish that they should be silent, they were considerate enough to leave off, as soon as the longest-winded among them were quite out of breath.

‘You must promise me first,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘that you’ll not be noisy, or at least, if you are, that you’ll go away and be so—away out of the village I mean. I’m sure you wouldn’t disturb your old playmate and companion.’

There was a general murmur (and perhaps a very sincere one, for they were but boys) in the negative; and the tall boy, perhaps as sincerely as any of them, called those about him to witness that he had only shouted in a whisper.

‘Then pray don’t forget, there’s my dear scholars,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘what I have asked you, and do it as a favour to me. Be as happy as you can, and don’t be unmindful that you are blessed with health. Good-bye all!’

‘Thank’ee, Sir,’ and ‘good-bye, Sir,’ were said a good many times in a variety of voices, and the boys went out very slowly and softly. But there was the sun shining and there were the birds singing, as the sun only shines and the birds only sing on holidays and half-holidays; there were the trees waving to all free boys to climb and nestle among their leafy branches; the hay, entreating them to come and scatter it to the pure air; the green corn, gently beckoning towards wood and stream; the smooth ground, rendered smoother still by blending lights and shadows, inviting to runs and leaps, and long walks God knows whither. It was more than boy could bear, and with a joyous whoop the whole cluster took to their heels and spread themselves about, shouting and laughing as they went.

‘It’s natural, thank Heaven!’ said the poor schoolmaster, looking after them. ‘I’m very glad they didn’t mind me!’

It is difficult, however, to please everybody, as most of us would have discovered, even without the fable which bears that moral, and in the course of the afternoon several mothers and aunts of pupils looked in to express their entire disapproval of the schoolmaster’s proceeding. A few confined themselves to hints, such as politely inquiring what red-letter day or saint’s day the almanack said it was; a few (these were the profound village politicians) argued that it was a slight to the throne and an affront to church and state, and savoured of revolutionary principles, to grant a half-holiday upon any lighter occasion than the birthday of the Monarch; but the majority expressed their displeasure on private grounds and in plain terms, arguing that to put the pupils on this short allowance of learning was nothing but an act of downright robbery and fraud: and one old lady, finding that she could not inflame or irritate the peaceable schoolmaster by talking to him, bounced out of his house and talked at him for half-an-hour outside his own window, to another old lady, saying that of course he would deduct this half-holiday from his weekly charge, or of course he would naturally expect to have an opposition started against him; there was no want of idle chaps in that neighbourhood (here the old lady raised her voice), and some chaps who were too idle even to be schoolmasters, might soon find that there were other chaps put over their heads, and so she would have them take care, and look pretty sharp about them. But all these taunts and vexations failed to elicit one word from the meek schoolmaster, who sat with the child by his side—a little more dejected perhaps, but quite silent and uncomplaining.

Towards night an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily as she could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was to go to Dame West’s directly, and had best run on before her. He and the child were on the point of going out together for a walk, and without relinquishing her hand, the schoolmaster hurried away, leaving the messenger to follow as she might.

They stopped at a cottage-door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly at it with his hand. It was opened without loss of time. They entered a room where a little group of women were gathered about one, older than the rest, who was crying very bitterly, and sat wringing her hands and rocking herself to and fro.

‘Oh, dame!’ said the schoolmaster, drawing near her chair, ‘is it so bad as this?’

‘He’s going fast,’ cried the old woman; ‘my grandson’s dying. It’s all along of you. You shouldn’t see him now, but for his being so earnest on it. This is what his learning has brought him to. Oh dear, dear, dear, what can I do!’

‘Do not say that I am in any fault,’ urged the gentle school-master. ‘I am not hurt, dame. No, no. You are in great distress of mind, and don’t mean what you say. I am sure you don’t.’

‘I do,’ returned the old woman. ‘I mean it all. If he hadn’t been poring over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well and merry now, I know he would.’

The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat some one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook their heads, and murmured to each other that they never thought there was much good in learning, and that this convinced them. Without saying a word in reply, or giving them a look of reproach, he followed the old woman who had summoned him (and who had now rejoined them) into another room, where his infant friend, half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.

He was a very young boy; quite a little child. His hair still hung in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light was of Heaven, not earth. The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and stooping over the pillow, whispered his name. The boy sprung up, stroked his face with his hand, and threw his wasted arms round his neck, crying out that he was his dear kind friend.

‘I hope I always was. I meant to be, God knows,’ said the poor schoolmaster.

‘Who is that?’ said the boy, seeing Nell. ‘I am afraid to kiss her, lest I should make her ill. Ask her to shake hands with me.’

The sobbing child came closer up, and took the little languid hand in hers. Releasing his again after a time, the sick boy laid him gently down.

‘You remember the garden, Harry,’ whispered the schoolmaster, anxious to rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the child, ‘and how pleasant it used to be in the evening time? You must make haste to visit it again, for I think the very flowers have missed you, and are less gay than they used to be. You will come soon, my dear, very soon now—won’t you?’

The boy smiled faintly—so very, very faintly—and put his hand upon his friend’s grey head. He moved his lips too, but no voice came from them; no, not a sound.

In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices borne upon the evening air came floating through the open window. ‘What’s that?’ said the sick child, opening his eyes.

‘The boys at play upon the green.’

He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his head. But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.

‘Shall I do it?’ said the schoolmaster.

‘Please wave it at the window,’ was the faint reply. ‘Tie it to the lattice. Some of them may see it there. Perhaps they’ll think of me, and look this way.’

He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property upon a table in the room. And then he laid him softly down once more, and asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her.

She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the coverlet. The two old friends and companions—for such they were, though they were man and child—held each other in a long embrace, and then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and fell asleep.

The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold hand in his, and chafing it. It was but the hand of a dead child. He felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.

CHAPTER 26

Almost broken-hearted, Nell withdrew with the schoolmaster from the bedside and returned to his cottage. In the midst of her grief and tears she was yet careful to conceal their real cause from the old man, for the dead boy had been a grandchild, and left but one aged relative to mourn his premature decay.

She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was alone, gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was overcharged. But the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without its lesson of content and gratitude; of content with the lot which left her health and freedom; and gratitude that she was spared to the one relative and friend she loved, and to live and move in a beautiful world, when so many young creatures—as young and full of hope as she—were stricken down and gathered to their graves. How many of the mounds in that old churchyard where she had lately strayed, grew green above the graves of children! And though she thought as a child herself, and did not perhaps sufficiently consider to what a bright and happy existence those who die young are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of seeing others die around them, bearing to the tomb some strong affection of their hearts (which makes the old die many times in one long life), still she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy moral from what she had seen that night, and to store it, deep in her mind.

Her dreams were of the little scholar: not coffined and covered up, but mingling with angels, and smiling happily. The sun darting his cheerful rays into the room, awoke her; and now there remained but to take leave of the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more.

By the time they were ready to depart, school had begun. In the darkened room, the din of yesterday was going on again: a little sobered and softened down, perhaps, but only a very little, if at all. The schoolmaster rose from his desk and walked with them to the gate.

It was with a trembling and reluctant hand, that the child held out to him the money which the lady had given her at the races for her flowers: faltering in her thanks as she thought how small the sum was, and blushing as she offered it. But he bade her put it up, and stooping to kiss her cheek, turned back into his house.

They had not gone half-a-dozen paces when he was at the door again; the old man retraced his steps to shake hands, and the child did the same.

‘Good fortune and happiness go with you!’ said the poor schoolmaster. ‘I am quite a solitary man now. If you ever pass this way again, you’ll not forget the little village-school.’

‘We shall never forget it, sir,’ rejoined Nell; ‘nor ever forget to be grateful to you for your kindness to us.’

‘I have heard such words from the lips of children very often,’ said the schoolmaster, shaking his head, and smiling thoughtfully, ‘but they were soon forgotten. I had attached one young friend to me, the better friend for being young—but that’s over—God bless you!’

They bade him farewell very many times, and turned away, walking slowly and often looking back, until they could see him no more. At length they had left the village far behind, and even lost sight of the smoke among the trees. They trudged onward now, at a quicker pace, resolving to keep the main road, and go wherever it might lead them.

But main roads stretch a long, long way. With the exception of two or three inconsiderable clusters of cottages which they passed, without stopping, and one lonely road-side public-house where they had some bread and cheese, this highway had led them to nothing—late in the afternoon—and still lengthened out, far in the distance, the same dull, tedious, winding course, that they had been pursuing all day. As they had no resource, however, but to go forward, they still kept on, though at a much slower pace, being very weary and fatigued.

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, by reason of its situation, they came so suddenly that they could not have avoided it if they would.

It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house upon wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red, in which happily-contrasted colours the whole concern shone brilliant. Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated 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 an unprovided or destitute caravan was clear from this lady’s occupation, which was the very pleasant and refreshing one of taking tea. The tea-things, including a bottle of rather suspicious character 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 that at that moment 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 flavour of the tea, not unmingled possibly with just the slightest dash or gleam of something out of the suspicious bottle—but this is mere speculation and not distinct matter of history—it happened that being thus agreeably engaged, she did not see the travellers when they first came up. It was not until she was in the act of getting down the cup, and drawing a long breath after the exertion of causing its contents to disappear, 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 reassure her.

‘And very sorry I was,’ said the lady of the caravan, ‘to see you in company with a Punch; a low, practical, wulgar 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 inexperienced, 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.’

It was granted immediately, though the lady still appeared much ruffled and discomposed by the degrading supposition. The child then explained that they had left the races on the first day, and were travelling to the next town on that road, where they purposed to spend the night. As the countenance of the stout lady began to clear up, she ventured to inquire how far it was. The reply—which the stout lady did not come to, until she had thoroughly explained that she went to the races on the first day in a gig, and as an expedition of pleasure, and that her presence there had no connexion with any matters of business or profit—was, that the town was eight miles off.

This discouraging information a little dashed the child, who could scarcely repress a tear as she glanced along the darkening road. Her grandfather made no complaint, but he sighed heavily as he leaned upon his staff, and vainly tried to pierce the dusty distance.

The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea equipage together preparatory to clearing the table, but noting the child’s anxious manner she hesitated and stopped. The child curtseyed, thanked her for her information, 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 descended again, and sat upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short everything of which she had partaken herself, except the bottle which she had already embraced an opportunity of slipping into her pocket.

‘Set ‘em out near the hind wheels, child, that’s the best place,’ said their friend, superintending the arrangements from above. ‘Now hand up the teapot 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.’

They might perhaps have carried out the lady’s wish, if it had been less freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all. But as this direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or uneasiness, they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.

While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted on the earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large bonnet trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured tread and very stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to time with an air of calm delight, and deriving particular gratification from the red panels and the brass knocker. When she had taken this gentle exercise for some time, she sat down upon the steps and called ‘George’; whereupon a man in a carter’s frock, who had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as to see everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting attitude, supporting on his legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone bottle, and bearing in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.

‘Yes, Missus,’ said George.

‘How did you find the cold pie, George?’

‘It warn’t amiss, mum.’

‘And the beer,’ said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of being more interested in this question than the last; ‘is it passable, George?’

‘It’s more flatterer than it might be,’ George returned, ‘but it an’t so bad for all that.’

To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting in quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and then smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head. No doubt with the same amiable desire, he immediately resumed his knife and fork, as a practical assurance that the beer had wrought no bad effect upon his appetite.

The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time, and then said,

‘Have you nearly finished?’

‘Wery nigh, mum.’ And indeed, after scraping the dish all round with his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth, and after taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that, by degrees almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went further and further back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the ground, this gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came forth from his retreat.

‘I hope I haven’t hurried you, George,’ said his mistress, who appeared to have a great sympathy with his late pursuit.

‘If you have,’ returned the follower, wisely reserving himself for any favourable contingency that might occur, ‘we must make up for it next time, that’s all.’

‘We are not a heavy load, George?’

‘That’s always what the ladies say,’ replied the man, looking a long way round, as if he were appealing to Nature in general against such monstrous propositions. ‘If you see a woman a driving, you’ll always perceive that she never will keep her whip still; the horse can’t go fast enough for her. If cattle have got their proper load, you never can persuade a woman that they’ll not bear something more. What is the cause of this here?’

‘Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if we took them with us?’ asked his mistress, offering no reply to the philosophical inquiry, and pointing to Nell and the old man, who were painfully preparing to resume their journey on foot.

‘They’d make a difference in course,’ said George doggedly.

‘Would they make much difference?’ repeated his mistress. ‘They can’t be very heavy.’

‘The weight o’ the pair, mum,’ said George, eyeing them with the look of a man who was calculating within half an ounce or so, ‘would be a trifle under that of Oliver Cromwell.’

Nell was very much surprised that the man should be so accurately acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read of in books as having lived considerably before their time, but speedily forgot the subject in the joy of hearing that they were to go forward in the caravan, for which she thanked its lady with unaffected earnestness. She helped with great readiness and alacrity to put away the tea-things and other matters that were lying about, and, the horses being by that time harnessed, mounted into the vehicle, followed by her delighted grandfather. Their patroness then shut the door and sat herself down by her drum at an open window; and, the steps being struck by George and stowed under the carriage, away they went, with a great noise of flapping and creaking and straining, and the bright brass knocker, which nobody ever knocked at, knocking one perpetual double knock of its own accord as they jolted heavily along.

CHAPTER 27

When they had travelled 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 moiety in which the comfortable proprietress was then seated—was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed 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 an unfathomable mystery. The other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof. It held also a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery. These latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which, in that portion of the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a couple of well-thumbed tambourines.

The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride and poetry of the musical instruments, and little Nell and her grandfather sat at the other in all the humility of the kettle and saucepans, while the machine jogged on and shifted the darkening prospect very slowly. At first the two travellers spoke little, and only in whispers, but as they grew more familiar with the place they ventured to converse with greater freedom, and talked about the country through which they were passing, and the different objects that presented themselves, until the old man fell asleep; which the lady of the caravan observing, invited Nell to come and sit beside her.

‘Well, child,’ she said, ‘how do you like this way of travelling?’

Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed, to which the lady assented in the case of people who had their spirits. For herself, she said, she was troubled with a lowness in that respect which required a constant stimulant; though whether the aforesaid stimulant was derived from the suspicious bottle of which mention has been already made or from other sources, she did not say.

‘That’s the happiness of you young people,’ she continued. ‘You don’t know what it is to be low in your feelings. You always have your appetites too, and what a comfort that is.’

Nell thought that she could sometimes dispense with her own appetite very conveniently; and thought, moreover, that there was nothing either in the lady’s personal appearance or in her manner of taking tea, to lead to the conclusion that her natural relish for meat and drink had at all failed her. She silently assented, however, as in duty bound, to what the lady had said, and waited until she should speak again.

Instead of speaking, however, she 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, intended to reassure her and let her know, that, although she stood in the presence of the original Jarley, she must not allow herself to be utterly overwhelmed and borne down, 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 unrivalled collection’—‘Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and Gentry’—‘The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.’ When she had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in the shape of hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies on popular melodies, 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 consult all tastes, others were composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody on the favourite 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 acknowledge him? Oh no no! Then run to Jarley’s—

—besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of Canterbury and a dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all having the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to Jarley’s, and that children and servants were admitted at half-price. When she had brought all these testimonials of her important position in society to bear upon her young companion, Mrs Jarley rolled them up, and having put them carefully away, sat down again, and looked at the child in triumph.

‘Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘after this.’

‘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 gentility; 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.’

‘Is it here, ma’am?’ asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by this description.

‘Is what here, child?’

‘The wax-work, ma’am.’

‘Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of? How could such a collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of one little cupboard and a few boxes? It’s gone on in the other wans to the assembly-rooms, and there it’ll be exhibited the day after to-morrow. You are going to the same town, and you’ll see it I dare say. It’s natural to expect that you’ll see it, and I’ve no doubt you will. I suppose you couldn’t stop away if you was to try ever so much.’

‘I shall not be in the town, I think, ma’am,’ said the child.

‘Not there!’ cried Mrs Jarley. ‘Then where will you be?’

‘I—I—don’t quite know. I am not certain.’

‘You don’t mean to say that you’re travelling about the country without knowing where you’re going to?’ said the lady of the caravan. ‘What curious people you are! What line are you in? You looked to me at the races, child, as if you were quite out of your element, and had got there by accident.’

‘We were there quite by accident,’ returned Nell, confused by this abrupt questioning. ‘We are poor people, ma’am, and are only wandering about. We have nothing to do;—I wish we had.’

‘You amaze me more and more,’ said Mrs Jarley, after remaining for some time as mute as one of her own figures. ‘Why, what do you call yourselves? Not beggars?’

‘Indeed, ma’am, I don’t know what else we are,’ returned the child.

‘Lord bless me,’ said the lady of the caravan. ‘I never heard of such a thing. Who’d have thought it!’

She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell feared she felt her having been induced to bestow her protection and conversation upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her dignity that nothing could repair. This persuasion was rather confirmed than otherwise by the tone in which she at length broke silence and said,

‘And yet you can read. And write too, I shouldn’t wonder?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the child, fearful of giving new offence by the confession.

‘Well, and what a thing that is,’ returned Mrs Jarley. ‘I can’t!’

Nell said ‘indeed’ in a tone which might imply, either that she was reasonably surprised to find the genuine and only Jarley, who was the delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the peculiar pet of the Royal Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she presumed so great a lady could scarcely stand in need of such ordinary accomplishments. In whatever way Mrs Jarley received the response, it did not provoke her to further questioning, or tempt her into any more remarks at the time, for she relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and remained in that state so long that Nell withdrew to the other window and rejoined her grandfather, who was now awake.

At length the lady of the caravan shook off her fit of meditation, and, summoning the driver to come under the window at which she was seated, held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice, as if she were asking his advice on an important point, and discussing the pros and cons of some very weighty matter. This conference at length concluded, she drew in her head again, and beckoned Nell to approach.

‘And the old gentleman too,’ said Mrs Jarley; ‘for I want to have a word with him. Do you want a good situation for your grand-daughter, 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?’

‘I should have thought you were old enough to take care of yourself, if you ever will be,’ retorted Mrs Jarley sharply.

‘But he never will be,’ said the child in an earnest whisper. ‘I fear he never will be again. Pray do not speak harshly to him. We are very thankful to you,’ she added aloud; ‘but neither of us could part from the other if all the wealth of the world were halved between us.’

Mrs Jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her proposal, and looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell’s hand and detained it in his own, as if she could have very well dispensed with his company or even his earthly existence. After an awkward pause, she thrust her head out of the window again, and had another conference with the driver upon some point on which they did not seem to agree quite so readily as on their former topic of discussion; but they concluded at last, and she addressed the grandfather again.

‘If you’re really disposed 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 grand-daughter for, is to point ‘em out to the company; they would be soon learnt, 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 ease 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 wagrancy at Jarley’s, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley’s, remember. Every expectation held out in the handbills is realised to the utmost, and the whole forms an effect of imposing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in this kingdom. Remember that the price of admission is only sixpence, and that this is an opportunity which may never occur again!’

Descending from the sublime when she had reached this point, to the details of common life, Mrs Jarley remarked that with reference to salary she could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had sufficiently tested Nell’s abilities, and narrowly watched her in the performance of her duties. But board and lodging, both for her and her grandfather, she bound herself to provide, and she furthermore passed her word that the board should always be good in quality, and in quantity plentiful.

Nell and her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down the caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with uncommon dignity and self-esteem. Nor will this appear so slight a circumstance as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered that the caravan was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none but a person of great natural stateliness and acquired grace could have forborne to stagger.

‘Now, child?’ cried Mrs Jarley, coming to a halt as Nell turned towards her.

‘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.’

In the meanwhile, the caravan blundered on as if it too had been drinking strong beer and was drowsy, and came at last upon the paved streets of a town which were clear of passengers, and quiet, for it was by this time near midnight, and the townspeople were all abed. As it was too late an hour to repair to the exhibition room, they turned aside into a piece of waste ground that lay just within the old town-gate, and drew up there for the night, near to another caravan, which, notwithstanding that it bore on the lawful panel the great name of Jarley, and was employed besides in conveying from place to place the wax-work which was its country’s pride, was designated by a grovelling stamp-office as a ‘Common Stage Waggon,’ and numbered too—seven thousand odd hundred—as though its precious freight were mere flour or coals!

This ill-used machine being empty (for it had deposited its burden at the place of exhibition, and lingered here until its services were again required) was assigned to the old man as his sleeping-place for the night; and within its wooden walls, Nell made him up the best bed she could, from the materials at hand. For herself, she was to sleep in Mrs Jarley’s own travelling-carriage, as a signal mark of that lady’s favour and confidence.

She had taken leave of her grandfather and was returning to the other waggon, when she was tempted by the coolness of the night to linger for a little while in the air. The moon was shining down upon the old gateway of the town, leaving the low archway very black and dark; and with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear, she slowly approached the gate, and stood still to look up at it, wondering to see how dark, and grim, and old, and cold, it looked.

There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or been carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what strange people it must have looked down upon when it stood there, and how many hard struggles might have taken place, and how many murders might have been done, upon that silent spot, when there suddenly emerged from the black shade of the arch, a man. The instant he appeared, she recognised him—Who could have failed to recognise, in that instant, the ugly misshapen Quilp!

The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on one side of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of the earth. But there he was. The child withdrew into a dark corner, and saw him pass close to her. He had a stick in his hand, and, when he had got clear of the shadow of the gateway, he leant upon it, looked back—directly, as it seemed, towards where she stood—and beckoned.

To her? oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an extremity of fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come from her hiding-place and fly, before he should draw nearer, there issued slowly forth from the arch another figure—that of a boy—who carried on his back a trunk.

‘Faster, sirrah!’ cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and showing in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come down from its niche and was casting a backward glance at its old house, ‘faster!’

‘It’s a dreadful heavy load, Sir,’ the boy pleaded. ‘I’ve come on very fast, considering.’

‘You have come fast, considering!’ retorted Quilp; ‘you creep, you dog, you crawl, you measure distance like a worm. There are the chimes now, half-past twelve.’

He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a suddenness and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour that London coach passed the corner of the road. The boy replied, at one.

‘Come on then,’ said Quilp, ‘or I shall be too late. Faster—do you hear me? Faster.’

The boy made all the speed he could, and Quilp led onward, constantly turning back to threaten him, and urge him to greater haste. Nell did not dare to move until they were out of sight and hearing, and then hurried to where she had left her grandfather, feeling as if the very passing of the dwarf so near him must have filled him with alarm and terror. But he was sleeping soundly, and she softly withdrew.

As she was making her way to her own bed, she determined to say nothing of this adventure, as upon whatever errand the dwarf had come (and she feared it must have been in search of them) it was clear by his inquiry about the London coach that he was on his way homeward, and as he had passed through that place, it was but reasonable to suppose that they were safer from his inquiries there, than they could be elsewhere. These reflections did not remove her own alarm, for she had been too much terrified to be easily composed, and felt as if she were hemmed in by a legion of Quilps, and the very air itself were filled with them.

The delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the patronised of Royalty had, by some process of self-abridgment known only to herself, got into her travelling bed, where she was snoring peacefully, while the large bonnet, carefully disposed upon the drum, was revealing its glories by the light of a dim lamp that swung from the roof. The child’s bed was already made upon the floor, and it was a great comfort to her to hear the steps removed as soon as she had entered, and to know that all easy communication between persons outside and the brass knocker was by this means effectually prevented. Certain guttural sounds, too, which from time to time ascended through the floor of the caravan, and a rustling of straw in the same direction, apprised her that the driver was couched upon the ground beneath, and gave her an additional feeling of security.

Notwithstanding these protections, she could get none but broken sleep by fits and starts all night, for fear of Quilp, who throughout her uneasy dreams was somehow connected with the wax-work, or was wax-work himself, or was Mrs Jarley and wax-work too, or was himself, Mrs Jarley, wax-work, and a barrel organ all in one, and yet not exactly any of them either. At length, towards break of day, that deep sleep came upon her which succeeds to weariness and over-watching, and which has no consciousness but one of overpowering and irresistible enjoyment.

CHAPTER 28

Sleep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she awoke, Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and actively engaged in preparing breakfast. She received Nell’s apology for being so late with perfect good humour, and said that she should not have roused her if she had slept on until noon.

‘Because it does you good,’ said the lady of the caravan, ‘when you’re tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue quite off; and that’s another blessing of your time of life—you can sleep so very sound.’

‘Have you had a bad night, ma’am?’ asked Nell.

‘I seldom have anything else, child,’ replied Mrs Jarley, with the air of a martyr. ‘I sometimes wonder how I bear it.’

Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night, Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake. However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal account of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down with her grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast. The meal finished, Nell assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper places, and these household duties performed, Mrs Jarley arrayed herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose of making a progress through the streets of the town.

‘The wan will come on to bring the boxes,’ said Mrs Jarley, and you had better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can’t be their own masters and mistresses in such matters as these. How do I look, child?’

Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last satisfied with her appearance, and went forth majestically.

The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting through the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the dreaded face of Quilp. It was a pretty large town, with an open square which they were crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock. There were houses of stone, houses of red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of lath and plaster; and houses of wood, many of them very old, with withered faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the street. These had very little winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement. The streets were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few idle men lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the tradesmen’s doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.

Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an important item of the curiosities, and were fully impressed with the belief that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out with all convenient despatch, and taken in to be unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by George and another man in velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented with turnpike tickets, were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental devices in upholstery work) to the best advantage in the decoration of the room.

They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were. As the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred herself to assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also was of great service. The two men being well used to it, did a great deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks from a linen pocket like a toll-collector’s which she wore for the purpose, and encouraged her assistants to renewed exertion.

While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over, but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare—dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps in the winter of their existence—looked in at the door and smiled affably. Mrs Jarley’s back being then towards him, the military gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her myrmidons were not to apprise her of his presence, and stealing up close behind her, tapped her on the neck, and cried playfully ‘Boh!’

‘What, Mr Slum!’ cried the lady of the wax-work. ‘Lot! who’d have thought of seeing you here!’

‘’Pon my soul and honour,’ said Mr Slum, ‘that’s a good remark. ‘Pon my soul and honour that’s a wise remark. Who would have thought it! George, my faithful feller, how are you?’

George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing that he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering lustily all the time.

‘I came here,’ said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley—‘’pon my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and— ‘Pon my soul and honour,’ said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking round the room, ‘what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it’s quite Minervian.’

‘It’ll look well enough when it comes to be finished,’ observed Mrs Jarley.

‘Well enough!’ said Mr Slum. ‘Will you believe me when I say it’s the delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I’ve exercised my pen upon this charming theme? By the way—any orders? Is there any little thing I can do for you?’

‘It comes so very expensive, sir,’ replied Mrs Jarley, ‘and I really don’t think it does much good.’

‘Hush! No, no!’ returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand. ‘No fibs. I’ll not hear it. Don’t say it don’t do good. Don’t say it. I know better!’

‘I don’t think it does,’ said Mrs Jarley.

‘Ha, ha!’ cried Mr Slum, ‘you’re giving way, you’re coming down. Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old lottery-office-keepers—ask any man among ‘em what my poetry has done for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum. If he’s an honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of Slum—mark that! You are acquainted with Westminster Abbey, Mrs Jarley?’

‘Yes, surely.’

‘Then upon my soul and honour, ma’am, you’ll find in a certain angle of that dreary pile, called Poets’ Corner, a few smaller names than Slum,’ retorted that gentleman, tapping himself expressively on the forehead to imply that there was some slight quantity of brain behind it. ‘I’ve got a little trifle here, now,’ said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which was full of scraps of paper, ‘a little trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the moment, which I should say was exactly the thing you wanted to set this place on fire with. It’s an acrostic—the name at this moment is Warren, and the idea’s a convertible one, and a positive inspiration for Jarley. Have the acrostic.’

‘I suppose it’s very dear,’ said Mrs Jarley.

‘Five shillings,’ returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a toothpick. ‘Cheaper than any prose.’

‘I couldn’t give more than three,’ said Mrs Jarley.

‘—And six,’ retorted Slum. ‘Come. Three-and-six.’

Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet’s insinuating manner, and Mr Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a three-and-sixpenny one. Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, after taking a most affectionate leave of his patroness, and promising to return, as soon as he possibly could, with a fair copy for the printer.

As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed shortly after his departure. When the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were displayed, 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, divers sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, 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 countenances expressing great surprise. All the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies were miraculous figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at nothing.

When Nell had exhausted her first raptures 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 centre, formally invested 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 Honour 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 atrocious 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 offence. 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 competent to the enlightenment of visitors.

Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result, and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage had been already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with the inscription she had already seen (Mr Slum’s productions), and a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company with his Majesty King George the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots, an anonymous gentleman of the Quaker persuasion, and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the bill for the imposition of the window duty. The preparations without doors had not been neglected either; a nun of great personal attractions was telling her beads on the little portico over the door; and a brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest possible complexion, was at that moment going round the town in a cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.

It now only remained that Mr Slum’s compositions should be judiciously distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all private houses and tradespeople; and that the parody commencing ‘If I know’d a donkey,’ should be confined to the taverns, and circulated only among the lawyers’ clerks and choice spirits of the place. When this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly proved that wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged the sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable lady sat down to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing campaign.

CHAPTER 29

Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of the various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition, little Nell was not forgotten. The light cart in which the Brigand usually made his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and streamers, and the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the miniature of his beloved as usual, Nell was accommodated with a seat beside him, decorated with artificial flowers, and in this state and ceremony rode slowly through the town every morning, dispersing handbills from a basket, to the sound of drum and trumpet. The beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country place. The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest in the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief attraction. Grown-up folks began to be interested in the bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in love, and constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed in small-text, at the wax-work door.

This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest Nell should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone again, and kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the figures every half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring audiences. And these audiences were of a very superior description, including a great many young ladies’ boarding-schools, whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at great pains to conciliate, by altering the face and costume of Mr Grimaldi as clown to represent Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when engaged in the composition of his English Grammar, and turning a murderess of great renown into Mrs Hannah More—both of which likenesses were admitted by Miss Monflathers, who was at the head of the head Boarding and Day Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private View with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from their extreme correctness. Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and without his boots, represented the poet Cowper with perfect exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, white shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it. Miss Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select: observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a Dean and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.

Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the lady of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not only a peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for making everybody about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it may be remarked, is, even in persons who live in much finer places than caravans, a far more rare and uncommon one than the first, and is not by any means its necessary consequence. As her popularity procured her various little fees from the visitors on which her patroness never demanded any toll, and as her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, she had no cause of anxiety in connexion with the wax-work, beyond that which sprung from her recollection of Quilp, and her fears that he might return and one day suddenly encounter them.

Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure. She slept, for their better security, in the room where the wax-work figures were, and she never retired to this place at night but she tortured herself—she could not help it—with imagining a resemblance, in some one or other of their death-like faces, to the dwarf, and this fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she would almost believe he had removed the figure and stood within the clothes. Then there were so many of them with their great glassy eyes—and, as they stood one behind the other all about her bed, they looked so like living creatures, and yet so unlike in their grim stillness and silence, that she had a kind of terror of them for their own sakes, and would often lie watching their dusky figures until she was obliged to rise and light a candle, or go and sit at the open window and feel a companionship in the bright stars. At these times, she would recall the old house and the window at which she used to sit alone; and then she would think of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes, and she would weep and smile together.

Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of their former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the change in their condition and of their late helplessness and destitution. When they were wandering about, she seldom thought of this, but now she could not help considering what would become of them if he fell sick, or her own strength were to fail her. He was very patient and willing, happy to execute any little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state, with no prospect of improvement—a mere child—a poor, thoughtless, vacant creature—a harmless fond old man, susceptible of tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions, but alive to nothing more. It made her very sad to know that this was so—so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat idly by, smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was fond of doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple questions, yet patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost conscious of it too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant—so sad it made her to see him thus, that she would burst into tears, and, withdrawing into some secret place, fall down upon her knees and pray that he might be restored.

But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials for a young heart. Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to come.

One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather went out to walk. They had been rather closely confined for some days, and the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance. Clear of the town, they took a footpath which struck through some pleasant fields, judging that it would terminate in the road they quitted and enable them to return that way. It made, however, a much wider circuit than they had supposed, and thus they were tempted onward until sunset, when they reached the track of which they were in search, and stopped to rest.

It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth. The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it, menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant.

Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and the child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in which they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst forth in earnest, and every moment increased in violence. Drenched with the pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and bewildered by the glare of the forked lightning, they would have passed a solitary house without being aware of its vicinity, had not a man, who was standing at the door, called lustily to them to enter.

‘Your ears ought to be better than other folks’ at any rate, if you make so little of the chance of being struck blind,’ he said, retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the jagged lightning came again. ‘What were you going past for, eh?’ he added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to a room behind.

‘We didn’t see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,’ Nell replied.

‘No wonder,’ said the man, ‘with this lightning in one’s eyes, by-the-by. You had better stand by the fire here, and dry yourselves a bit. You can call for what you like if you want anything. If you don’t want anything, you are not obliged to give an order. Don’t be afraid of that. This is a public-house, that’s all. The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.’

‘Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?’ asked Nell.

‘I thought everybody knew that,’ replied the landlord. ‘Where have you come from, if you don’t know the Valiant Soldier as well as the church catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves—Jem Groves—honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral character, and has a good dry skittle-ground. If any man has got anything to say again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and Jem Groves can accommodate him with a customer on any terms from four pound a side to forty.

With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at society in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and, applying a half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips, drank Jem Groves’s health.

The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the room, for a barrier against the heat of the fire. It seemed as if somebody on the other side of this screen had been insinuating doubts of Mr Groves’s prowess, and had thereby given rise to these egotistical expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by giving a loud knock upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a reply from the other side.

‘There an’t many men,’ said Mr Groves, no answer being returned, ‘who would ventur’ to cross Jem Groves under his own roof. There’s only one man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that man’s not a hundred mile from here neither. But he’s worth a dozen men, and I let him say of me whatever he likes in consequence—he knows that.’

In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade Mr Groves ‘hold his noise and light a candle.’ And the same voice remarked that the same gentleman ‘needn’t waste his breath in brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was made of.’

‘Nell, they’re—they’re playing cards,’ whispered the old man, suddenly interested. ‘Don’t you hear them?’

‘Look sharp with that candle,’ said the voice; ‘it’s as much as I can do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter closed as quick as you can, will you? Your beer will be the worse for to-night’s thunder I expect.—Game! Seven-and-sixpence to me, old Isaac. Hand over.’

‘Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?’ whispered the old man again, with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.

‘I haven’t seen such a storm as this,’ said a sharp cracked voice of most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had died away, ‘since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen times running on the red. We all said he had the Devil’s luck and his own, and as it was the kind of night for the Devil to be out and busy, I suppose he was looking over his shoulder, if anybody could have seen him.’

‘Ah!’ returned the gruff voice; ‘for all old Luke’s winning through thick and thin of late years, I remember the time when he was the unluckiest and unfortunatest of men. He never took a dice-box in his hand, or held a card, but he was plucked, pigeoned, and cleaned out completely.’

‘Do you hear what he says?’ whispered the old man. ‘Do you hear that, Nell?’

The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance had undergone a complete change. His face was flushed and eager, his eyes were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and thick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently that she shook beneath its grasp.

‘Bear witness,’ he muttered, looking upward, ‘that I always said it; that I knew it, dreamed of it, felt it was the truth, and that it must be so! What money have we, Nell? Come! I saw you with money yesterday. What money have we? Give it to me.’

‘No, no, let me keep it, grandfather,’ said the frightened child. ‘Let us go away from here. Do not mind the rain. Pray let us go.’

‘Give it to me, I say,’ returned the old man fiercely. ‘Hush, hush, don’t cry, Nell. If I spoke sharply, dear, I didn’t mean it. It’s for thy good. I have wronged thee, Nell, but I will right thee yet, I will indeed. Where is the money?’

‘Do not take it,’ said the child. ‘Pray do not take it, dear. For both our sakes let me keep it, or let me throw it away—better let me throw it away, than you take it now. Let us go; do let us go.’

‘Give me the money,’ returned the old man, ‘I must have it. There—there—that’s my dear Nell. I’ll right thee one day, child, I’ll right thee, never fear!’

She took from her pocket a little purse. He seized it with the same rapid impatience which had characterised his speech, and hastily made his way to the other side of the screen. It was impossible to restrain him, and the trembling child followed close behind.

The landlord had placed a light upon the table, and was engaged in drawing the curtain of the window. The speakers whom they had heard were two men, who had a pack of cards and some silver money between them, while upon the screen itself the games they had played were scored in chalk. The man with the rough voice was a burly fellow of middle age, with large black whiskers, broad cheeks, a coarse wide mouth, and bull neck, which was pretty freely displayed as his shirt collar was only confined by a loose red neckerchief. He wore his hat, which was of a brownish-white, and had beside him a thick knotted stick. The other man, whom his companion had called Isaac, was of a more slender figure—stooping, and high in the shoulders—with a very ill-favoured face, and a most sinister and villainous squint.

‘Now old gentleman,’ said Isaac, looking round. ‘Do you know either of us? This side of the screen is private, sir.’

‘No offence, I hope,’ returned the old man.

‘But by G—, sir, there is offence,’ said the other, interrupting him, ‘when you intrude yourself upon a couple of gentlemen who are particularly engaged.’

‘I had no intention to offend,’ said the old man, looking anxiously at the cards. ‘I thought that—’

‘But you had no right to think, sir,’ retorted the other. ‘What the devil has a man at your time of life to do with thinking?’

‘Now bully boy,’ said the stout man, raising his eyes from his cards for the first time, ‘can’t you let him speak?’

The landlord, who had apparently resolved to remain neutral until he knew which side of the question the stout man would espouse, chimed in at this place with ‘Ah, to be sure, can’t you let him speak, Isaac List?’

‘Can’t I let him speak,’ sneered Isaac in reply, mimicking as nearly as he could, in his shrill voice, the tones of the landlord. ‘Yes, I can let him speak, Jemmy Groves.’

‘Well then, do it, will you?’ said the landlord.

Mr List’s squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to threaten a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion, who had been looking sharply at the old man, put a timely stop to it.

‘Who knows,’ said he, with a cunning look, ‘but the gentleman may have civilly meant to ask if he might have the honour to take a hand with us!’

‘I did mean it,’ cried the old man. ‘That is what I mean. That is what I want now!’

‘I thought so,’ returned the same man. ‘Then who knows but the gentleman, anticipating our objection to play for love, civilly desired to play for money?’

The old man replied by shaking the little purse in his eager hand, and then throwing it down upon the table, and gathering up the cards as a miser would clutch at gold.

‘Oh! That indeed,’ said Isaac; ‘if that’s what the gentleman meant, I beg the gentleman’s pardon. Is this the gentleman’s little purse? A very pretty little purse. Rather a light purse,’ added Isaac, throwing it into the air and catching it dexterously, ‘but enough to amuse a gentleman for half an hour or so.’

‘We’ll make a four-handed game of it, and take in Groves,’ said the stout man. ‘Come, Jemmy.’

The landlord, who conducted himself like one who was well used to such little parties, approached the table and took his seat. The child, in a perfect agony, drew her grandfather aside, and implored him, even then, to come away.

‘Come; and we may be so happy,’ said the child.

‘We WILL be happy,’ replied the old man hastily. ‘Let me go, Nell. The means of happiness are on the cards and the dice. We must rise from little winnings to great. There’s little to be won here; but great will come in time. I shall but win back my own, and it’s all for thee, my darling.’

‘God help us!’ cried the child. ‘Oh! what hard fortune brought us here?’

‘Hush!’ rejoined the old man laying his hand upon her mouth, ‘Fortune will not bear chiding. We must not reproach her, or she shuns us; I have found that out.’

‘Now, mister,’ said the stout man. ‘If you’re not coming yourself, give us the cards, will you?’

‘I am coming,’ cried the old man. ‘Sit thee down, Nell, sit thee down and look on. Be of good heart, it’s all for thee—all—every penny. I don’t tell them, no, no, or else they wouldn’t play, dreading the chance that such a cause must give me. Look at them. See what they are and what thou art. Who doubts that we must win!’

‘The gentleman has thought better of it, and isn’t coming,’ said Isaac, making as though he would rise from the table. ‘I’m sorry the gentleman’s daunted—nothing venture, nothing have—but the gentleman knows best.’

‘Why I am ready. You have all been slow but me,’ said the old man. ‘I wonder who is more anxious to begin than I.’

As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three closing round it at the same time, the game commenced.

The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind. Regardless of the run of luck, and mindful only of the desperate passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains were to her alike. Exulting in some brief triumph, or cast down by a defeat, there he sat so wild and restless, so feverishly and intensely anxious, so terribly eager, so ravenous for the paltry stakes, that she could have almost better borne to see him dead. And yet she was the innocent cause of all this torture, and he, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain as the most insatiable gambler never felt, had not one selfish thought!

On the contrary, the other three—knaves and gamesters by their trade—while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as if every virtue had been centered in their breasts. Sometimes one would look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle, or to glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window and fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder than the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put him out; but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone.

The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and break above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse distance; and still the game went on, and still the anxious child was quite forgotten.

CHAPTER 30

At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only winner. Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional fortitude. Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised nor pleased.

Nell’s little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old man sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt before, and turning up the different hands to see what each man would have held if they had still been playing. He was quite absorbed in this occupation, when the child drew near and laid her hand upon his shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.

‘See the curse of poverty, Nell,’ he said, pointing to the packs he had spread out upon the table. ‘If I could have gone on a little longer, only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my side. Yes, it’s as plain as the marks upon the cards. See here—and there—and here again.’

‘Put them away,’ urged the child. ‘Try to forget them.’

‘Try to forget them!’ he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers, and regarding her with an incredulous stare. ‘To forget them! How are we ever to grow rich if I forget them?’

The child could only shake her head.

‘No, no, Nell,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘they must not be forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can. Patience—patience, and we’ll right thee yet, I promise thee. Lose to-day, win to-morrow. And nothing can be won without anxiety and care—nothing. Come, I am ready.’

‘Do you know what the time is?’ said Mr Groves, who was smoking with his friends. ‘Past twelve o’clock—’

‘—And a rainy night,’ added the stout man.

‘The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap entertainment for man and beast,’ said Mr Groves, quoting his sign-board. ‘Half-past twelve o’clock.’

‘It’s very late,’ said the uneasy child. ‘I wish we had gone before. What will they think of us! It will be two o’clock by the time we get back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?’

‘Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total two shillings and sixpence,’ replied the Valiant Soldier.

Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when she came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent habits of Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in which they would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up in the middle of the night—and when she reflected, on the other hand, that if they remained where they were, and rose early in the morning, they might get back before she awoke, and could plead the violence of the storm by which they had been overtaken, as a good apology for their absence—she decided, after a great deal of hesitation, to remain. She therefore took her grandfather aside, and telling him that she had still enough left to defray the cost of their lodging, proposed that they should stay there for the night.

‘If I had had but that money before—If I had only known of it a few minutes ago!’ muttered the old man.

‘We will decide to stop here if you please,’ said Nell, turning hastily to the landlord.

‘I think that’s prudent,’ returned Mr Groves. ‘You shall have your suppers directly.’

Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out the ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place, with the bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and beer, with many high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his guests fall to, and make themselves at home. Nell and her grandfather ate sparingly, for both were occupied with their own reflections; the other gentlemen, for whose constitutions beer was too weak and tame a liquid, consoled themselves with spirits and tobacco.

As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to bed. But as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it secretly from its place of concealment, and embraced an opportunity of following the landlord when he went out of the room, and tendered it to him in the little bar.

‘Will you give me the change here, if you please?’ said the child.

Mr James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money, and rang it, and looked at the child, and at the money again, as though he had a mind to inquire how she came by it. The coin being genuine, however, and changed at his house, he probably felt, like a wise landlord, that it was no business of his. At any rate, he counted out the change, and gave it her. The child was returning to the room where they had passed the evening, when she fancied she saw a figure just gliding in at the door. There was nothing but a long dark passage between this door and the place where she had changed the money, and, being very certain that no person had passed in or out while she stood there, the thought struck her that she had been watched.

But by whom? When she re-entered the room, she found its inmates exactly as she had left them. The stout fellow lay upon two chairs, resting his head on his hand, and the squinting man reposed in a similar attitude on the opposite side of the table. Between them sat her grandfather, looking intently at the winner with a kind of hungry admiration, and hanging upon his words as if he were some superior being. She was puzzled for a moment, and looked round to see if any else were there. No. Then she asked her grandfather in a whisper whether anybody had left the room while she was absent. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nobody.’

It must have been her fancy then; and yet it was strange, that, without anything in her previous thoughts to lead to it, she should have imagined this figure so very distinctly. She was still wondering and thinking of it, when a girl came to light her to bed.

The old man took leave of the company at the same time, and they went up stairs together. It was a great, rambling house, with dull corridors and wide staircases which the flaring candles seemed to make more gloomy. She left her grandfather in his chamber, and followed her guide to another, which was at the end of a passage, and approached by some half-dozen crazy steps. This was prepared for her. The girl lingered a little while to talk, and tell her grievances. She had not a good place, she said; the wages were low, and the work was hard. She was going to leave it in a fortnight; the child couldn’t recommend her to another, she supposed? Instead she was afraid another would be difficult to get after living there, for the house had a very indifferent character; there was far too much card-playing, and such like. She was very much mistaken if some of the people who came there oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she wouldn’t have it known that she had said so, for the world. Then there were some rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who had threatened to go a soldiering—a final promise of knocking at the door early in the morning—and ‘Good night.’

The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She could not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage down stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure her. The men were very ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and murdering travellers. Who could tell?

Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the night gave rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in her grandfather’s breast, and to what further distraction it might tempt him Heaven only knew. What fears their absence might have occasioned already! Persons might be seeking for them even then. Would they be forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again! Oh! why had they stopped in that strange place? It would have been better, under any circumstances, to have gone on!

At last, sleep gradually stole upon her—a broken, fitful sleep, troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this—and then—What! That figure in the room.

A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it.

On it came—on, silently and stealthily, to the bed’s head. The breath so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those wandering hands should light upon her face. Back again it stole to the window—then turned its head towards her.

The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the room, but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how the eyes looked and the ears listened. There it remained, motionless as she. At length, still keeping the face towards her, it busied its hands in something, and she heard the chink of money.

Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and replacing the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon its hands and knees, and crawled away. How slowly it seemed to move, now that she could hear but not see it, creeping along the floor! It reached the door at last, and stood upon its feet. The steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it was gone.

The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being by herself in that room—to have somebody by—not to be alone—and then her power of speech would be restored. With no consciousness of having moved, she gained the door.

There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.

She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the darkness without being seized, but her blood curdled at the thought. The figure stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly, but of necessity; for going back into the room was hardly less terrible than going on.

The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing streams from the thatched roof. Some summer insect, with no escape into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs. The figure moved again. The child involuntarily did the same. Once in her grandfather’s room, she would be safe.

It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she longed so ardently to reach. The child, in the agony of being so near, had almost darted forward with the design of bursting into the room and closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.

The idea flashed suddenly upon her—what if it entered there, and had a design upon the old man’s life! She turned faint and sick. It did. It went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now within the chamber, and she, still dumb—quite dumb, and almost senseless—stood looking on.

The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and looked in. What sight was that which met her view!

The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a table sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright—counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.

CHAPTER 31

With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her way back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. No strange robber, no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread which the recognition of her silent visitor inspired. The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse—immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon—than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested. If he should return—there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if, distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come back to seek for more—a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea of his slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face toward the empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to avoid his touch, which was almost insupportable. She sat and listened. Hark! A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was slowly opening. It was but imagination, yet imagination had all the terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would have come and gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never went away.

The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror. She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this disease of the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his shape, a monstrous distortion of his image, a something to recoil from, and be the more afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as he did. She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him. She had wept to see him dull and quiet. How much greater cause she had for weeping now!

The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be a relief to hear the old man’s voice, or, if he were asleep, even to see him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image. She stole down the stairs and passage again. The door was still ajar as she had left it, and the candle burning as before.

She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking, that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were still alight. Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his bed, and so took courage to enter.

Fast asleep. No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace. This was not the gambler, or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning light; this was her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind grandfather.

She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.

‘God bless him!’ said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid cheek. ‘I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. He has only me to help him. God bless us both!’

Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and, gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that long, long, miserable night.

At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep. She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed; and, as soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather. But first she searched her pocket and found that her money was all gone—not a sixpence remained.

The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road. The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to expect that she would tell him of her loss. She felt she must do that, or he might suspect the truth.

‘Grandfather,’ she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked about a mile in silence, ‘do you think they are honest people at the house yonder?’

‘Why?’ returned the old man trembling. ‘Do I think them honest—yes, they played honestly.’

‘I’ll tell you why I ask,’ rejoined Nell. ‘I lost some money last night—out of my bedroom, I am sure. Unless it was taken by somebody in jest—only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh heartily if I could but know it—’

‘Who would take money in jest?’ returned the old man in a hurried manner. ‘Those who take money, take it to keep. Don’t talk of jest.’

‘Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,’ said the child, whose last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.

‘But is there no more, Nell?’ said the old man; ‘no more anywhere? Was it all taken—every farthing of it—was there nothing left?’

‘Nothing,’ replied the child.

‘We must get more,’ said the old man, ‘we must earn it, Nell, hoard it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow. Never mind this loss. Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don’t ask how;—we may regain it, and a great deal more;—but tell nobody, or trouble may come of it. And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert asleep!’ he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now. ‘Poor Nell, poor little Nell!’

The child hung down her head and wept. The sympathising tone in which he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that. It was not the lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.

‘Not a word about it to any one but me,’ said the old man, ‘no, not even to me,’ he added hastily, ‘for it can do no good. All the losses that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling. Why should they be, when we will win them back?’

‘Let them go,’ said the child looking up. ‘Let them go, once and for ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had been a thousand pounds.’

‘Well, well,’ returned the old man, checking himself as some impetuous answer rose to his lips, ‘she knows no better. I ought to be thankful of it.’

‘But listen to me,’ said the child earnestly, ‘will you listen to me?’

‘Aye, aye, I’ll listen,’ returned the old man, still without looking at her; ‘a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to me. It always had when it was her mother’s, poor child.’

‘Let me persuade you, then—oh, do let me persuade you,’ said the child, ‘to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue together.’

‘We pursue this aim together,’ retorted her grandfather, still looking away and seeming to confer with himself. ‘Whose image sanctifies the game?’

‘Have we been worse off,’ resumed the child, ‘since you forgot these cares, and we have been travelling on together? Have we not been much better and happier without a home to shelter us, than ever we were in that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?’

‘She speaks the truth,’ murmured the old man in the same tone as before. ‘It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it is.’

‘Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we turned our backs upon it for the last time,’ said Nell, ‘only remember what we have been since we have been free of all those miseries—what peaceful days and quiet nights we have had—what pleasant times we have known—what happiness we have enjoyed. If we have been tired or hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and slept the sounder for it. Think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have felt. And why was this blessed change?’

He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no more just then, for he was busy. After a time he kissed her cheek, still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far before him, and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow upon the ground, as if he were painfully trying to collect his disordered thoughts. Once she saw tears in his eyes. When he had gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his as he was accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his late manner; and so, by degrees so fine that the child could not trace them, he settled down into his usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would.

When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous collection, they found, as Nell had anticipated, that Mrs Jarley was not yet out of bed, and that, although she had suffered some uneasiness on their account overnight, and had indeed sat up for them until past eleven o’clock, she had retired in the persuasion, that, being overtaken by storm at some distance from home, they had sought the nearest shelter, and would not return before morning. Nell immediately applied herself with great assiduity to the decoration and preparation of the room, and had the satisfaction of completing her task, and dressing herself neatly, before the beloved of the Royal Family came down to breakfast.

‘We haven’t had,’ said Mrs Jarley when the meal was over, ‘more than eight of Miss Monflathers’s young ladies all the time we’ve been here, and there’s twenty-six of ‘em, as I was told by the cook when I asked her a question or two and put her on the free-list. We must try ‘em with a parcel of new bills, and you shall take it, my dear, and see what effect that has upon ‘em.’

The proposed expedition being one of paramount importance, Mrs Jarley adjusted Nell’s bonnet with her own hands, and declaring that she certainly did look very pretty, and reflected credit on the establishment, dismissed her with many commendations, and certain needful directions as to the turnings on the right which she was to take, and the turnings on the left which she was to avoid. Thus instructed, Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss Monflathers’s Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a large house, with a high wall, and a large garden-gate with a large brass plate, and a small grating through which Miss Monflathers’s parlour-maid inspected all visitors before admitting them; for nothing in the shape of a man—no, not even a milkman—was suffered, without special license, to pass that gate. Even the tax-gatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating. More obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss Monflathers’s frowned on all mankind. The very butcher respected it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the bell.

As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges with a creaking noise, and, forth from the solemn grove beyond, came a long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books in their hands, and some with parasols likewise. And last of the goodly procession came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally envious of the other, and devoted unto Miss Monflathers.

Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she curtseyed and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss Monflathers commanded that the line should halt.

‘You’re the wax-work child, are you not?’ said Miss Monflathers.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were fixed.

‘And don’t you think you must be a very wicked little child,’ said Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the young ladies, ‘to be a wax-work child at all?’

Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before.

‘Don’t you know,’ said Miss Monflathers, ‘that it’s very naughty and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation?’

The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard. Then they smiled and glanced at Miss Monflathers, and then, their eyes meeting, they exchanged looks which plainly said that each considered herself smiler in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and regarded the other as having no right to smile, and that her so doing was an act of presumption and impertinence.

‘Don’t you feel how naughty it is of you,’ resumed Miss Monflathers, ‘to be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of the steam-engine; and of earning a comfortable and independent subsistence of from two-and-ninepence to three shillings per week? Don’t you know that the harder you are at work, the happier you are?’

‘“How doth the little—“’ murmured one of the teachers, in quotation from Doctor Watts.

‘Eh?’ said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round. ‘Who said that?’

Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who had, whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace; by that means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.

‘The little busy bee,’ said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up, ‘is applicable only to genteel children.

“In books, or work, or healthful play”

is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery. In such cases as these,’ pointing to Nell, with her parasol, ‘and in the case of all poor people’s children, we should read it thus:

“In work, work, work. In work alway Let my first years be past, That I may give for ev’ry day Some good account at last.”’

A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but from all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss Monflathers improvising after this brilliant style; for although she had been long known as a politician, she had never appeared before as an original poet. Just then somebody happened to discover that Nell was crying, and all eyes were again turned towards her.

There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief to brush them away, she happened to let it fall. Before she could stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who had been standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no recognised place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand. She was gliding timidly away again, when she was arrested by the governess.

‘It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,’ said Miss Monflathers predictively. ‘Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.’

It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss Edwards herself admitted that it was.

‘Is it not,’ said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a severer view of the offender, ‘a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that all I say and do will not wean you from propensities which your original station in life have unhappily rendered habitual to you, you extremely vulgar-minded girl?’

‘I really intended no harm, ma’am,’ said a sweet voice. ‘It was a momentary impulse, indeed.’

‘An impulse!’ repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully. ‘I wonder that you presume to speak of impulses to me’—both the teachers assented—‘I am astonished’—both the teachers were astonished—‘I suppose it is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and debased person that comes in your way’—both the teachers supposed so too.

‘But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,’ resumed the governess in a tone of increased severity, ‘that you cannot be permitted—if it be only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this establishment—that you cannot be permitted, and that you shall not be permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in this exceedingly gross manner. If you have no reason to feel a becoming pride before wax-work children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, Miss Edwards.’

This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the school—taught for nothing—teaching others what she learnt, for nothing—boarded for nothing—lodged for nothing—and set down and rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers in the house. The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for they were better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations with much more respect. The teachers were infinitely superior, for they had paid to go to school in their time, and were paid now. The pupils cared little for a companion who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to come with post-horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and nothing to display. But why was Miss Monflathers always vexed and irritated with the poor apprentice—how did that come to pass?

Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers’s cap, and the brightest glory of Miss Monflathers’s school, was a baronet’s daughter—the real live daughter of a real live baronet—who, by some extraordinary reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only plain in features but dull in intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit, and a handsome face and figure. It seems incredible. Here was Miss Edwards, who only paid a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and excelling the baronet’s daughter, who learned all the extras (or was taught them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to double that of any other young lady’s in the school, making no account of the honour and reputation of her pupilage. Therefore, and because she was a dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss Edwards, and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as we have already seen.

‘You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,’ said Miss Monflathers. ‘Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to leave it without permission.’

The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in nautical phrase, ‘brought to’ by a subdued shriek from Miss Monflathers.

‘She has passed me without any salute!’ cried the governess, raising her eyes to the sky. ‘She has actually passed me without the slightest acknowledgment of my presence!’

The young lady turned and curtsied. Nell could see that she raised her dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most touching appeal against this ungenerous usage. Miss Monflathers only tossed her head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting heart.

‘As for you, you wicked child,’ said Miss Monflathers, turning to Nell, ‘tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty of sending to me any more, I will write to the legislative authorities and have her put in the stocks, or compelled to do penance in a white sheet; and you may depend upon it that you shall certainly experience the treadmill if you dare to come here again. Now ladies, on.’

The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols, and Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet’s daughter to walk with her and smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers—who by this time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy—and left them to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little more for being obliged to walk together.

CHAPTER 32

Mrs Jarley’s wrath on first learning that she had been threatened with the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description. The genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by children, and flouted by beadles! The delight of the Nobility and Gentry shorn of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to wear, and arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification and humility! And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who presumed, even in the dimmest and remotest distance of her imagination, to conjure up the degrading picture, ‘I am a’most inclined,’ said Mrs Jarley, bursting with the fulness of her anger and the weakness of her means of revenge, ‘to turn atheist when I think of it!’

But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them several times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had received. This done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to drink; then laughed, then cried, then took a little sip herself, then laughed and cried again, and took a little more; and so, by degrees, the worthy lady went on, increasing in smiles and decreasing in tears, until at last she could not laugh enough at Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object of dire vexation, became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity.

‘For which of us is best off, I wonder,’ quoth Mrs Jarley, ‘she or me! It’s only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks of me in the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is a good deal funnier if we come to that. Lord, what does it matter, after all!’

Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had been greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of the philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind words, and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought of Miss Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her, all the days of her life.

So ended Mrs Jarley’s wrath, which subsided long before the going down of the sun. Nell’s anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind, and the checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so easily removed.

That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and did not come back until the night was far spent. Worn out as she was, and fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the minutes, until he returned—penniless, broken-spirited, and wretched, but still hotly bent upon his infatuation.

‘Get me money,’ he said wildly, as they parted for the night. ‘I must have money, Nell. It shall be paid thee back with gallant interest one day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must be mine—not for myself, but to use for thee. Remember, Nell, to use for thee!’

What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him every penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to rob their benefactress? If she told the truth (so thought the child) he would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with money, he would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that burnt him up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery. Distracted by these thoughts, borne down by the weight of the sorrow which she dared not tell, tortured by a crowd of apprehensions whenever the old man was absent, and dreading alike his stay and his return, the colour forsook her cheek, her eye grew dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy. All her old sorrows had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and doubts; by day they were ever present to her mind; by night they hovered round her pillow, and haunted her in dreams.

It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should often revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a hasty glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief action, dwelt in her memory like the kindnesses of years. She would often think, if she had such a friend as that to whom to tell her griefs, how much lighter her heart would be—that if she were but free to hear that voice, she would be happier. Then she would wish that she were something better, that she were not quite so poor and humble, that she dared address her without fearing a repulse; and then feel that there was an immeasurable distance between them, and have no hope that the young lady thought of her any more.

It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had gone home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in London, and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but nobody said anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home, or whether she had any home to go to, whether she was still at the school, or anything about her. But one evening, as Nell was returning from a lonely walk, she happened to pass the inn where the stage-coaches stopped, just as one drove up, and there was the beautiful girl she so well remembered, pressing forward to embrace a young child whom they were helping down from the roof.

Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than Nell, whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five years, and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had been saving her poor means all that time. Nell felt as if her heart would break when she saw them meet. They went a little apart from the knot of people who had congregated about the coach, and fell upon each other’s neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy. Their plain and simple dress, the distance which the child had come alone, their agitation and delight, and the tears they shed, would have told their history by themselves.

They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away, not so much hand in hand as clinging to each other. ‘Are you sure you’re happy, sister?’ said the child as they passed where Nell was standing. ‘Quite happy now,’ she answered. ‘But always?’ said the child. ‘Ah, sister, why do you turn away your face?’

Nell could not help following at a little distance. They went to the house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a bed-room for the child. ‘I shall come to you early every morning,’ she said, ‘and we can be together all the day.’

‘Why not at night-time too? Dear sister, would they be angry with you for that?’

Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like those of the two sisters? Why did she bear a grateful heart because they had met, and feel it pain to think that they would shortly part? Let us not believe that any selfish reference—unconscious though it might have been—to her own trials awoke this sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys of others can strongly move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature, have one source of pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!

By morning’s cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening’s gentle light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy intercourse of these two sisters which forbade her to approach and say a thankful word, although she yearned to do so, followed them at a distance in their walks and rambles, stopping when they stopped, sitting on the grass when they sat down, rising when they went on, and feeling it a companionship and delight to be so near them. Their evening walk was by a river’s side. Here, every night, the child was too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded; but feeling as if they were her friends, as if they had confidences and trusts together, as if her load were lightened and less hard to bear; as if they mingled their sorrows, and found mutual consolation. It was a weak fancy perhaps, the childish fancy of a young and lonely creature; but night after night, and still the sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child followed with a mild and softened heart.

She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that Mrs Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the effect that the stupendous collection would only remain in its present quarters one day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for all announcements connected with public amusements are well known to be irrevocable and most exact), the stupendous collection shut up next day.

‘Are we going from this place directly, ma’am?’ said Nell.

‘Look here, child,’ returned Mrs Jarley. ‘That’ll inform you.’ And so saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it was stated, that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the wax-work door, and in consequence of crowds having been disappointed in obtaining admission, the Exhibition would be continued for one week longer, and would re-open next day.

‘For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers exhausted,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘we come to the General Public, and they want stimulating.’

Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public. But the first day’s operations were by no means of a successful character, inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected by any impulses moving them to the payment of sixpence a head. Thus, notwithstanding that a great many people continued to stare at the entry and the figures therein displayed; and remained there with great perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ played and to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were kind enough to recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition in the like manner, until the door-way was regularly blockaded by half the population of the town, who, when they went off duty, were relieved by the other half; it was not found that the treasury was any the richer, or that the prospects of the establishment were at all encouraging.

In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the popular curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way, who looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the degrading effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of the Romish Church and discoursed upon that theme with great eloquence and morality. The two carters constantly passed in and out of the exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting aloud that the sight was better worth the money than anything they had beheld in all their lives, and urging the bystanders, with tears in their eyes, not to neglect such a brilliant gratification. Mrs Jarley sat in the pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon till night, and solemnly calling upon the crowd to take notice that the price of admission was only sixpence, and that the departure of the whole collection, on a short tour among the Crowned Heads of Europe, was positively fixed for that day week.

‘So be in time, be in time, be in time,’ said Mrs Jarley at the close of every such address. ‘Remember that this is Jarley’s stupendous collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that it is the only collection in the world; all others being imposters and deceptions. Be in time, be in time, be in time!’

CHAPTER 33

As the course of this tale requires that we should become acquainted, somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected with the domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more convenient place than the present is not likely to occur for that purpose, the historian takes the friendly reader by the hand, and springing with him into the air, and cleaving the same at a greater rate than ever Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar travelled through that pleasant region in company, alights with him upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.

The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the residence of Mr Sampson Brass.

In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close upon the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the dim glass with his coat sleeve—much to its improvement, for it is very dirty—in this parlour window in the days of its occupation by Sampson Brass, there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured by the sun, a curtain of faded green, so threadbare from long service as by no means to intercept the view of the little dark room, but rather to afford a favourable medium through which to observe it accurately. There was not much to look at. A rickety table, with spare bundles of papers, yellow and ragged from long carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a couple of stools set face to face on opposite sides of this crazy piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the fire-place, whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and helped to squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository for blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with the tightness of desperation to its tacks—these, with the yellow wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of Mr Sampson Brass.

But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the plate, ‘BRASS, Solicitor,’ upon the door, and the bill, ‘First floor to let to a single gentleman,’ which was tied to the knocker. The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest and more particular concern.

Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in these pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of cost increaser, Miss Brass—a kind of amazon at common law, of whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.

Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her. In face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson—so exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass’s maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have assumed her brother’s clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him, it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in all probability, nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies. In complexion Miss Brass was sallow—rather a dirty sallow, so to speak—but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her voice was exceedingly impressive—deep and rich in quality, and, once heard, not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a peculiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress.

Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross, fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in short, transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a skin of parchment or mending a pen. It is difficult to understand how, possessed of these combined attractions, she should remain Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart against mankind, or whether those who might have wooed and won her, were deterred by fears that, being learned in the law, she might have too near her fingers’ ends those particular statutes which regulate what are familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she was still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson. And equally certain it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great many people had come to the ground.

One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if he were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it was directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new pen preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her favourite occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time, until Miss Brass broke silence.

‘Have you nearly done, Sammy?’ said Miss Brass; for in her mild and feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened down.

‘No,’ returned her brother. ‘It would have been all done though, if you had helped at the right time.’

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ cried Miss Sally; ‘you want my help, don’t you?—YOU, too, that are going to keep a clerk!’

‘Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my own wish, you provoking rascal!’ said Mr Brass, putting his pen in his mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister. ‘What do you taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?’

It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling a lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that he was so habituated to having her near him in a man’s capacity, that he had gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though she were really a man. And this feeling was so perfectly reciprocal, that not only did Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a rascal, or even put an adjective before the rascal, but Miss Brass looked upon it as quite a matter of course, and was as little moved as any other lady would be by being called an angel.

‘What do you taunt me, after three hours’ talk last night, with going to keep a clerk for?’ repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with the pen in his mouth, like some nobleman’s or gentleman’s crest. ‘Is it my fault?’

‘All I know is,’ said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted in nothing so much as irritating her brother, ‘that if every one of your clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or not, you had better leave off business, strike yourself off the roll, and get taken in execution, as soon as you can.’

‘Have we got any other client like him?’ said Brass. ‘Have we got another client like him now—will you answer me that?’

‘Do you mean in the face!’ said his sister.

‘Do I mean in the face!’ sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to take up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly. ‘Look here—Daniel Quilp, Esquire—Daniel Quilp, Esquire—Daniel Quilp, Esquire—all through. Whether should I take a clerk that he recommends, and says, “this is the man for you,” or lose all this, eh?’

Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on with her work.

‘But I know what it is,’ resumed Brass after a short silence. ‘You’re afraid you won’t have as long a finger in the business as you’ve been used to have. Do you think I don’t see through that?’

‘The business wouldn’t go on very long, I expect, without me,’ returned his sister composedly. ‘Don’t you be a fool and provoke me, Sammy, but mind what you’re doing, and do it.’

Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister, sulkily bent over his writing again, and listened as she said:

‘If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he wouldn’t be allowed to come. You know that well enough, so don’t talk nonsense.’

Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely remarking, under his breath, that he didn’t like that kind of joking, and that Miss Sally would be ‘a much better fellow’ if she forbore to aggravate him. To this compliment Miss Sally replied, that she had a relish for the amusement, and had no intention to forego its gratification. Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to pursue the subject any further, they both plied their pens at a great pace, and there the discussion ended.

While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as by some person standing close against it. As Mr Brass and Miss Sally looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly lowered from without, and Quilp thrust in his head.

‘Hallo!’ he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and looking down into the room. ‘Is there anybody at home? Is there any of the Devil’s ware here? Is Brass at a premium, eh?’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy. ‘Oh, very good, Sir! Oh, very good indeed! Quite eccentric! Dear me, what humour he has!’

‘Is that my Sally?’ croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass. ‘Is it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword and scales? Is it the Strong Arm of the Law? Is it the Virgin of Bevis?’

‘What an amazing flow of spirits!’ cried Brass. ‘Upon my word, it’s quite extraordinary!’

‘Open the door,’ said Quilp, ‘I’ve got him here. Such a clerk for you, Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps. Be quick and open the door, or if there’s another lawyer near and he should happen to look out of window, he’ll snap him up before your eyes, he will.’

It is probable that the loss of the phoenix of clerks, even to a rival practitioner, would not have broken Mr Brass’s heart; but, pretending great alacrity, he rose from his seat, and going to the door, returned, introducing his client, who led by the hand no less a person than Mr Richard Swiveller.

‘There she is,’ said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and wrinkling up his eyebrows as he looked towards Miss Sally; ‘there is the woman I ought to have married—there is the beautiful Sarah—there is the female who has all the charms of her sex and none of their weaknesses. Oh Sally, Sally!’

To this amorous address Miss Brass briefly responded ‘Bother!’

‘Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,’ said Quilp. ‘Why don’t she change it—melt down the brass, and take another name?’

‘Hold your nonsense, Mr Quilp, do,’ returned Miss Sally, with a grim smile. ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself before a strange young man.’

‘The strange young man,’ said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller forward, ‘is too susceptible himself not to understand me well. This is Mr Swiveller, my intimate friend—a gentleman of good family and great expectations, but who, having rather involved himself by youthful indiscretion, is content for a time to fill the humble station of a clerk—humble, but here most enviable. What a delicious atmosphere!’

If Mr Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air breathed by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that dainty creature, he had doubtless good reason for what he said. But if he spoke of the delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass’s office in a literal sense, he had certainly a peculiar taste, as it was of a close and earthy kind, and, besides being frequently impregnated with strong whiffs of the second-hand wearing apparel exposed for sale in Duke’s Place and Houndsditch, had a decided flavour of rats and mice, and a taint of mouldiness. Perhaps some doubts of its pure delight presented themselves to Mr Swiveller, as he gave vent to one or two short abrupt sniffs, and looked incredulously at the grinning dwarf.

‘Mr Swiveller,’ said Quilp, ‘being pretty well accustomed to the agricultural pursuits of sowing wild oats, Miss Sally, prudently considers that half a loaf is better than no bread. To be out of harm’s way he prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he accepts your brother’s offer. Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.’

‘I am very glad, Sir,’ said Mr Brass, ‘very glad indeed. Mr Swiveller, Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship. You may be very proud, Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.’

Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf beyond measure. As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her hands as men of business do, and took a few turns up and down the office with her pen behind her ear.

‘I suppose,’ said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend, ‘that Mr Swiveller enters upon his duties at once? It’s Monday morning.’

‘At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,’ returned Brass.

‘Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,’ said Quilp; ‘she’ll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his Blackstone, his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer’s Best Companion.’

‘He is exceedingly eloquent,’ said Brass, like a man abstracted, and looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in his pockets; ‘he has an extraordinary flow of language. Beautiful, really.’

‘With Miss Sally,’ Quilp went on, ‘and the beautiful fictions of the law, his days will pass like minutes. Those charming creations of the poet, John Doe and Richard Roe, when they first dawn upon him, will open a new world for the enlargement of his mind and the improvement of his heart.’

‘Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Beau-ti-ful indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘It’s a treat to hear him!’

‘Where will Mr Swiveller sit?’ said Quilp, looking round.

‘Why, we’ll buy another stool, sir,’ returned Brass. ‘We hadn’t any thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were kind enough to suggest it, and our accommodation’s not extensive. We’ll look about for a second-hand stool, sir. In the meantime, if Mr Swiveller will take my seat, and try his hand at a fair copy of this ejectment, as I shall be out pretty well all the morning—’

‘Walk with me,’ said Quilp. ‘I have a word or two to say to you on points of business. Can you spare the time?’

‘Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir? You’re joking, sir, you’re joking with me,’ replied the lawyer, putting on his hat. ‘I’m ready, sir, quite ready. My time must be fully occupied indeed, sir, not to leave me time to walk with you. It’s not everybody, sir, who has an opportunity of improving himself by the conversation of Mr Quilp.’

The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a short dry cough, turned upon his heel to bid adieu to Miss Sally. After a very gallant parting on his side, and a very cool and gentlemanly sort of one on hers, he nodded to Dick Swiveller, and withdrew with the attorney.

Dick stood at the desk in a state of utter stupefaction, staring with all his might at the beauteous Sally, as if she had been some curious animal whose like had never lived. When the dwarf got into the street, he mounted again upon the window-sill, and looked into the office for a moment with a grinning face, as a man might peep into a cage. Dick glanced upward at him, but without any token of recognition; and long after he had disappeared, still stood gazing upon Miss Sally Brass, seeing or thinking of nothing else, and rooted to the spot.

Miss Brass being by this time deep in the bill of costs, took no notice whatever of Dick, but went scratching on, with a noisy pen, scoring down the figures with evident delight, and working like a steam-engine. There stood Dick, gazing now at the green gown, now at the brown head-dress, now at the face, and now at the rapid pen, in a state of stupid perplexity, wondering how he got into the company of that strange monster, and whether it was a dream and he would ever wake. At last he heaved a deep sigh, and began slowly pulling off his coat.

Mr Swiveller pulled off his coat, and folded it up with great elaboration, staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally ordered for aquatic expeditions, but had brought with him that morning for office purposes; and, still keeping his eye upon her, suffered himself to drop down silently upon Mr Brass’s stool. Then he underwent a relapse, and becoming powerless again, rested his chin upon his hand, and opened his eyes so wide, that it appeared quite out of the question that he could ever close them any more.

When he had looked so long that he could see nothing, Dick took his eyes off the fair object of his amazement, turned over the leaves of the draft he was to copy, dipped his pen into the inkstand, and at last, and by slow approaches, began to write. But he had not written half-a-dozen words when, reaching over to the inkstand to take a fresh dip, he happened to raise his eyes. There was the intolerable brown head-dress—there was the green gown—there, in short, was Miss Sally Brass, arrayed in all her charms, and more tremendous than ever.

This happened so often, that Mr Swiveller by degrees began to feel strange influences creeping over him—horrible desires to annihilate this Sally Brass—mysterious promptings to knock her head-dress off and try how she looked without it. There was a very large ruler on the table; a large, black, shining ruler. Mr Swiveller took it up and began to rub his nose with it.

From rubbing his nose with the ruler, to poising it in his hand and giving it an occasional flourish after the tomahawk manner, the transition was easy and natural. In some of these flourishes it went close to Miss Sally’s head; the ragged edges of the head-dress fluttered with the wind it raised; advance it but an inch, and that great brown knot was on the ground: yet still the unconscious maiden worked away, and never raised her eyes.

Well, this was a great relief. It was a good thing to write doggedly and obstinately until he was desperate, and then snatch up the ruler and whirl it about the brown head-dress with the consciousness that he could have it off if he liked. It was a good thing to draw it back, and rub his nose very hard with it, if he thought Miss Sally was going to look up, and to recompense himself with more hardy flourishes when he found she was still absorbed. By these means Mr Swiveller calmed the agitation of his feelings, until his applications to the ruler became less fierce and frequent, and he could even write as many as half-a-dozen consecutive lines without having recourse to it—which was a great victory.

CHAPTER 34

In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so, of diligent application, Miss Brass arrived at the conclusion of her task, and recorded the fact by wiping her pen upon the green gown, and taking a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which she carried in her pocket. Having disposed of this temperate refreshment, she arose from her stool, tied her papers into a formal packet with red tape, and taking them under her arm, marched out of the office.

Mr Swiveller had scarcely sprung off his seat and commenced the performance of a maniac hornpipe, when he was interrupted, in the fulness of his joy at being again alone, by the opening of the door, and the reappearance of Miss Sally’s head.

‘I am going out,’ said Miss Brass.

‘Very good, ma’am,’ returned Dick. ‘And don’t hurry yourself on my account to come back, ma’am,’ he added inwardly.

‘If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say that the gentleman who attends to that matter isn’t in at present, will you?’ said Miss Brass.

‘I will, ma’am,’ replied Dick.

‘I shan’t be very long,’ said Miss Brass, retiring.

‘I’m sorry to hear it, ma’am,’ rejoined Dick when she had shut the door. ‘I hope you may be unexpectedly detained, ma’am. If you could manage to be run over, ma’am, but not seriously, so much the better.’

Uttering these expressions of good-will with extreme gravity, Mr Swiveller sat down in the client’s chair and pondered; then took a few turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again.

‘So I’m Brass’s clerk, am I?’ said Dick. ‘Brass’s clerk, eh? And the clerk of Brass’s sister—clerk to a female Dragon. Very good, very good! What shall I be next? Shall I be a convict in a felt hat and a grey suit, trotting about a dockyard with my number neatly embroidered on my uniform, and the order of the garter on my leg, restrained from chafing my ankle by a twisted belcher handkerchief? Shall I be that? Will that do, or is it too genteel? Whatever you please, have it your own way, of course.’

As he was entirely alone, it may be presumed that, in these remarks, Mr Swiveller addressed himself to his fate or destiny, whom, as we learn by the precedents, it is the custom of heroes to taunt in a very bitter and ironical manner when they find themselves in situations of an unpleasant nature. This is the more probable from the circumstance of Mr Swiveller directing his observations to the ceiling, which these bodily personages are usually supposed to inhabit—except in theatrical cases, when they live in the heart of the great chandelier.

‘Quilp offers me this place, which he says he can insure me,’ resumed Dick after a thoughtful silence, and telling off the circumstances of his position, one by one, upon his fingers; ‘Fred, who, I could have taken my affidavit, would not have heard of such a thing, backs Quilp to my astonishment, and urges me to take it also—staggerer, number one! My aunt in the country stops the supplies, and writes an affectionate note to say that she has made a new will, and left me out of it—staggerer, number two. No money; no credit; no support from Fred, who seems to turn steady all at once; notice to quit the old lodgings—staggerers, three, four, five, and six! Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent. No man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again. Then I’m very glad that mine has brought all this upon itself, and I shall be as careless as I can, and make myself quite at home to spite it. So go on my buck,’ said Mr Swiveller, taking his leave of the ceiling with a significant nod, ‘and let us see which of us will be tired first!’

Dismissing the subject of his downfall with these reflections, which were no doubt very profound, and are indeed not altogether unknown in certain systems of moral philosophy, Mr Swiveller shook off his despondency and assumed the cheerful ease of an irresponsible clerk.

As a means towards his composure and self-possession, he entered into a more minute examination of the office than he had yet had time to make; looked into the wig-box, the books, and ink-bottle; untied and inspected all the papers; carved a few devices on the table with a sharp blade of Mr Brass’s penknife; and wrote his name on the inside of the wooden coal-scuttle. Having, as it were, taken formal possession of his clerkship in virtue of these proceedings, he opened the window and leaned negligently out of it until a beer-boy happened to pass, whom he commanded to set down his tray and to serve him with a pint of mild porter, which he drank upon the spot and promptly paid for, with the view of breaking ground for a system of future credit and opening a correspondence tending thereto, without loss of time. Then, three or four little boys dropped in, on legal errands from three or four attorneys of the Brass grade: whom Mr Swiveller received and dismissed with about as professional a manner, and as correct and comprehensive an understanding of their business, as would have been shown by a clown in a pantomime under similar circumstances. These things done and over, he got upon his stool again and tried his hand at drawing caricatures of Miss Brass with a pen and ink, whistling very cheerfully all the time.

He was occupied in this diversion when a coach stopped near the door, and presently afterwards there was a loud double-knock. As this was no business of Mr Swiveller’s, the person not ringing the office bell, he pursued his diversion with perfect composure, notwithstanding that he rather thought there was nobody else in the house.

In this, however, he was mistaken; for, after the knock had been repeated with increased impatience, the door was opened, and somebody with a very heavy tread went up the stairs and into the room above. Mr Swiveller was wondering whether this might be another Miss Brass, twin sister to the Dragon, when there came a rapping of knuckles at the office door.

‘Come in!’ said Dick. ‘Don’t stand upon ceremony. The business will get rather complicated if I’ve many more customers. Come in!’

‘Oh, please,’ said a little voice very low down in the doorway, ‘will you come and show the lodgings?’

Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her face and feet. She might as well have been dressed in a violin-case.

‘Why, who are you?’ said Dick.

To which the only reply was, ‘Oh, please will you come and show the lodgings?’

There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and manner. She must have been at work from her cradle. She seemed as much afraid of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.

‘I hav’n’t got anything to do with the lodgings,’ said Dick. ‘Tell ‘em to call again.’

‘Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,’ returned the girl; ‘It’s eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and linen. Boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is eightpence a day.’

‘Why don’t you show ‘em yourself? You seem to know all about ‘em,’ said Dick.

‘Miss Sally said I wasn’t to, because people wouldn’t believe the attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.’

‘Well, but they’ll see how small you are afterwards, won’t they?’ said Dick.

‘Ah! But then they’ll have taken ‘em for a fortnight certain,’ replied the child with a shrewd look; ‘and people don’t like moving when they’re once settled.’

‘This is a queer sort of thing,’ muttered Dick, rising. ‘What do you mean to say you are—the cook?’

‘Yes, I do plain cooking;’ replied the child. ‘I’m housemaid too; I do all the work of the house.’

‘I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,’ thought Dick. And he might have thought much more, being in a doubtful and hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her request, and certain mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and staircase seemed to give note of the applicant’s impatience. Richard Swiveller, therefore, sticking a pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his mouth as a token of his great importance and devotion to business, hurried out to meet and treat with the single gentleman.

He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman’s trunk, which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and exceedingly heavy withal, it was no easy matter for the united exertions of the single gentleman and the coachman to convey up the steep ascent. But there they were, crushing each other, and pushing and pulling with all their might, and getting the trunk tight and fast in all kinds of impossible angles, and to pass them was out of the question; for which sufficient reason, Mr Swiveller followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus taken by storm.

To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word, but when the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon it and wiped his bald head and face with his handkerchief. He was very warm, and well he might be; for, not to mention the exertion of getting the trunk up stairs, he was closely muffled in winter garments, though the thermometer had stood all day at eighty-one in the shade.

‘I believe, sir,’ said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his mouth, ‘that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very charming apartments, sir. They command an uninterrupted view of—of over the way, and they are within one minute’s walk of—of the corner of the street. There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in the immediate vicinity, and the contingent advantages are extraordinary.’

‘What’s the rent?’ said the single gentleman.

‘One pound per week,’ replied Dick, improving on the terms.

‘I’ll take ‘em.’

‘The boots and clothes are extras,’ said Dick; ‘and the fires in winter time are—’

‘Are all agreed to,’ answered the single gentleman.

‘Two weeks certain,’ said Dick, ‘are the—’

‘Two weeks!’ cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from top to toe. ‘Two years. I shall live here for two years. Here. Ten pounds down. The bargain’s made.’

‘Why you see,’ said Dick, ‘my name is not Brass, and—’

‘Who said it was? My name’s not Brass. What then?’

‘The name of the master of the house is,’ said Dick.

‘I’m glad of it,’ returned the single gentleman; ‘it’s a good name for a lawyer. Coachman, you may go. So may you, Sir.’

Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him almost as hard as he had looked at Miss Sally. The single gentleman, however, was not in the slightest degree affected by this circumstance, but proceeded with perfect composure to unwind the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then to pull off his boots. Freed of these encumbrances, he went on to divest himself of his other clothing, which he folded up, piece by piece, and ranged in order on the trunk. Then, he pulled down the window-blinds, drew the curtains, wound up his watch, and, quite leisurely and methodically, got into bed.

‘Take down the bill,’ were his parting words, as he looked out from between the curtains; ‘and let nobody call me till I ring the bell.’

With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately.

‘This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!’ said Mr Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand. ‘She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like professional gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing mysteriously from under ground; strangers walking in and going to bed without leave or licence in the middle of the day! If he should be one of the miraculous fellows that turn up now and then, and has gone to sleep for two years, I shall be in a pleasant situation. It’s my destiny, however, and I hope Brass may like it. I shall be sorry if he don’t. But it’s no business of mine—I have nothing whatever to do with it!’

CHAPTER 35

Mr Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with much complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring after the ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a good and lawful note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, increased his good-humour considerably. Indeed he so overflowed with liberality and condescension, that, in the fulness of his heart, he invited Mr Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch with him at that remote and indefinite period which is currently denominated ‘one of these days,’ and paid him many handsome compliments on the uncommon aptitude for business which his conduct on the first day of his devotion to it had so plainly evinced.

It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions. And this had passed into such a habit with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at his fingers’ ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but in his face: which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, but frowned above all the smooth speeches—one of nature’s beacons, warning off those who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of that dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less treacherous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere.

While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and that of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal practice had been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings, and to whet and sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little disappointed that the single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at such an easy rate, arguing that when he was seen to have set his mind upon them, he should have been at the least charged double or treble the usual terms, and that, in exact proportion as he pressed forward, Mr Swiveller should have hung back. But neither the good opinion of Mr Brass, nor the dissatisfaction of Miss Sally, wrought any impression upon that young gentleman, who, throwing the responsibility of this and all other acts and deeds thereafter to be done by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was quite resigned and comfortable: fully prepared for the worst, and philosophically indifferent to the best.

‘Good morning, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, on the second day of Mr Swiveller’s clerkship. ‘Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir, yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She’s a rare fellow at a bargain, I can tell you, Mr Richard. You’ll find that a first-rate stool, Sir, take my word for it.’

‘It’s rather a crazy one to look at,’ said Dick.

‘You’ll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may depend,’ returned Mr Brass. ‘It was bought in the open street just opposite the hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of two, it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that’s all.’

‘I hope it hasn’t got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,’ said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson and the chaste Sally. ‘One of the legs is longer than the others.’

‘Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,’ retorted Brass. ‘Ha, ha, ha! We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that’s another advantage of my sister’s going to market for us. Miss Brass, Mr Richard is the—’

‘Will you keep quiet?’ interrupted the fair subject of these remarks, looking up from her papers. ‘How am I to work if you keep on chattering?’

‘What an uncertain chap you are!’ returned the lawyer. ‘Sometimes you’re all for a chat. At another time you’re all for work. A man never knows what humour he’ll find you in.’

‘I’m in a working humour now,’ said Sally, ‘so don’t disturb me, if you please. And don’t take him,’ Miss Sally pointed with the feather of her pen to Richard, ‘off his business. He won’t do more than he can help, I dare say.’

Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply, but was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only muttered something about aggravation and a vagabond; not associating the terms with any individual, but mentioning them as connected with some abstract ideas which happened to occur to him. They went on writing for a long time in silence after this—in such a dull silence that Mr Swiveller (who required excitement) had several times fallen asleep, and written divers strange words in an unknown character with his eyes shut, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the office by pulling out the little tin box, taking a noisy pinch of snuff, and then expressing her opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had ‘done it.’

‘Done what, ma’am?’ said Richard.

‘Do you know,’ returned Miss Brass, ‘that the lodger isn’t up yet— that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed yesterday afternoon?’

‘Well, ma’am,’ said Dick, ‘I suppose he may sleep his ten pound out, in peace and quietness, if he likes.’

‘Ah! I begin to think he’ll never wake,’ observed Miss Sally.

‘It’s a very remarkable circumstance,’ said Brass, laying down his pen; ‘really, very remarkable. Mr Richard, you’ll remember, if this gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the bed-post, or any unpleasant accident of that kind should happen—you’ll remember, Mr Richard, that this ten pound note was given to you in part payment of two years’ rent? You’ll bear that in mind, Mr Richard; you had better make a note of it, sir, in case you should ever be called upon to give evidence.’

Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance of profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.

‘We can never be too cautious,’ said Mr Brass. ‘There is a deal of wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness. Did the gentleman happen to say, Sir—but never mind that at present, sir; finish that little memorandum first.’

Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his stool, and was walking up and down the office.

‘Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?’ said Brass, running his eye over the document. ‘Very good. Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman say anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, solemnly, ‘that the gentleman said nothing else?’

‘Devil a word, Sir,’ replied Dick.

‘Think again, Sir,’ said Brass; ‘it’s my duty, Sir, in the position in which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal profession—the first profession in this country, Sir, or in any other country, or in any of the planets that shine above us at night and are supposed to be inhabited—it’s my duty, Sir, as an honourable member of that profession, not to put to you a leading question in a matter of this delicacy and importance. Did the gentleman, Sir, who took the first floor of you yesterday afternoon, and who brought with him a box of property—a box of property—say anything more than is set down in this memorandum?’

‘Come, don’t be a fool,’ said Miss Sally.

Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally again, and still said ‘No.’

‘Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!’ cried Brass, relaxing into a smile. ‘Did he say anything about his property?—there!’

‘That’s the way to put it,’ said Miss Sally, nodding to her brother.

‘Did he say, for instance,’ added Brass, in a kind of comfortable, cozy tone—‘I don’t assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask you, to refresh your memory—did he say, for instance, that he was a stranger in London—that it was not his humour or within his ability to give any references—that he felt we had a right to require them—and that, in case anything should happen to him, at any time, he particularly desired that whatever property he had upon the premises should be considered mine, as some slight recompense for the trouble and annoyance I should sustain—and were you, in short,’ added Brass, still more comfortably and cozily than before, ‘were you induced to accept him on my behalf, as a tenant, upon those conditions?’

‘Certainly not,’ replied Dick.

‘Why then, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, darting at him a supercilious and reproachful look, ‘it’s my opinion that you’ve mistaken your calling, and will never make a lawyer.’

‘Not if you live a thousand years,’ added Miss Sally. Whereupon the brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the little tin box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.

Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller’s dinner-time, which was at three o’clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming. At the first stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared. At the last stroke of five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic, became fragrant with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel.

‘Mr Richard,’ said Brass, ‘this man’s not up yet. Nothing will wake him, sir. What’s to be done?’

‘I should let him have his sleep out,’ returned Dick.

‘Sleep out!’ cried Brass; ‘why he has been asleep now, six-and-twenty hours. We have been moving chests of drawers over his head, we have knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have made the servant-girl fall down stairs several times (she’s a light weight, and it don’t hurt her much,) but nothing wakes him.’

‘Perhaps a ladder,’ suggested Dick, ‘and getting in at the first-floor window—’

‘But then there’s a door between; besides, the neighbours would be up in arms,’ said Brass.

‘What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?’ suggested Dick.

‘That would be an excellent plan,’ said Brass, ‘if anybody would be—’ and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller—‘would be kind, and friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it. I dare say it would not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.’

Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly fall within Miss Sally’s department. As he said nothing further, and declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that they should go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken the sleeper by some less violent means, which, if they failed on this last trial, must positively be succeeded by stronger measures. Mr Swiveller, assenting, armed himself with his stool and the large ruler, and repaired with his employer to the scene of action, where Miss Brass was already ringing a hand-bell with all her might, and yet without producing the smallest effect upon their mysterious lodger.

‘There are his boots, Mr Richard!’ said Brass.

‘Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,’ quoth Richard Swiveller. And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of boots as one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as if their owner’s legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with their broad soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place by main force.

‘I can’t see anything but the curtain of the bed,’ said Brass, applying his eye to the keyhole of the door. ‘Is he a strong man, Mr Richard?’

‘Very,’ answered Dick.

‘It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to bounce out suddenly,’ said Brass. ‘Keep the stairs clear. I should be more than a match for him, of course, but I’m the master of the house, and the laws of hospitality must be respected.—Hallo there! Hallo, hallo!’

While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole, uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger’s attention, and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller put his stool close against the wall by the side of the door, and mounting on the top and standing bolt upright, so that if the lodger did make a rush, he would most probably pass him in its onward fury, began a violent battery with the ruler upon the upper panels of the door. Captivated with his own ingenuity, and confident in the strength of his position, which he had taken up after the method of those hardy individuals who open the pit and gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr Swiveller rained down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the bell was drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs below, ready to fly at a moment’s notice, was obliged to hold her ears lest she should be rendered deaf for life.

Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently open. The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived into her own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for personal courage, ran into the next street, and finding that nobody followed him, armed with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his hands in his pockets, walked very slowly all at once, and whistled.

Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into as flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the door growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the boots in his hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down stairs on speculation. This idea, however, he abandoned. He was turning into his room again, still growling vengefully, when his eyes met those of the watchful Richard.

‘Have YOU been making that horrible noise?’ said the single gentleman.

‘I have been helping, sir,’ returned Dick, keeping his eye upon him, and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an indication of what the single gentleman had to expect if he attempted any violence.

‘How dare you then,’ said the lodger, ‘Eh?’

To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the lodger held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of a gentleman to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and whether the peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to weigh as nothing in the balance.

‘Is my peace nothing?’ said the single gentleman.

‘Is their peace nothing, sir?’ returned Dick. ‘I don’t wish to hold out any threats, sir—indeed the law does not allow of threats, for to threaten is an indictable offence—but if ever you do that again, take care you’re not sat upon by the coroner and buried in a cross road before you wake. We have been distracted with fears that you were dead, Sir,’ said Dick, gently sliding to the ground, ‘and the short and the long of it is, that we cannot allow single gentlemen to come into this establishment and sleep like double gentlemen without paying extra for it.’

‘Indeed!’ cried the lodger.

‘Yes, Sir, indeed,’ returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and saying whatever came uppermost; ‘an equal quantity of slumber was never got out of one bed and bedstead, and if you’re going to sleep in that way, you must pay for a double-bedded room.’

Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks, the lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with twinkling eyes. He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on. As it was clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr Swiveller was relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to encourage him in it, smiled himself.

The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed his nightcap very much on one side of his bald head. This gave him a rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe it, charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of propitiation, he expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to get up, and further that he would never do so any more.

‘Come here, you impudent rascal!’ was the lodger’s answer as he re-entered his room.

Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but reserving the ruler in case of a surprise. He rather congratulated himself on his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice or explanation of any kind, double-locked the door.

‘Can you drink anything?’ was his next inquiry.

Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the pangs of thirst, but that he was still open to ‘a modest quencher,’ if the materials were at hand. Without another word spoken on either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table.

Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him closely. Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an egg; into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw steak from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water. Then, with the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he procured a light and applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place of its own below the temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the little chambers; then he opened them; and then, by some wonderful and unseen agency, the steak was done, the egg was boiled, the coffee was accurately prepared, and his breakfast was ready.

‘Hot water—’ said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as much coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him—‘extraordinary rum—sugar—and a travelling glass. Mix for yourself. And make haste.’

Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on the table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which seemed to hold everything. The lodger took his breakfast like a man who was used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of them.

‘The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?’ said the lodger.

Dick nodded. The rum was amazing.

‘The woman of the house—what’s she?’

‘A dragon,’ said Dick.

The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things in his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman, evinced no surprise, but merely inquired ‘Wife or sister?’—‘Sister,’ said Dick.—‘So much the better,’ said the single gentleman, ‘he can get rid of her when he likes.’

‘I want to do as I like, young man,’ he added after a short silence; ‘to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in when I like, go out when I like—to be asked no questions and be surrounded by no spies. In this last respect, servants are the devil. There’s only one here.’

‘And a very little one,’ said Dick.

‘And a very little one,’ repeated the lodger. ‘Well, the place will suit me, will it?’

‘Yes,’ said Dick.

‘Sharks, I suppose?’ said the lodger.

Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.

‘Let them know my humour,’ said the single gentleman, rising. ‘If they disturb me, they lose a good tenant. If they know me to be that, they know enough. If they try to know more, it’s a notice to quit. It’s better to understand these things at once. Good day.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dick, halting in his passage to the door, which the lodger prepared to open. ‘When he who adores thee has left but the name—’

‘What do you mean?’

‘—But the name,’ said Dick—‘has left but the name—in case of letters or parcels—’

‘I never have any,’ returned the lodger.

‘Or in the case anybody should call.’

‘Nobody ever calls on me.’

‘If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don’t say it was my fault, Sir,’ added Dick, still lingering.—‘Oh blame not the bard—’

‘I’ll blame nobody,’ said the lodger, with such irascibility that in a moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked door between them.

Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed, only routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller’s abrupt exit. As their utmost exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of the interview, however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence, which, though limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such quiet pantomime, had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down to the office to hear his account of the conversation.

This Mr Swiveller gave them—faithfully as regarded the wishes and character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring, with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of every kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in particular that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever was required, as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them to understand that the cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of sirloin of beef, weighing about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two minutes and a quarter, as he had himself witnessed, and proved by his sense of taste; and further, that, however the effect was produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and bubble up when the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr Swiveller) was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or chemist, or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at some future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks.

There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to enlarge upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which, by reason of its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the heels of the temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner, awakened a slight degree of fever, and rendered necessary two or three other modest quenchers at the public-house in the course of the evening.

CHAPTER 36

As the single gentleman after some weeks’ occupation of his lodgings, still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either with Mr Brass or his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard Swiveller as his channel of communication; and as he proved himself in all respects a highly desirable inmate, paying for everything beforehand, giving very little trouble, making no noise, and keeping early hours; Mr Richard imperceptibly rose to an important position in the family, as one who had influence over this mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with him, for good or evil, when nobody else durst approach his person.

If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller’s approaches to the single gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small encouragement; but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic conference with the unknown, without quoting such expressions as ‘Swiveller, I know I can rely upon you,’—‘I have no hesitation in saying, Swiveller, that I entertain a regard for you,’—‘Swiveller, you are my friend, and will stand by me I am sure,’ with many other short speeches of the same familiar and confiding kind, purporting to have been addressed by the single gentleman to himself, and to form the staple of their ordinary discourse, neither Mr Brass nor Miss Sally for a moment questioned the extent of his influence, but accorded to him their fullest and most unqualified belief.

But quite apart from, and independent of, this source of popularity, Mr Swiveller had another, which promised to be equally enduring, and to lighten his position considerably.

He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass. Let not the light scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new tale of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass, however accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving kind. That amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law from her earliest youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as it were, in her first running alone, and maintained a firm grasp upon them ever since; had passed her life in a kind of legal childhood. She had been remarkable, when a tender prattler for an uncommon talent in counterfeiting the walk and manner of a bailiff: in which character she had learned to tap her little playfellows on the shoulder, and to carry them off to imaginary sponging-houses, with a correctness of imitation which was the surprise and delight of all who witnessed her performances, and which was only to be exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an execution into her doll’s house, and taking an exact inventory of the chairs and tables. These artless sports had naturally soothed and cheered the decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman (called ‘old Foxey’ by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding that he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter could not take out an attorney’s certificate and hold a place upon the roll. Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he had solemnly confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable auxiliary; and from the old gentleman’s decease to the period of which we treat, Miss Sally Brass had been the prop and pillar of his business.

It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world, otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for. Miss Sally’s accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind. They began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it. She was in a state of lawful innocence, so to speak. The law had been her nurse. And, as bandy-legs or such physical deformities in children are held to be the consequence of bad nursing, so, if in a mind so beautiful any moral twist or handiness could be found, Miss Sally Brass’s nurse was alone to blame.

It was upon this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full freshness as something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up the office with scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with inkstands and boxes of wafers, catching three oranges in one hand, balancing stools upon his chin and penknives on his nose, and constantly performing a hundred other feats with equal ingenuity; for with such unbendings did Richard, in Mr Brass’s absence, relieve the tedium of his confinement. These social qualities, which Miss Sally first discovered by accident, gradually made such an impression upon her, that she would entreat Mr Swiveller to relax as though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller, nothing loth, would readily consent to do. By these means a friendship sprung up between them. Mr Swiveller gradually came to look upon her as her brother Sampson did, and as he would have looked upon any other clerk. He imparted to her the mystery of going the odd man or plain Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer, baked potatoes, or even a modest quencher, of which Miss Brass did not scruple to partake. He would often persuade her to undertake his share of writing in addition to her own; nay, he would sometimes reward her with a hearty slap on the back, and protest that she was a devilish good fellow, a jolly dog, and so forth; all of which compliments Miss Sally would receive in entire good part and with perfect satisfaction.

One circumstance troubled Mr Swiveller’s mind very much, and that was that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels of the earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface unless the single gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it and immediately disappear again. She never went out, or came into the office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or looked out of any one of the windows, or stood at the street-door for a breath of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever. Nobody ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her. Mr Brass had said once, that he believed she was a ‘love-child’ (which means anything but a child of love), and that was all the information Richard Swiveller could obtain.

‘It’s of no use asking the dragon,’ thought Dick one day, as he sat contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass. ‘I suspect if I asked any questions on that head, our alliance would be at an end. I wonder whether she is a dragon by-the-bye, or something in the mermaid way. She has rather a scaly appearance. But mermaids are fond of looking at themselves in the glass, which she can’t be. And they have a habit of combing their hair, which she hasn’t. No, she’s a dragon.’

‘Where are you going, old fellow?’ said Dick aloud, as Miss Sally wiped her pen as usual on the green dress, and uprose from her seat.

‘To dinner,’ answered the dragon.

‘To dinner!’ thought Dick, ‘that’s another circumstance. I don’t believe that small servant ever has anything to eat.’

‘Sammy won’t be home,’ said Miss Brass. ‘Stop till I come back. I sha’n’t be long.’

Dick nodded, and followed Miss Brass—with his eyes to the door, and with his ears to a little back parlour, where she and her brother took their meals.

‘Now,’ said Dick, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, ‘I’d give something—if I had it—to know how they use that child, and where they keep her. My mother must have been a very inquisitive woman; I have no doubt I’m marked with a note of interrogation somewhere. My feelings I smother, but thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my—upon my word,’ said Mr Swiveller, checking himself and falling thoughtfully into the client’s chair, ‘I should like to know how they use her!’

After running on, in this way, for some time, Mr Swiveller softly opened the office door, with the intention of darting across the street for a glass of the mild porter. At that moment he caught a parting glimpse of the brown head-dress of Miss Brass flitting down the kitchen stairs. ‘And by Jove!’ thought Dick, ‘she’s going to feed the small servant. Now or never!’

First peeping over the handrail and allowing the head-dress to disappear in the darkness below, he groped his way down, and arrived at the door of a back kitchen immediately after Miss Brass had entered the same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton. It was a very dark miserable place, very low and very damp: the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches. The water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. The grate, which was a wide one, was wound and screwed up tight, so as to hold no more than a little thin sandwich of fire. Everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all padlocked. There was nothing that a beetle could have lunched upon. The pinched and meagre aspect of the place would have killed a chameleon. He would have known, at the first mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and must have given up the ghost in despair. The small servant stood with humility in presence of Miss Sally, and hung her head.

‘Are you there?’ said Miss Sally.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ was the answer in a weak voice.

‘Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you’ll be picking it, I know,’ said Miss Sally.

The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass took a key from her pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary waste of cold potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge. This she placed before the small servant, ordering her to sit down before it, and then, taking up a great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it upon the carving-fork.

‘Do you see this?’ said Miss Brass, slicing off about two square inches of cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it out on the point of the fork.

The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see every shred of it, small as it was, and answered, ‘yes.’

‘Then don’t you ever go and say,’ retorted Miss Sally, ‘that you hadn’t meat here. There, eat it up.’

This was soon done. ‘Now, do you want any more?’ said Miss Sally.

The hungry creature answered with a faint ‘No.’ They were evidently going through an established form.

‘You’ve been helped once to meat,’ said Miss Brass, summing up the facts; ‘you have had as much as you can eat, you’re asked if you want any more, and you answer, ‘no!’ Then don’t you ever go and say you were allowanced, mind that.’

With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away and locked the safe, and then drawing near to the small servant, overlooked her while she finished the potatoes.

It was plain that some extraordinary grudge was working in Miss Brass’s gentle breast, and that it was that which impelled her, without the smallest present cause, to rap the child with the blade of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back, as if she found it quite impossible to stand so close to her without administering a few slight knocks. But Mr Swiveller was not a little surprised to see his fellow-clerk, after walking slowly backwards towards the door, as if she were trying to withdraw herself from the room but could not accomplish it, dart suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant give her some hard blows with her clenched hand. The victim cried, but in a subdued manner as if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss Sally, comforting herself with a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs, just as Richard had safely reached the office.

CHAPTER 37

The single gentleman among his other peculiarities—and he had a very plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new specimen—took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the exhibition of Punch. If the sound of a Punch’s voice, at ever so remote a distance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman, though in bed and asleep, would start up, and, hurrying on his clothes, make for the spot with all speed, and presently return at the head of a long procession of idlers, having in the midst the theatre and its proprietors. Straightway, the stage would be set up in front of Mr Brass’s house; the single gentleman would establish himself at the first floor window; and the entertainment would proceed, with all its exciting accompaniments of fife and drum and shout, to the excessive consternation of all sober votaries of business in that silent thoroughfare. It might have been expected that when the play was done, both players and audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as bad as the play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of the puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the purport of which no human being could fathom. But the secret of these discussions was of little importance. It was sufficient to know that while they were proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated Punch with their tender voices; that the office-window was rendered opaque by flattened noses, and the key-hole of the street-door luminous with eyes; that every time the single gentleman or either of his guests was seen at the upper window, or so much as the end of one of their noses was visible, there was a great shout of execration from the excluded mob, who remained howling and yelling, and refusing consolation, until the exhibitors were delivered up to them to be attended elsewhere. It was sufficient, in short, to know that Bevis Marks was revolutionised by these popular movements, and that peace and quietness fled from its precincts.

Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr Sampson Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so profitable an inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger’s affront along with his cash, and to annoy the audiences who clustered round his door by such imperfect means of retaliation as were open to him, and which were confined to the trickling down of foul water on their heads from unseen watering pots, pelting them with fragments of tile and mortar from the roof of the house, and bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to come suddenly round the corner and dash in among them precipitately. It may, at first sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few that Mr Brass, being a professional gentleman, should not have legally indicted some party or parties, active in the promotion of the nuisance, but they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors seldom take their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving, than for its always shaving the right person.

‘Come,’ said Mr Brass one afternoon, ‘this is two days without a Punch. I’m in hopes he has run through ‘em all, at last.’

‘Why are you in hopes?’ returned Miss Sally. ‘What harm do they do?’

‘Here’s a pretty sort of a fellow!’ cried Brass, laying down his pen in despair. ‘Now here’s an aggravating animal!’

‘Well, what harm do they do?’ retorted Sally.

‘What harm!’ cried Brass. ‘Is it no harm to have a constant hallooing and hooting under one’s very nose, distracting one from business, and making one grind one’s teeth with vexation? Is it no harm to be blinded and choked up, and have the king’s highway stopped with a set of screamers and roarers whose throats must be made of—of—’

‘Brass,’ suggested Mr Swiveller.

‘Ah! of brass,’ said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure himself that he had suggested the word in good faith and without any sinister intention. ‘Is that no harm?’

The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a moment, and recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon his hand, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly, ‘There’s another!’

Up went the single gentleman’s window directly.

‘There’s another,’ repeated Brass; ‘and if I could get a break and four blood horses to cut into the Marks when the crowd is at its thickest, I’d give eighteen-pence and never grudge it!’

The distant squeak was heard again. The single gentleman’s door burst open. He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street, and so past the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence the sound proceeded—bent, no doubt, upon securing the strangers’ services directly.

‘I wish I only knew who his friends were,’ muttered Sampson, filling his pocket with papers; ‘if they’d just get up a pretty little Commission de lunatico at the Gray’s Inn Coffee House and give me the job, I’d be content to have the lodgings empty for one while, at all events.’

With which words, and knocking his hat over his eyes as if for the purpose of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation, Mr Brass rushed from the house and hurried away.

As Mr Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances, upon the ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at anything out of window, was better than working; and as he had been, for this reason, at some pains to awaken in his fellow clerk a sense of their beauties and manifold deserts; both he and Miss Sally rose as with one accord and took up their positions at the window: upon the sill whereof, as in a post of honour, sundry young ladies and gentlemen who were employed in the dry nurture of babies, and who made a point of being present, with their young charges, on such occasions, had already established themselves as comfortably as the circumstances would allow.

The glass being dim, Mr Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom which he had established between them, hitched off the brown head-dress from Miss Sally’s head, and dusted it carefully therewith. By the time he had handed it back, and its beautiful wearer had put it on again (which she did with perfect composure and indifference), the lodger returned with the show and showmen at his heels, and a strong addition to the body of spectators. The exhibitor disappeared with all speed behind the drapery; and his partner, stationing himself by the side of the Theatre, surveyed the audience with a remarkable expression of melancholy, which became more remarkable still when he breathed a hornpipe tune into that sweet musical instrument which is popularly termed a mouth-organ, without at all changing the mournful expression of the upper part of his face, though his mouth and chin were, of necessity, in lively spasms.

The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained in the customary manner. The sensation which kindles in large assemblies, when they are relieved from a state of breathless suspense and are again free to speak and move, was yet rife, when the lodger, as usual, summoned the men up stairs.

‘Both of you,’ he called from the window; for only the actual exhibitor—a little fat man—prepared to obey the summons. ‘I want to talk to you. Come both of you!’

‘Come, Tommy,’ said the little man.

‘I an’t a talker,’ replied the other. ‘Tell him so. What should I go and talk for?’

‘Don’t you see the gentleman’s got a bottle and glass up there?’ returned the little man.

‘And couldn’t you have said so at first?’ retorted the other with sudden alacrity. ‘Now, what are you waiting for? Are you going to keep the gentleman expecting us all day? haven’t you no manners?’

With this remonstrance, the melancholy man, who was no other than Mr Thomas Codlin, pushed past his friend and brother in the craft, Mr Harris, otherwise Short or Trotters, and hurried before him to the single gentleman’s apartment.

‘Now, my men,’ said the single gentleman; ‘you have done very well. What will you take? Tell that little man behind, to shut the door.’

‘Shut the door, can’t you?’ said Mr Codlin, turning gruffly to his friend. ‘You might have knowed that the gentleman wanted the door shut, without being told, I think.’

Mr Short obeyed, observing under his breath that his friend seemed unusually ‘cranky,’ and expressing a hope that there was no dairy in the neighbourhood, or his temper would certainly spoil its contents.

The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and intimated by an emphatic nod of his head that he expected them to be seated. Messrs Codlin and Short, after looking at each other with considerable doubt and indecision, at length sat down—each on the extreme edge of the chair pointed out to him—and held their hats very tight, while the single gentleman filled a couple of glasses from a bottle on the table beside him, and presented them in due form.

‘You’re pretty well browned by the sun, both of you,’ said their entertainer. ‘Have you been travelling?’

Mr Short replied in the affirmative with a nod and a smile. Mr Codlin added a corroborative nod and a short groan, as if he still felt the weight of the Temple on his shoulders.

‘To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?’ pursued the single gentleman.

‘Yes, sir,’ returned Short, ‘pretty nigh all over the West of England.’

‘I have talked to men of your craft from North, East, and South,’ returned their host, in rather a hasty manner; ‘but I never lighted on any from the West before.’

‘It’s our reg’lar summer circuit is the West, master,’ said Short; ‘that’s where it is. We takes the East of London in the spring and winter, and the West of England in the summer time. Many’s the hard day’s walking in rain and mud, and with never a penny earned, we’ve had down in the West.’

‘Let me fill your glass again.’

‘Much obleeged to you sir, I think I will,’ said Mr Codlin, suddenly thrusting in his own and turning Short’s aside. ‘I’m the sufferer, sir, in all the travelling, and in all the staying at home. In town or country, wet or dry, hot or cold, Tom Codlin suffers. But Tom Codlin isn’t to complain for all that. Oh, no! Short may complain, but if Codlin grumbles by so much as a word—oh dear, down with him, down with him directly. It isn’t his place to grumble. That’s quite out of the question.’

‘Codlin an’t without his usefulness,’ observed Short with an arch look, ‘but he don’t always keep his eyes open. He falls asleep sometimes, you know. Remember them last races, Tommy.’

‘Will you never leave off aggravating a man?’ said Codlin. ‘It’s very like I was asleep when five-and-tenpence was collected, in one round, isn’t it? I was attending to my business, and couldn’t have my eyes in twenty places at once, like a peacock, no more than you could. If I an’t a match for an old man and a young child, you an’t neither, so don’t throw that out against me, for the cap fits your head quite as correct as it fits mine.’

‘You may as well drop the subject, Tom,’ said Short. ‘It isn’t particular agreeable to the gentleman, I dare say.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have brought it up,’ returned Mr Codlin; ‘and I ask the gentleman’s pardon on your account, as a giddy chap that likes to hear himself talk, and don’t much care what he talks about, so that he does talk.’

Their entertainer had sat perfectly quiet in the beginning of this dispute, looking first at one man and then at the other, as if he were lying in wait for an opportunity of putting some further question, or reverting to that from which the discourse had strayed. But, from the point where Mr Codlin was charged with sleepiness, he had shown an increasing interest in the discussion: which now attained a very high pitch.

‘You are the two men I want,’ he said, ‘the two men I have been looking for, and searching after! Where are that old man and that child you speak of?’

‘Sir?’ said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend.

‘The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you—where are they? It will be worth your while to speak out, I assure you; much better worth your while than you believe. They left you, you say—at those races, as I understand. They have been traced to that place, and there lost sight of. Have you no clue, can you suggest no clue, to their recovery?’

‘Did I always say, Thomas,’ cried Short, turning with a look of amazement to his friend, ‘that there was sure to be an inquiry after them two travellers?’

‘YOU said!’ returned Mr Codlin. ‘Did I always say that that ‘ere blessed child was the most interesting I ever see? Did I always say I loved her, and doated on her? Pretty creetur, I think I hear her now. “Codlin’s my friend,” she says, with a tear of gratitude a trickling down her little eye; “Codlin’s my friend,” she says—“not Short. Short’s very well,” she says; “I’ve no quarrel with Short; he means kind, I dare say; but Codlin,” she says, “has the feelings for my money, though he mayn’t look it.”’

Repeating these words with great emotion, Mr Codlin rubbed the bridge of his nose with his coat-sleeve, and shaking his head mournfully from side to side, left the single gentleman to infer that, from the moment when he lost sight of his dear young charge, his peace of mind and happiness had fled.

‘Good Heaven!’ said the single gentleman, pacing up and down the room, ‘have I found these men at last, only to discover that they can give me no information or assistance! It would have been better to have lived on, in hope, from day to day, and never to have lighted on them, than to have my expectations scattered thus.’

‘Stay a minute,’ said Short. ‘A man of the name of Jerry—you know Jerry, Thomas?’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me of Jerrys,’ replied Mr Codlin. ‘How can I care a pinch of snuff for Jerrys, when I think of that ‘ere darling child? “Codlin’s my friend,” she says, “dear, good, kind Codlin, as is always a devising pleasures for me! I don’t object to Short,” she says, “but I cotton to Codlin.” Once,’ said that gentleman reflectively, ‘she called me Father Codlin. I thought I should have bust!’

‘A man of the name of Jerry, sir,’ said Short, turning from his selfish colleague to their new acquaintance, ‘wot keeps a company of dancing dogs, told me, in a accidental sort of way, that he had seen the old gentleman in connexion with a travelling wax-work, unbeknown to him. As they’d given us the slip, and nothing had come of it, and this was down in the country that he’d been seen, I took no measures about it, and asked no questions—But I can, if you like.’

‘Is this man in town?’ said the impatient single gentleman. ‘Speak faster.’

‘No he isn’t, but he will be to-morrow, for he lodges in our house,’ replied Mr Short rapidly.

‘Then bring him here,’ said the single gentleman. ‘Here’s a sovereign a-piece. If I can find these people through your means, it is but a prelude to twenty more. Return to me to-morrow, and keep your own counsel on this subject—though I need hardly tell you that; for you’ll do so for your own sakes. Now, give me your address, and leave me.’

The address was given, the two men departed, the crowd went with them, and the single gentleman for two mortal hours walked in uncommon agitation up and down his room, over the wondering heads of Mr Swiveller and Miss Sally Brass.

CHAPTER 38

Kit—for it happens at this juncture, not only that we have breathing time to follow his fortunes, but that the necessities of these adventures so adapt themselves to our ease and inclination as to call upon us imperatively to pursue the track we most desire to take—Kit, while the matters treated of in the last fifteen chapters were yet in progress, was, as the reader may suppose, gradually familiarising himself more and more with Mr and Mrs Garland, Mr Abel, the pony, and Barbara, and gradually coming to consider them one and all as his particular private friends, and Abel Cottage, Finchley, as his own proper home.

Stay—the words are written, and may go, but if they convey any notion that Kit, in the plentiful board and comfortable lodging of his new abode, began to think slightingly of the poor fare and furniture of his old dwelling, they do their office badly and commit injustice. Who so mindful of those he left at home—albeit they were but a mother and two young babies—as Kit? What boastful father in the fulness of his heart ever related such wonders of his infant prodigy, as Kit never wearied of telling Barbara in the evening time, concerning little Jacob? Was there ever such a mother as Kit’s mother, on her son’s showing; or was there ever such comfort in poverty as in the poverty of Kit’s family, if any correct judgment might be arrived at, from his own glowing account!

And let me linger in this place, for an instant, to remark that if ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the truer metal and bear the stamp of Heaven. The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as part of himself: as trophies of his birth and power; his associations with them are associations of pride and wealth and triumph; the poor man’s attachment to the tenements he holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold, or precious stone; he has no property but in the affections of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place.

Oh! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember this—if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is lost, or rather never found—if they would but turn aside from the wide thoroughfares and great houses, and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only Poverty may walk—many low roofs would point more truly to the sky, than the loftiest steeple that now rears proudly up from the midst of guilt, and crime, and horrible disease, to mock them by its contrast. In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital, and jail, this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for years. It is no light matter—no outcry from the working vulgar—no mere question of the people’s health and comforts that may be whistled down on Wednesday nights. In love of home, the love of country has its rise; and who are the truer patriots or the better in time of need—those who venerate the land, owning its wood, and stream, and earth, and all that they produce? or those who love their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide domain!

Kit knew nothing about such questions, but he knew that his old home was a very poor place, and that his new one was very unlike it, and yet he was constantly looking back with grateful satisfaction and affectionate anxiety, and often indited square-folded letters to his mother, enclosing a shilling or eighteenpence or such other small remittance, which Mr Abel’s liberality enabled him to make. Sometimes being in the neighbourhood, he had leisure to call upon her, and then great was the joy and pride of Kit’s mother, and extremely noisy the satisfaction of little Jacob and the baby, and cordial the congratulations of the whole court, who listened with admiring ears to the accounts of Abel Cottage, and could never be told too much of its wonders and magnificence.

Although Kit was in the very highest favour with the old lady and gentleman, and Mr Abel, and Barbara, it is certain that no member of the family evinced such a remarkable partiality for him as the self-willed pony, who, from being the most obstinate and opinionated pony on the face of the earth, was, in his hands, the meekest and most tractable of animals. It is true that in exact proportion as he became manageable by Kit he became utterly ungovernable by anybody else (as if he had determined to keep him in the family at all risks and hazards), and that, even under the guidance of his favourite, he would sometimes perform a great variety of strange freaks and capers, to the extreme discomposure of the old lady’s nerves; but as Kit always represented that this was only his fun, or a way he had of showing his attachment to his employers, Mrs Garland gradually suffered herself to be persuaded into the belief, in which she at last became so strongly confirmed, that if, in one of these ebullitions, he had overturned the chaise, she would have been quite satisfied that he did it with the very best intentions.

Besides becoming in a short time a perfect marvel in all stable matters, Kit soon made himself a very tolerable gardener, a handy fellow within doors, and an indispensable attendant on Mr Abel, who every day gave him some new proof of his confidence and approbation. Mr Witherden the notary, too, regarded him with a friendly eye; and even Mr Chuckster would sometimes condescend to give him a slight nod, or to honour him with that peculiar form of recognition which is called ‘taking a sight,’ or to favour him with some other salute combining pleasantry with patronage.

One morning Kit drove Mr Abel to the Notary’s office, as he sometimes did, and having set him down at the house, was about to drive off to a livery stable hard by, when this same Mr Chuckster emerged from the office door, and cried ‘Woa-a-a-a-a-a!’—dwelling upon the note a long time, for the purpose of striking terror into the pony’s heart, and asserting the supremacy of man over the inferior animals.

‘Pull up, Snobby,’ cried Mr Chuckster, addressing himself to Kit. ‘You’re wanted inside here.’

‘Has Mr Abel forgotten anything, I wonder?’ said Kit as he dismounted.

‘Ask no questions, Snobby,’ returned Mr Chuckster, ‘but go and see. Woa-a-a then, will you? If that pony was mine, I’d break him.’

‘You must be very gentle with him, if you please,’ said Kit, ‘or you’ll find him troublesome. You’d better not keep on pulling his ears, please. I know he won’t like it.’

To this remonstrance Mr Chuckster deigned no other answer, than addressing Kit with a lofty and distant air as ‘young feller,’ and requesting him to cut and come again with all speed. The ‘young feller’ complying, Mr Chuckster put his hands in his pockets, and tried to look as if he were not minding the pony, but happened to be lounging there by accident.

Kit scraped his shoes very carefully (for he had not yet lost his reverence for the bundles of papers and the tin boxes,) and tapped at the office-door, which was quickly opened by the Notary himself.

‘Oh! come in, Christopher,’ said Mr Witherden.

‘Is that the lad?’ asked an elderly gentleman, but of a stout, bluff figure—who was in the room.

‘That’s the lad,’ said Mr Witherden. ‘He fell in with my client, Mr Garland, sir, at this very door. I have reason to think he is a good lad, sir, and that you may believe what he says. Let me introduce Mr Abel Garland, sir—his young master; my articled pupil, sir, and most particular friend:—my most particular friend, sir,’ repeated the Notary, drawing out his silk handkerchief and flourishing it about his face.

‘Your servant, sir,’ said the stranger gentleman.

‘Yours, sir, I’m sure,’ replied Mr Abel mildly. ‘You were wishing to speak to Christopher, sir?’

‘Yes, I was. Have I your permission?’

‘By all means.’

‘My business is no secret; or I should rather say it need be no secret here,’ said the stranger, observing that Mr Abel and the Notary were preparing to retire. ‘It relates to a dealer in curiosities with whom he lived, and in whom I am earnestly and warmly interested. I have been a stranger to this country, gentlemen, for very many years, and if I am deficient in form and ceremony, I hope you will forgive me.’

‘No forgiveness is necessary, sir;—none whatever,’ replied the Notary. And so said Mr Abel.

‘I have been making inquiries in the neighbourhood in which his old master lived,’ said the stranger, ‘and I learn that he was served by this lad. I have found out his mother’s house, and have been directed by her to this place as the nearest in which I should be likely to find him. That’s the cause of my presenting myself here this morning.’

‘I am very glad of any cause, sir,’ said the Notary, ‘which procures me the honour of this visit.’

‘Sir,’ retorted the stranger, ‘you speak like a mere man of the world, and I think you something better. Therefore, pray do not sink your real character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.’

‘Hem!’ coughed the Notary. ‘You’re a plain speaker, sir.’

‘And a plain dealer,’ returned the stranger. ‘It may be my long absence and inexperience that lead me to the conclusion; but if plain speakers are scarce in this part of the world, I fancy plain dealers are still scarcer. If my speaking should offend you, sir, my dealing, I hope, will make amends.’

Mr Witherden seemed a little disconcerted by the elderly gentleman’s mode of conducting the dialogue; and as for Kit, he looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment: wondering what kind of language he would address to him, if he talked in that free and easy way to a Notary. It was with no harshness, however, though with something of constitutional irritability and haste, that he turned to Kit and said:

‘If you think, my lad, that I am pursuing these inquiries with any other view than that of serving and reclaiming those I am in search of, you do me a very great wrong, and deceive yourself. Don’t be deceived, I beg of you, but rely upon my assurance. The fact is, gentlemen,’ he added, turning again to the Notary and his pupil, ‘that I am in a very painful and wholly unexpected position. I came to this city with a darling object at my heart, expecting to find no obstacle or difficulty in the way of its attainment. I find myself suddenly checked and stopped short, in the execution of my design, by a mystery which I cannot penetrate. Every effort I have made to penetrate it, has only served to render it darker and more obscure; and I am afraid to stir openly in the matter, lest those whom I anxiously pursue, should fly still farther from me. I assure you that if you could give me any assistance, you would not be sorry to do so, if you knew how greatly I stand in need of it, and what a load it would relieve me from.’

There was a simplicity in this confidence which occasioned it to find a quick response in the breast of the good-natured Notary, who replied, in the same spirit, that the stranger had not mistaken his desire, and that if he could be of service to him, he would, most readily.

Kit was then put under examination and closely questioned by the unknown gentleman, touching his old master and the child, their lonely way of life, their retired habits, and strict seclusion. The nightly absence of the old man, the solitary existence of the child at those times, his illness and recovery, Quilp’s possession of the house, and their sudden disappearance, were all the subjects of much questioning and answer. Finally, Kit informed the gentleman that the premises were now to let, and that a board upon the door referred all inquirers to Mr Sampson Brass, Solicitor, of Bevis Marks, from whom he might perhaps learn some further particulars.

‘Not by inquiry,’ said the gentleman shaking his head. ‘I live there.’

‘Live at Brass’s the attorney’s!’ cried Mr Witherden in some surprise: having professional knowledge of the gentleman in question.

‘Aye,’ was the reply. ‘I entered on his lodgings t’other day, chiefly because I had seen this very board. It matters little to me where I live, and I had a desperate hope that some intelligence might be cast in my way there, which would not reach me elsewhere. Yes, I live at Brass’s—more shame for me, I suppose?’

‘That’s a mere matter of opinion,’ said the Notary, shrugging his shoulders. ‘He is looked upon as rather a doubtful character.’

‘Doubtful?’ echoed the other. ‘I am glad to hear there’s any doubt about it. I supposed that had been thoroughly settled, long ago. But will you let me speak a word or two with you in private?’

Mr Witherden consenting, they walked into that gentleman’s private closet, and remained there, in close conversation, for some quarter of an hour, when they returned into the outer office. The stranger had left his hat in Mr Witherden’s room, and seemed to have established himself in this short interval on quite a friendly footing.

‘I’ll not detain you any longer now,’ he said, putting a crown into Kit’s hand, and looking towards the Notary. ‘You shall hear from me again. Not a word of this, you know, except to your master and mistress.’

‘Mother, sir, would be glad to know—’ said Kit, faltering.

‘Glad to know what?’

‘Anything—so that it was no harm—about Miss Nell.’

‘Would she? Well then, you may tell her if she can keep a secret. But mind, not a word of this to anybody else. Don’t forget that. Be particular.’

‘I’ll take care, sir,’ said Kit. ‘Thankee, sir, and good morning.’

Now, it happened that the gentleman, in his anxiety to impress upon Kit that he was not to tell anybody what had passed between them, followed him out to the door to repeat his caution, and it further happened that at that moment the eyes of Mr Richard Swiveller were turned in that direction, and beheld his mysterious friend and Kit together.

It was quite an accident, and the way in which it came about was this. Mr Chuckster, being a gentleman of a cultivated taste and refined spirit, was one of that Lodge of Glorious Apollos whereof Mr Swiveller was Perpetual Grand. Mr Swiveller, passing through the street in the execution of some Brazen errand, and beholding one of his Glorious Brotherhood intently gazing on a pony, crossed over to give him that fraternal greeting with which Perpetual Grands are, by the very constitution of their office, bound to cheer and encourage their disciples. He had scarcely bestowed upon him his blessing, and followed it with a general remark touching the present state and prospects of the weather, when, lifting up his eyes, he beheld the single gentleman of Bevis Marks in earnest conversation with Christopher Nubbles.

‘Hallo!’ said Dick, ‘who is that?’

‘He called to see my Governor this morning,’ replied Mr Chuckster; ‘beyond that, I don’t know him from Adam.’

‘At least you know his name?’ said Dick.

To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming a Glorious Apollo, that he was ‘everlastingly blessed’ if he did.

‘All I know, my dear feller,’ said Mr Chuckster, running his fingers through his hair, ‘is, that he is the cause of my having stood here twenty minutes, for which I hate him with a mortal and undying hatred, and would pursue him to the confines of eternity if I could afford the time.’

While they were thus discoursing, the subject of their conversation (who had not appeared to recognise Mr Richard Swiveller) re-entered the house, and Kit came down the steps and joined them; to whom Mr Swiveller again propounded his inquiry with no better success.

‘He is a very nice gentleman, Sir,’ said Kit, ‘and that’s all I know about him.’

Mr Chuckster waxed wroth at this answer, and without applying the remark to any particular case, mentioned, as a general truth, that it was expedient to break the heads of Snobs, and to tweak their noses. Without expressing his concurrence in this sentiment, Mr Swiveller after a few moments of abstraction inquired which way Kit was driving, and, being informed, declared it was his way, and that he would trespass on him for a lift. Kit would gladly have declined the proffered honour, but as Mr Swiveller was already established in the seat beside him, he had no means of doing so, otherwise than by a forcible ejectment, and therefore, drove briskly off—so briskly indeed, as to cut short the leave-taking between Mr Chuckster and his Grand Master, and to occasion the former gentleman some inconvenience from having his corns squeezed by the impatient pony.

As Whisker was tired of standing, and Mr Swiveller was kind enough to stimulate him by shrill whistles, and various sporting cries, they rattled off at too sharp a pace to admit of much conversation: especially as the pony, incensed by Mr Swiveller’s admonitions, took a particular fancy for the lamp-posts and cart-wheels, and evinced a strong desire to run on the pavement and rasp himself against the brick walls. It was not, therefore, until they had arrived at the stable, and the chaise had been extricated from a very small doorway, into which the pony dragged it under the impression that he could take it along with him into his usual stall, that Mr Swiveller found time to talk.

‘It’s hard work,’ said Richard. ‘What do you say to some beer?’

Kit at first declined, but presently consented, and they adjourned to the neighbouring bar together.

‘We’ll drink our friend what’s-his-name,’ said Dick, holding up the bright frothy pot; ‘—that was talking to you this morning, you know—I know him—a good fellow, but eccentric—very—here’s what’s-his-name!’

Kit pledged him.

‘He lives in my house,’ said Dick; ‘at least in the house occupied by the firm in which I’m a sort of a—of a managing partner—a difficult fellow to get anything out of, but we like him—we like him.’

‘I must be going, sir, if you please,’ said Kit, moving away.

‘Don’t be in a hurry, Christopher,’ replied his patron, ‘we’ll drink your mother.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘An excellent woman that mother of yours, Christopher,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘Who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place to make it well? My mother. A charming woman. He’s a liberal sort of fellow. We must get him to do something for your mother. Does he know her, Christopher?’

Kit shook his head, and glancing slyly at his questioner, thanked him, and made off before he could say another word.

‘Humph!’ said Mr Swiveller pondering, ‘this is queer. Nothing but mysteries in connection with Brass’s house. I’ll keep my own counsel, however. Everybody and anybody has been in my confidence as yet, but now I think I’ll set up in business for myself. Queer—very queer!’

After pondering deeply and with a face of exceeding wisdom for some time, Mr Swiveller drank some more of the beer, and summoning a small boy who had been watching his proceedings, poured forth the few remaining drops as a libation on the gravel, and bade him carry the empty vessel to the bar with his compliments, and above all things to lead a sober and temperate life, and abstain from all intoxicating and exciting liquors. Having given him this piece of moral advice for his trouble (which, as he wisely observed, was far better than half-pence) the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollos thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered away: still pondering as he went.

CHAPTER 39

All that day, though he waited for Mr Abel until evening, Kit kept clear of his mother’s house, determined not to anticipate the pleasures of the morrow, but to let them come in their full rush of delight; for to-morrow was the great and long looked-for epoch in his life—to-morrow was the end of his first quarter—the day of receiving, for the first time, one fourth part of his annual income of Six Pounds in one vast sum of Thirty Shillings—to-morrow was to be a half-holiday devoted to a whirl of entertainments, and little Jacob was to know what oysters meant, and to see a play.

All manner of incidents combined in favour of the occasion: not only had Mr and Mrs Garland forewarned him that they intended to make no deduction for his outfit from the great amount, but to pay it him unbroken in all its gigantic grandeur; not only had the unknown gentleman increased the stock by the sum of five shillings, which was a perfect god-send and in itself a fortune; not only had these things come to pass which nobody could have calculated upon, or in their wildest dreams have hoped; but it was Barbara’s quarter too—Barbara’s quarter, that very day—and Barbara had a half-holiday as well as Kit, and Barbara’s mother was going to make one of the party, and to take tea with Kit’s mother, and cultivate her acquaintance.

To be sure Kit looked out of his window very early that morning to see which way the clouds were flying, and to be sure Barbara would have been at hers too, if she had not sat up so late over-night, starching and ironing small pieces of muslin, and crimping them into frills, and sewing them on to other pieces to form magnificent wholes for next day’s wear. But they were both up very early for all that, and had small appetites for breakfast and less for dinner, and were in a state of great excitement when Barbara’s mother came in, with astonishing accounts of the fineness of the weather out of doors (but with a very large umbrella notwithstanding, for people like Barbara’s mother seldom make holiday without one), and when the bell rang for them to go up stairs and receive their quarter’s money in gold and silver.

Well, wasn’t Mr Garland kind when he said ‘Christopher, here’s your money, and you have earned it well;’ and wasn’t Mrs Garland kind when she said ‘Barbara, here’s yours, and I’m much pleased with you;’ and didn’t Kit sign his name bold to his receipt, and didn’t Barbara sign her name all a trembling to hers; and wasn’t it beautiful to see how Mrs Garland poured out Barbara’s mother a glass of wine; and didn’t Barbara’s mother speak up when she said ‘Here’s blessing you, ma’am, as a good lady, and you, sir, as a good gentleman, and Barbara, my love to you, and here’s towards you, Mr Christopher;’ and wasn’t she as long drinking it as if it had been a tumblerful; and didn’t she look genteel, standing there with her gloves on; and wasn’t there plenty of laughing and talking among them as they reviewed all these things upon the top of the coach, and didn’t they pity the people who hadn’t got a holiday!

But Kit’s mother, again—wouldn’t anybody have supposed she had come of a good stock and been a lady all her life! There she was, quite ready to receive them, with a display of tea-things that might have warmed the heart of a china-shop; and little Jacob and the baby in such a state of perfection that their clothes looked as good as new, though Heaven knows they were old enough! Didn’t she say before they had sat down five minutes that Barbara’s mother was exactly the sort of lady she expected, and didn’t Barbara’s mother say that Kit’s mother was the very picture of what she had expected, and didn’t Kit’s mother compliment Barbara’s mother on Barbara, and didn’t Barbara’s mother compliment Kit’s mother on Kit, and wasn’t Barbara herself quite fascinated with little Jacob, and did ever a child show off when he was wanted, as that child did, or make such friends as he made!

‘And we are both widows too!’ said Barbara’s mother. ‘We must have been made to know each other.’

‘I haven’t a doubt about it,’ returned Mrs Nubbles. ‘And what a pity it is we didn’t know each other sooner.’

‘But then, you know, it’s such a pleasure,’ said Barbara’s mother, ‘to have it brought about by one’s son and daughter, that it’s fully made up for. Now, an’t it?’

To this, Kit’s mother yielded her full assent, and tracing things back from effects to causes, they naturally reverted to their deceased husbands, respecting whose lives, deaths, and burials, they compared notes, and discovered sundry circumstances that tallied with wonderful exactness; such as Barbara’s father having been exactly four years and ten months older than Kit’s father, and one of them having died on a Wednesday and the other on a Thursday, and both of them having been of a very fine make and remarkably good-looking, with other extraordinary coincidences. These recollections being of a kind calculated to cast a shadow on the brightness of the holiday, Kit diverted the conversation to general topics, and they were soon in great force again, and as merry as before. Among other things, Kit told them about his old place, and the extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to Barbara a thousand times already); but the last-named circumstance failed to interest his hearers to anything like the extent he had supposed, and even his mother said (looking accidentally at Barbara at the same time) that there was no doubt Miss Nell was very pretty, but she was but a child after all, and there were many young women quite as pretty as she; and Barbara mildly observed that she should think so, and that she never could help believing Mr Christopher must be under a mistake—which Kit wondered at very much, not being able to conceive what reason she had for doubting him. Barbara’s mother too, observed that it was very common for young folks to change at about fourteen or fifteen, and whereas they had been very pretty before, to grow up quite plain; which truth she illustrated by many forcible examples, especially one of a young man, who, being a builder with great prospects, had been particular in his attentions to Barbara, but whom Barbara would have nothing to say to; which (though everything happened for the best) she almost thought was a pity. Kit said he thought so too, and so he did honestly, and he wondered what made Barbara so silent all at once, and why his mother looked at him as if he shouldn’t have said it.

However, it was high time now to be thinking of the play; for which great preparation was required, in the way of shawls and bonnets, not to mention one handkerchief full of oranges and another of apples, which took some time tying up, in consequence of the fruit having a tendency to roll out at the corners. At length, everything was ready, and they went off very fast; Kit’s mother carrying the baby, who was dreadfully wide awake, and Kit holding little Jacob in one hand, and escorting Barbara with the other—a state of things which occasioned the two mothers, who walked behind, to declare that they looked quite family folks, and caused Barbara to blush and say, ‘Now don’t, mother!’ But Kit said she had no call to mind what they said; and indeed she need not have had, if she had known how very far from Kit’s thoughts any love-making was. Poor Barbara!

At last they got to the theatre, which was Astley’s: and in some two minutes after they had reached the yet unopened door, little Jacob was squeezed flat, and the baby had received divers concussions, and Barbara’s mother’s umbrella had been carried several yards off and passed back to her over the shoulders of the people, and Kit had hit a man on the head with the handkerchief of apples for ‘scrowdging’ his parent with unnecessary violence, and there was a great uproar. But, when they were once past the pay-place and tearing away for very life with their checks in their hands, and, above all, when they were fairly in the theatre, and seated in such places that they couldn’t have had better if they had picked them out, and taken them beforehand, all this was looked upon as quite a capital joke, and an essential part of the entertainment.

Dear, dear, what a place it looked, that Astley’s; with all the paint, gilding, and looking-glass; the vague smell of horses suggestive of coming wonders; the curtain that hid such gorgeous mysteries; the clean white sawdust down in the circus; the company coming in and taking their places; the fiddlers looking carelessly up at them while they tuned their instruments, as if they didn’t want the play to begin, and knew it all beforehand! What a glow was that, which burst upon them all, when that long, clear, brilliant row of lights came slowly up; and what the feverish excitement when the little bell rang and the music began in good earnest, with strong parts for the drums, and sweet effects for the triangles! Well might Barbara’s mother say to Kit’s mother that the gallery was the place to see from, and wonder it wasn’t much dearer than the boxes; well might Barbara feel doubtful whether to laugh or cry, in her flutter of delight.

Then the play itself! the horses which little Jacob believed from the first to be alive, and the ladies and gentlemen of whose reality he could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or heard anything at all like them—the firing, which made Barbara wink—the forlorn lady, who made her cry—the tyrant, who made her tremble—the man who sang the song with the lady’s-maid and danced the chorus, who made her laugh—the pony who reared up on his hind legs when he saw the murderer, and wouldn’t hear of walking on all fours again until he was taken into custody—the clown who ventured on such familiarities with the military man in boots—the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty ribbons and came down safe upon the horse’s back—everything was delightful, splendid, and surprising! Little Jacob applauded till his hands were sore; Kit cried ‘an-kor’ at the end of everything, the three-act piece included; and Barbara’s mother beat her umbrella on the floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to the gingham.

In the midst of all these fascinations, Barbara’s thoughts seemed to have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for, when they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an hysterical simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who jumped over the ribbons.

‘As handsome as her?’ said Kit. ‘Double as handsome.’

‘Oh Christopher! I’m sure she was the beautifullest creature ever was,’ said Barbara.

‘Nonsense!’ returned Kit. ‘She was well enough, I don’t deny that; but think how she was dressed and painted, and what a difference that made. Why YOU are a good deal better looking than her, Barbara.’

‘Oh Christopher!’ said Barbara, looking down.

‘You are, any day,’ said Kit, ‘—and so’s your mother.’

Poor Barbara!

What was all this though—even all this—to the extraordinary dissipation that ensued, when Kit, walking into an oyster-shop as bold as if he lived there, and not so much as looking at the counter or the man behind it, led his party into a box—a private box, fitted up with red curtains, white table-cloth, and cruet-stand complete—and ordered a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who acted as waiter and called him, him Christopher Nubbles, ‘sir,’ to bring three dozen of his largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it! Yes, Kit told this gentleman to look sharp, and he not only said he would look sharp, but he actually did, and presently came running back with the newest loaves, and the freshest butter, and the largest oysters, ever seen. Then said Kit to this gentleman, ‘a pot of beer’—just so—and the gentleman, instead of replying, ‘Sir, did you address that language to me?’ only said, ‘Pot o’ beer, sir? Yes, sir,’ and went off and fetched it, and put it on the table in a small decanter-stand, like those which blind-men’s dogs carry about the streets in their mouths, to catch the half-pence in; and both Kit’s mother and Barbara’s mother declared as he turned away that he was one of the slimmest and gracefullest young men she had ever looked upon.

Then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and there was Barbara, that foolish Barbara, declaring that she could not eat more than two, and wanting more pressing than you would believe before she would eat four: though her mother and Kit’s mother made up for it pretty well, and ate and laughed and enjoyed themselves so thoroughly that it did Kit good to see them, and made him laugh and eat likewise from strong sympathy. But the greatest miracle of the night was little Jacob, who ate oysters as if he had been born and bred to the business—sprinkled the pepper and the vinegar with a discretion beyond his years—and afterwards built a grotto on the table with the shells. There was the baby too, who had never closed an eye all night, but had sat as good as gold, trying to force a large orange into his mouth, and gazing intently at the lights in the chandelier—there he was, sitting up in his mother’s lap, staring at the gas without winking, and making indentations in his soft visage with an oyster-shell, to that degree that a heart of iron must have loved him! In short, there never was a more successful supper; and when Kit ordered in a glass of something hot to finish with, and proposed Mr and Mrs Garland before sending it round, there were not six happier people in all the world.

But all happiness has an end—hence the chief pleasure of its next beginning—and as it was now growing late, they agreed it was time to turn their faces homewards. So, after going a little out of their way to see Barbara and Barbara’s mother safe to a friend’s house where they were to pass the night, Kit and his mother left them at the door, with an early appointment for returning to Finchley next morning, and a great many plans for next quarter’s enjoyment. Then, Kit took little Jacob on his back, and giving his arm to his mother, and a kiss to the baby, they all trudged merrily home together.

CHAPTER 40

Full of that vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next morning, Kit turned out at sunrise, and, with his faith in last night’s enjoyments a little shaken by cool daylight and the return to every-day duties and occupations, went to meet Barbara and her mother at the appointed place. And being careful not to awaken any of the little household, who were yet resting from their unusual fatigues, Kit left his money on the chimney-piece, with an inscription in chalk calling his mother’s attention to the circumstance, and informing her that it came from her dutiful son; and went his way, with a heart something heavier than his pockets, but free from any very great oppression notwithstanding.

Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret? why cannot we push them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put them at once at that convenient distance whence they may be regarded either with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of recollection! why will they hang about us, like the flavour of yesterday’s wine, suggestive of headaches and lassitude, and those good intentions for the future, which, under the earth, form the everlasting pavement of a large estate, and, upon it, usually endure until dinner-time or thereabouts!

Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara’s mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley’s, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? Kit was not surprised to hear her say so—not he. He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would not be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We are all going to the play, or coming home from it.

However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on. By degrees, they began to recall circumstances more and more pleasant in their nature, until, what between talking, walking, and laughing, they reached Finchley in such good heart, that Barbara’s mother declared she never felt less tired or in better spirits. And so said Kit. Barbara had been silent all the way, but she said so too. Poor little Barbara! She was very quiet.

They were at home in such good time that Kit had rubbed down the pony and made him as spruce as a race-horse, before Mr Garland came down to breakfast; which punctual and industrious conduct the old lady, and the old gentleman, and Mr Abel, highly extolled. At his usual hour (or rather at his usual minute and second, for he was the soul of punctuality) Mr Abel walked out, to be overtaken by the London coach, and Kit and the old gentleman went to work in the garden.

This was not the least pleasant of Kit’s employments. On a fine day they were quite a family party; the old lady sitting hard by with her work-basket on a little table; the old gentleman digging, or pruning, or clipping about with a large pair of shears, or helping Kit in some way or other with great assiduity; and Whisker looking on from his paddock in placid contemplation of them all. To-day they were to trim the grape-vine, so Kit mounted half-way up a short ladder, and began to snip and hammer away, while the old gentleman, with a great interest in his proceedings, handed up the nails and shreds of cloth as he wanted them. The old lady and Whisker looked on as usual.

‘Well, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland, ‘and so you have made a new friend, eh?’

‘I beg your pardon, Sir?’ returned Kit, looking down from the ladder.

‘You have made a new friend, I hear from Mr Abel,’ said the old gentleman, ‘at the office!’

‘Oh! Yes Sir, yes. He behaved very handsome, Sir.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ returned the old gentlemen with a smile. ‘He is disposed to behave more handsomely still, though, Christopher.’

‘Indeed, Sir! It’s very kind in him, but I don’t want him to, I’m sure,’ said Kit, hammering stoutly at an obdurate nail.

‘He is rather anxious,’ pursued the old gentleman, ‘to have you in his own service—take care what you’re doing, or you will fall down and hurt yourself.’

‘To have me in his service, Sir?’ cried Kit, who had stopped short in his work and faced about on the ladder like some dexterous tumbler. ‘Why, Sir, I don’t think he can be in earnest when he says that.’

‘Oh! But he is indeed,’ said Mr Garland. ‘And he has told Mr Abel so.’

‘I never heard of such a thing!’ muttered Kit, looking ruefully at his master and mistress. ‘I wonder at him; that I do.’

‘You see, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland, ‘this is a point of much importance to you, and you should understand and consider it in that light. This gentleman is able to give you more money than I—not, I hope, to carry through the various relations of master and servant, more kindness and confidence, but certainly, Christopher, to give you more money.’

‘Well,’ said Kit, ‘after that, Sir—’

‘Wait a moment,’ interposed Mr Garland. ‘That is not all. You were a very faithful servant to your old employers, as I understand, and should this gentleman recover them, as it is his purpose to attempt doing by every means in his power, I have no doubt that you, being in his service, would meet with your reward. Besides,’ added the old gentleman with stronger emphasis, ‘besides having the pleasure of being again brought into communication with those to whom you seem to be very strongly and disinterestedly attached. You must think of all this, Christopher, and not be rash or hasty in your choice.’

Kit did suffer one twinge, one momentary pang, in keeping the resolution he had already formed, when this last argument passed swiftly into his thoughts, and conjured up the realization of all his hopes and fancies. But it was gone in a minute, and he sturdily rejoined that the gentleman must look out for somebody else, as he did think he might have done at first.

‘He has no right to think that I’d be led away to go to him, sir,’ said Kit, turning round again after half a minute’s hammering. ‘Does he think I’m a fool?’

‘He may, perhaps, Christopher, if you refuse his offer,’ said Mr Garland gravely.

‘Then let him, sir,’ retorted Kit; ‘what do I care, sir, what he thinks? why should I care for his thinking, sir, when I know that I should be a fool, and worse than a fool, sir, to leave the kindest master and mistress that ever was or can be, who took me out of the streets a very poor and hungry lad indeed—poorer and hungrier perhaps than even you think for, sir—to go to him or anybody? If Miss Nell was to come back, ma’am,’ added Kit, turning suddenly to his mistress, ‘why that would be another thing, and perhaps if she wanted me, I might ask you now and then to let me work for her when all was done at home. But when she comes back, I see now that she’ll be rich as old master always said she would, and being a rich young lady, what could she want of me? No, no,’ added Kit, shaking his head sorrowfully, ‘she’ll never want me any more, and bless her, I hope she never may, though I should like to see her too!’

Here Kit drove a nail into the wall, very hard—much harder than was necessary—and having done so, faced about again.

‘There’s the pony, sir,’ said Kit—‘Whisker, ma’am (and he knows so well I’m talking about him that he begins to neigh directly, Sir)—would he let anybody come near him but me, ma’am? Here’s the garden, sir, and Mr Abel, ma’am. Would Mr Abel part with me, Sir, or is there anybody that could be fonder of the garden, ma’am? It would break mother’s heart, Sir, and even little Jacob would have sense enough to cry his eyes out, ma’am, if he thought that Mr Abel could wish to part with me so soon, after having told me, only the other day, that he hoped we might be together for years to come—’

There is no telling how long Kit might have stood upon the ladder, addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a note, which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit’s oratorical appearance, she put into her master’s hand.

‘Oh!’ said the old gentleman after reading it, ‘ask the messenger to walk this way.’ Barbara tripping off to do as she was bid, he turned to Kit and said that they would not pursue the subject any further, and that Kit could not be more unwilling to part with them, than they would be to part with Kit; a sentiment which the old lady very generously echoed.

‘At the same time, Christopher,’ added Mr Garland, glancing at the note in his hand, ‘if the gentleman should want to borrow you now and then for an hour or so, or even a day or so, at a time, we must consent to lend you, and you must consent to be lent.—Oh! here is the young gentleman. How do you do, Sir?’

This salutation was addressed to Mr Chuckster, who, with his hat extremely on one side, and his hair a long way beyond it, came swaggering up the walk.

‘Hope I see you well sir,’ returned that gentleman. ‘Hope I see YOU well, ma’am. Charming box this, sir. Delicious country to be sure.’

‘You want to take Kit back with you, I find?’ observed Mr Garland.

‘I have got a chariot-cab waiting on purpose,’ replied the clerk. ‘A very spanking grey in that cab, sir, if you’re a judge of horse-flesh.’

Declining to inspect the spanking grey, on the plea that he was but poorly acquainted with such matters, and would but imperfectly appreciate his beauties, Mr Garland invited Mr Chuckster to partake of a slight repast in the way of lunch. That gentleman readily consenting, certain cold viands, flanked with ale and wine, were speedily prepared for his refreshment.

At this repast, Mr Chuckster exerted his utmost abilities to enchant his entertainers, and impress them with a conviction of the mental superiority of those who dwelt in town; with which view he led the discourse to the small scandal of the day, in which he was justly considered by his friends to shine prodigiously. Thus, he was in a condition to relate the exact circumstances of the difference between the Marquis of Mizzler and Lord Bobby, which it appeared originated in a disputed bottle of champagne, and not in a pigeon-pie, as erroneously reported in the newspapers; neither had Lord Bobby said to the Marquis of Mizzler, ‘Mizzler, one of us two tells a lie, and I’m not the man,’ as incorrectly stated by the same authorities; but ‘Mizzler, you know where I’m to be found, and damme, sir, find me if you want me’—which, of course, entirely changed the aspect of this interesting question, and placed it in a very different light. He also acquainted them with the precise amount of the income guaranteed by the Duke of Thigsberry to Violetta Stetta of the Italian Opera, which it appeared was payable quarterly, and not half-yearly, as the public had been given to understand, and which was EXclusive, and not INclusive (as had been monstrously stated,) of jewellery, perfumery, hair-powder for five footmen, and two daily changes of kid-gloves for a page. Having entreated the old lady and gentleman to set their minds at rest on these absorbing points, for they might rely on his statement being the correct one, Mr Chuckster entertained them with theatrical chit-chat and the court circular; and so wound up a brilliant and fascinating conversation which he had maintained alone, and without any assistance whatever, for upwards of three-quarters of an hour.

‘And now that the nag has got his wind again,’ said Mr Chuckster rising in a graceful manner, ‘I’m afraid I must cut my stick.’

Neither Mr nor Mrs Garland offered any opposition to his tearing himself away (feeling, no doubt, that such a man could ill be spared from his proper sphere of action), and therefore Mr Chuckster and Kit were shortly afterwards upon their way to town; Kit being perched upon the box of the cabriolet beside the driver, and Mr Chuckster seated in solitary state inside, with one of his boots sticking out at each of the front windows.

When they reached the Notary’s house, Kit followed into the office, and was desired by Mr Abel to sit down and wait, for the gentleman who wanted him had gone out, and perhaps might not return for some time. This anticipation was strictly verified, for Kit had had his dinner, and his tea, and had read all the lighter matter in the Law-List, and the Post-Office Directory, and had fallen asleep a great many times, before the gentleman whom he had seen before, came in; which he did at last in a very great hurry.

He was closeted with Mr Witherden for some little time, and Mr Abel had been called in to assist at the conference, before Kit, wondering very much what he was wanted for, was summoned to attend them.

‘Christopher,’ said the gentleman, turning to him directly he entered the room, ‘I have found your old master and young mistress.’

‘No, Sir! Have you, though?’ returned Kit, his eyes sparkling with delight. ‘Where are they, Sir? How are they, Sir? Are they—are they near here?’

‘A long way from here,’ returned the gentleman, shaking his head. ‘But I am going away to-night to bring them back, and I want you to go with me.’

‘Me, Sir?’ cried Kit, full of joy and surprise.

‘The place,’ said the strange gentleman, turning thoughtfully to the Notary, ‘indicated by this man of the dogs, is—how far from here—sixty miles?’

‘From sixty to seventy.’

‘Humph! If we travel post all night, we shall reach there in good time to-morrow morning. Now, the only question is, as they will not know me, and the child, God bless her, would think that any stranger pursuing them had a design upon her grandfather’s liberty—can I do better than take this lad, whom they both know and will readily remember, as an assurance to them of my friendly intentions?’

‘Certainly not,’ replied the Notary. ‘Take Christopher by all means.’

‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Kit, who had listened to this discourse with a lengthening countenance, ‘but if that’s the reason, I’m afraid I should do more harm than good—Miss Nell, Sir, she knows me, and would trust in me, I am sure; but old master—I don’t know why, gentlemen; nobody does—would not bear me in his sight after he had been ill, and Miss Nell herself told me that I must not go near him or let him see me any more. I should spoil all that you were doing if I went, I’m afraid. I’d give the world to go, but you had better not take me, Sir.’

‘Another difficulty!’ cried the impetuous gentleman. ‘Was ever man so beset as I? Is there nobody else that knew them, nobody else in whom they had any confidence? Solitary as their lives were, is there no one person who would serve my purpose?’

‘IS there, Christopher?’ said the Notary.

‘Not one, Sir,’ replied Kit.—‘Yes, though—there’s my mother.’

‘Did they know her?’ said the single gentleman.

‘Know her, Sir! why, she was always coming backwards and forwards. They were as kind to her as they were to me. Bless you, Sir, she expected they’d come back to her house.’

‘Then where the devil is the woman?’ said the impatient gentleman, catching up his hat. ‘Why isn’t she here? Why is that woman always out of the way when she is most wanted?’

In a word, the single gentleman was bursting out of the office, bent upon laying violent hands on Kit’s mother, forcing her into a post-chaise, and carrying her off, when this novel kind of abduction was with some difficulty prevented by the joint efforts of Mr Abel and the Notary, who restrained him by dint of their remonstrances, and persuaded him to sound Kit upon the probability of her being able and willing to undertake such a journey on so short a notice.

This occasioned some doubts on the part of Kit, and some violent demonstrations on that of the single gentleman, and a great many soothing speeches on that of the Notary and Mr Abel. The upshot of the business was, that Kit, after weighing the matter in his mind and considering it carefully, promised, on behalf of his mother, that she should be ready within two hours from that time to undertake the expedition, and engaged to produce her in that place, in all respects equipped and prepared for the journey, before the specified period had expired.

Having given this pledge, which was rather a bold one, and not particularly easy of redemption, Kit lost no time in sallying forth, and taking measures for its immediate fulfilment.

CHAPTER 41

Kit made his way through the crowded streets, dividing the stream of people, dashing across the busy road-ways, diving into lanes and alleys, and stopping or turning aside for nothing, until he came in front of the Old Curiosity Shop, when he came to a stand; partly from habit and partly from being out of breath.

It was a gloomy autumn evening, and he thought the old place had never looked so dismal as in its dreary twilight. The windows broken, the rusty sashes rattling in their frames, the deserted house a dull barrier dividing the glaring lights and bustle of the street into two long lines, and standing in the midst, cold, dark, and empty—presented a cheerless spectacle which mingled harshly with the bright prospects the boy had been building up for its late inmates, and came like a disappointment or misfortune. Kit would have had a good fire roaring up the empty chimneys, lights sparkling and shining through the windows, people moving briskly to and fro, voices in cheerful conversation, something in unison with the new hopes that were astir. He had not expected that the house would wear any different aspect—had known indeed that it could not—but coming upon it in the midst of eager thoughts and expectations, it checked the current in its flow, and darkened it with a mournful shadow.

Kit, however, fortunately for himself, was not learned enough or contemplative enough to be troubled with presages of evil afar off, and, having no mental spectacles to assist his vision in this respect, saw nothing but the dull house, which jarred uncomfortably upon his previous thoughts. So, almost wishing that he had not passed it, though hardly knowing why, he hurried on again, making up by his increased speed for the few moments he had lost.

‘Now, if she should be out,’ thought Kit, as he approached the poor dwelling of his mother, ‘and I not able to find her, this impatient gentleman would be in a pretty taking. And sure enough there’s no light, and the door’s fast. Now, God forgive me for saying so, but if this is Little Bethel’s doing, I wish Little Bethel was—was farther off,’ said Kit checking himself, and knocking at the door.

A second knock brought no reply from within the house; but caused a woman over the way to look out and inquire who that was, awanting Mrs Nubbles.

‘Me,’ said Kit. ‘She’s at—at Little Bethel, I suppose?’—getting out the name of the obnoxious conventicle with some reluctance, and laying a spiteful emphasis upon the words.

The neighbour nodded assent.

‘Then pray tell me where it is,’ said Kit, ‘for I have come on a pressing matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the pulpit.’

It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in question, as none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted thither, and few knew anything more of it than the name. At last, a gossip of Mrs Nubbles’s, who had accompanied her to chapel on one or two occasions when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her devotions, furnished the needful information, which Kit had no sooner obtained than he started off again.

Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite allusion to the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which enabled him to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to the parish church and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto. Kit found it, at last, after some trouble, and pausing at the door to take breath that he might enter with becoming decency, passed into the chapel.

It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a particularly little Bethel—a Bethel of the smallest dimensions—with a small number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a small gentleman (by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was delivering in a by no means small voice, a by no means small sermon, judging of its dimensions by the condition of his audience, which, if their gross amount were but small, comprised a still smaller number of hearers, as the majority were slumbering.

Among these was Kit’s mother, who, finding it matter of extreme difficulty to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night, and feeling their inclination to close strongly backed and seconded by the arguments of the preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness that overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but that she could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost inaudible groan, as if in recognition of the orator’s doctrines. The baby in her arms was as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob, whose youth prevented him from recognising in this prolonged spiritual nourishment anything half as interesting as oysters, was alternately very fast asleep and very wide awake, as his inclination to slumber, or his terror of being personally alluded to in the discourse, gained the mastery over him.

‘And now I’m here,’ thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew which was opposite his mother’s, and on the other side of the little aisle, ‘how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come out! I might as well be twenty miles off. She’ll never wake till it’s all over, and there goes the clock again! If he would but leave off for a minute, or if they’d only sing!’

But there was little encouragement to believe that either event would happen for a couple of hours to come. The preacher went on telling them what he meant to convince them of before he had done, and it was clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises and forgot the other, he was good for that time at least.

In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the chapel, and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front of the clerk’s desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed him—Quilp!

He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp was there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his knees, and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with the accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the ceiling. He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and appeared utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not help feeling, directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend was fastened upon them, and upon nothing else.

But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue his wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his parent, as the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew serious. Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set himself to attract his wandering attention, and this not being a very difficult task (one sneeze effected it), he signed to him to rouse his mother.

Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in a forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over upon the pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs remained inside; and, while he made vehement gestures with his right hand, and held on with his left, stared, or seemed to stare, straight into little Jacob’s eyes, threatening him by his strained look and attitude—so it appeared to the child—that if he so much as moved a muscle, he, the preacher, would be literally, and not figuratively, ‘down upon him’ that instant. In this fearful state of things, distracted by the sudden appearance of Kit, and fascinated by the eyes of the preacher, the miserable Jacob sat bolt upright, wholly incapable of motion, strongly disposed to cry but afraid to do so, and returning his pastor’s gaze until his infant eyes seemed starting from their sockets.

‘If I must do it openly, I must,’ thought Kit. With that he walked softly out of his pew and into his mother’s, and as Mr Swiveller would have observed if he had been present, ‘collared’ the baby without speaking a word.

‘Hush, mother!’ whispered Kit. ‘Come along with me, I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘Where am I?’ said Mrs Nubbles.

‘In this blessed Little Bethel,’ returned her son, peevishly.

‘Blessed indeed!’ cried Mrs Nubbles, catching at the word. ‘Oh, Christopher, how have I been edified this night!’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Kit hastily; ‘but come along, mother, everybody’s looking at us. Don’t make a noise—bring Jacob—that’s right!’

‘Stay, Satan, stay!’ cried the preacher, as Kit was moving off.

‘This gentleman says you’re to stay, Christopher,’ whispered his mother.

‘Stay, Satan, stay!’ roared the preacher again. ‘Tempt not the woman that doth incline her ear to thee, but harken to the voice of him that calleth. He hath a lamb from the fold!’ cried the preacher, raising his voice still higher and pointing to the baby. ‘He beareth off a lamb, a precious lamb! He goeth about, like a wolf in the night season, and inveigleth the tender lambs!’

Kit was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but considering this strong language, and being somewhat excited by the circumstances in which he was placed, he faced round to the pulpit with the baby in his arms, and replied aloud, ‘No, I don’t. He’s my brother.’

‘He’s MY brother!’ cried the preacher.

‘He isn’t,’ said Kit indignantly. ‘How can you say such a thing? And don’t call me names if you please; what harm have I done? I shouldn’t have come to take ‘em away, unless I was obliged, you may depend upon that. I wanted to do it very quiet, but you wouldn’t let me. Now, you have the goodness to abuse Satan and them, as much as you like, Sir, and to let me alone if you please.’

So saying, Kit marched out of the chapel, followed by his mother and little Jacob, and found himself in the open air, with an indistinct recollection of having seen the people wake up and look surprised, and of Quilp having remained, throughout the interruption, in his old attitude, without moving his eyes from the ceiling, or appearing to take the smallest notice of anything that passed.

‘Oh Kit!’ said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘what have you done! I never can go there again—never!’

‘I’m glad of it, mother. What was there in the little bit of pleasure you took last night that made it necessary for you to be low-spirited and sorrowful tonight? That’s the way you do. If you’re happy or merry ever, you come here to say, along with that chap, that you’re sorry for it. More shame for you, mother, I was going to say.’

‘Hush, dear!’ said Mrs Nubbles; ‘you don’t mean what you say I know, but you’re talking sinfulness.’

‘Don’t mean it? But I do mean it!’ retorted Kit. ‘I don’t believe, mother, that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are thought greater sins in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I do believe that those chaps are just about as right and sensible in putting down the one as in leaving off the other—that’s my belief. But I won’t say anything more about it, if you’ll promise not to cry, that’s all; and you take the baby that’s a lighter weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we go along (which we must do pretty quick) I’ll give you the news I bring, which will surprise you a little, I can tell you. There—that’s right. Now you look as if you’d never seen Little Bethel in all your life, as I hope you never will again; and here’s the baby; and little Jacob, you get atop of my back and catch hold of me tight round the neck, and whenever a Little Bethel parson calls you a precious lamb or says your brother’s one, you tell him it’s the truest things he’s said for a twelvemonth, and that if he’d got a little more of the lamb himself, and less of the mint-sauce—not being quite so sharp and sour over it—I should like him all the better. That’s what you’ve got to say to him, Jacob.’

Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and cheering up his mother, the children, and himself, by the one simple process of determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them briskly forward; and on the road home, he related what had passed at the Notary’s house, and the purpose with which he had intruded on the solemnities of Little Bethel.

His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was required of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of which the most prominent were that it was a great honour and dignity to ride in a post-chaise, and that it was a moral impossibility to leave the children behind. But this objection, and a great many others, founded on certain articles of dress being at the wash, and certain other articles having no existence in the wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were overcome by Kit, who opposed to each and every of them, the pleasure of recovering Nell, and the delight it would be to bring her back in triumph.

‘There’s only ten minutes now, mother,’ said Kit when they reached home. ‘There’s a bandbox. Throw in what you want, and we’ll be off directly.’

To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which could, by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out everything likely to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was persuaded to come and stop with the children, and how the children at first cried dismally, and then laughed heartily on being promised all kinds of impossible and unheard-of toys; how Kit’s mother wouldn’t leave off kissing them, and how Kit couldn’t make up his mind to be vexed with her for doing it; would take more time and room than you and I can spare. So, passing over all such matters, it is sufficient to say that within a few minutes after the two hours had expired, Kit and his mother arrived at the Notary’s door, where a post-chaise was already waiting.

‘With four horses I declare!’ said Kit, quite aghast at the preparations. ‘Well you ARE going to do it, mother! Here she is, Sir. Here’s my mother. She’s quite ready, sir.’

‘That’s well,’ returned the gentleman. ‘Now, don’t be in a flutter, ma’am; you’ll be taken great care of. Where’s the box with the new clothing and necessaries for them?’

‘Here it is,’ said the Notary. ‘In with it, Christopher.’

‘All right, Sir,’ replied Kit. ‘Quite ready now, sir.’

‘Then come along,’ said the single gentleman. And thereupon he gave his arm to Kit’s mother, handed her into the carriage as politely as you please, and took his seat beside her.

Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels, and off they rattled, with Kit’s mother hanging out at one window waving a damp pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many messages to little Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a word.

Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with tears in his eyes—not brought there by the departure he witnessed, but by the return to which he looked forward. ‘They went away,’ he thought, ‘on foot with nobody to speak to them or say a kind word at parting, and they’ll come back, drawn by four horses, with this rich gentleman for their friend, and all their troubles over! She’ll forget that she taught me to write—’

Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of, for he stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the chaise had disappeared, and did not return into the house until the Notary and Mr Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the sound of the wheels was no longer distinguishable, had several times wondered what could possibly detain him.

CHAPTER 42

It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant, and to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of the narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back.

In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the two sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with them and her recognition in their trials of something akin to her own loneliness of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such moments a time of deep delight, though the softened pleasure they yielded was of that kind which lives and dies in tears—in one of those wanderings at the quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and earth, and air, and rippling water, and sound of distant bells, claimed kindred with the emotions of the solitary child, and inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of a child’s world or its easy joys—in one of those rambles which had now become her only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into darkness and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene and still, when noise of tongues and glare of garish lights would have been solitude indeed.

The sisters had gone home, and she was alone. She raised her eyes to the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air, and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and more beyond, and more beyond again, until the whole great expanse sparkled with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in immeasurable space, eternal in their numbers as in their changeless and incorruptible existence. She bent over the calm river, and saw them shining in the same majestic order as when the dove beheld them gleaming through the swollen waters, upon the mountain tops down far below, and dead mankind, a million fathoms deep.

The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by the stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders. The time and place awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope—less hope, perhaps, than resignation—on the past, and present, and what was yet before her. Between the old man and herself there had come a gradual separation, harder to bear than any former sorrow. Every evening, and often in the day-time too, he was absent, alone; and although she well knew where he went, and why—too well from the constant drain upon her scanty purse and from his haggard looks—he evaded all inquiry, maintained a strict reserve, and even shunned her presence.

She sat meditating sorrowfully upon this change, and mingling it, as it were, with everything about her, when the distant church-clock bell struck nine. Rising at the sound, she retraced her steps, and turned thoughtfully towards the town.

She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the stream, led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon a ruddy light, and looking forward more attentively, discerned that it proceeded from what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who had made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path, and were sitting or lying round it. As she was too poor to have any fear of them, she did not alter her course (which, indeed, she could not have done without going a long way round), but quickened her pace a little, and kept straight on.

A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the spot, to glance towards the fire. There was a form between it and her, the outline strongly developed against the light, which caused her to stop abruptly. Then, as if she had reasoned with herself and were assured that it could not be, or had satisfied herself that it was not that of the person she had supposed, she went on again.

But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had been carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the voice that spoke—she could not distinguish words—sounded as familiar to her as her own.

She turned, and looked back. The person had been seated before, but was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick on which he rested both hands. The attitude was no less familiar to her than the tone of voice had been. It was her grandfather.

Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his associates could be, and for what purpose they were together. Some vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong inclination it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not advancing across the open field, however, but creeping towards it by the hedge.

In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and standing among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without much danger of being observed.

There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy camps they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy—a tall athletic man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree at a little distance off, looking now at the fire, and now, under his black eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with a watchful but half-concealed interest in their conversation. Of these, her grandfather was one; the others she recognised as the first card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the storm—the man whom they had called Isaac List, and his gruff companion. One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to that people, was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be, empty.

‘Well, are you going?’ said the stout man, looking up from the ground where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather’s face. ‘You were in a mighty hurry a minute ago. Go, if you like. You’re your own master, I hope?’

‘Don’t vex him,’ returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog on the other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that he seemed to be squinting all over; ‘he didn’t mean any offence.’

‘You keep me poor, and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me besides,’ said the old man, turning from one to the other. ‘Ye’ll drive me mad among ye.’

The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child, contrasted with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands he was, smote upon the little listener’s heart. But she constrained herself to attend to all that passed, and to note each look and word.

‘Confound you, what do you mean?’ said the stout man rising a little, and supporting himself on his elbow. ‘Keep you poor! You’d keep us poor if you could, wouldn’t you? That’s the way with you whining, puny, pitiful players. When you lose, you’re martyrs; but I don’t find that when you win, you look upon the other losers in that light. As to plunder!’ cried the fellow, raising his voice—‘Damme, what do you mean by such ungentlemanly language as plunder, eh?’

The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or two short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his unbounded indignation. It was quite plain that he acted the bully, and his friend the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or rather, it would have been to any one but the weak old man; for they exchanged glances quite openly, both with each other and with the gipsy, who grinned his approval of the jest until his white teeth shone again.

The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then said, turning to his assailant:

‘You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know. Don’t be so violent with me. You were, were you not?’

‘Not of plundering among present company! Honour among—among gentlemen, Sir,’ returned the other, who seemed to have been very near giving an awkward termination to the sentence.

‘Don’t be hard upon him, Jowl,’ said Isaac List. ‘He’s very sorry for giving offence. There—go on with what you were saying—go on.’

‘I’m a jolly old tender-hearted lamb, I am,’ cried Mr Jowl, ‘to be sitting here at my time of life giving advice when I know it won’t be taken, and that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains. But that’s the way I’ve gone through life. Experience has never put a chill upon my warm-heartedness.’

‘I tell you he’s very sorry, don’t I?’ remonstrated Isaac List, ‘and that he wishes you’d go on.’

‘Does he wish it?’ said the other.

‘Ay,’ groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and fro. ‘Go on, go on. It’s in vain to fight with it; I can’t do it; go on.’

‘I go on then,’ said Jowl, ‘where I left off, when you got up so quick. If you’re persuaded that it’s time for luck to turn, as it certainly is, and find that you haven’t means enough to try it (and that’s where it is, for you know, yourself, that you never have the funds to keep on long enough at a sitting), help yourself to what seems put in your way on purpose. Borrow it, I say, and, when you’re able, pay it back again.’

‘Certainly,’ Isaac List struck in, ‘if this good lady as keeps the wax-works has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to bed, and doesn’t lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing; quite a Providence, I should call it—but then I’ve been religiously brought up.’

‘You see, Isaac,’ said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing himself closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to come between them; ‘you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out every hour of the day; nothing would be more likely than for one of these strangers to get under the good lady’s bed, or lock himself in the cupboard; suspicion would be very wide, and would fall a long way from the mark, no doubt. I’d give him his revenge to the last farthing he brought, whatever the amount was.’

‘But could you?’ urged Isaac List. ‘Is your bank strong enough?’

‘Strong enough!’ answered the other, with assumed disdain. ‘Here, you Sir, give me that box out of the straw!’

This was addressed to the gipsy, who crawled into the low tent on all fours, and after some rummaging and rustling returned with a cash-box, which the man who had spoken opened with a key he wore about his person.

‘Do you see this?’ he said, gathering up the money in his hand and letting it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water. ‘Do you hear it? Do you know the sound of gold? There, put it back—and don’t talk about banks again, Isaac, till you’ve got one of your own.’

Isaac List, with great apparent humility, protested that he had never doubted the credit of a gentleman so notorious for his honourable dealing as Mr Jowl, and that he had hinted at the production of the box, not for the satisfaction of his doubts, for he could have none, but with a view to being regaled with a sight of so much wealth, which, though it might be deemed by some but an unsubstantial and visionary pleasure, was to one in his circumstances a source of extreme delight, only to be surpassed by its safe depository in his own personal pockets. Although Mr List and Mr Jowl addressed themselves to each other, it was remarkable that they both looked narrowly at the old man, who, with his eyes fixed upon the fire, sat brooding over it, yet listening eagerly—as it seemed from a certain involuntary motion of the head, or twitching of the face from time to time—to all they said.

‘My advice,’ said Jowl, lying down again with a careless air, ‘is plain—I have given it, in fact. I act as a friend. Why should I help a man to the means perhaps of winning all I have, unless I considered him my friend? It’s foolish, I dare say, to be so thoughtful of the welfare of other people, but that’s my constitution, and I can’t help it; so don’t blame me, Isaac List.’

‘I blame you!’ returned the person addressed; ‘not for the world, Mr Jowl. I wish I could afford to be as liberal as you; and, as you say, he might pay it back if he won—and if he lost—’

‘You’re not to take that into consideration at all,’ said Jowl.

‘But suppose he did (and nothing’s less likely, from all I know of chances), why, it’s better to lose other people’s money than one’s own, I hope?’

‘Ah!’ cried Isaac List rapturously, ‘the pleasures of winning! The delight of picking up the money—the bright, shining yellow-boys—and sweeping ‘em into one’s pocket! The deliciousness of having a triumph at last, and thinking that one didn’t stop short and turn back, but went half-way to meet it! The—but you’re not going, old gentleman?’

‘I’ll do it,’ said the old man, who had risen and taken two or three hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly. ‘I’ll have it, every penny.’

‘Why, that’s brave,’ cried Isaac, jumping up and slapping him on the shoulder; ‘and I respect you for having so much young blood left. Ha, ha, ha! Joe Jowl’s half sorry he advised you now. We’ve got the laugh against him. Ha, ha, ha!’

‘He gives me my revenge, mind,’ said the old man, pointing to him eagerly with his shrivelled hand: ‘mind—he stakes coin against coin, down to the last one in the box, be there many or few. Remember that!’

‘I’m witness,’ returned Isaac. ‘I’ll see fair between you.’

‘I have passed my word,’ said Jowl with feigned reluctance, ‘and I’ll keep it. When does this match come off? I wish it was over.—To-night?’

‘I must have the money first,’ said the old man; ‘and that I’ll have to-morrow—’

‘Why not to-night?’ urged Jowl.

‘It’s late now, and I should be flushed and flurried,’ said the old man. ‘It must be softly done. No, to-morrow night.’

‘Then to-morrow be it,’ said Jowl. ‘A drop of comfort here. Luck to the best man! Fill!’

The gipsy produced three tin cups, and filled them to the brim with brandy. The old man turned aside and muttered to himself before he drank. Her own name struck upon the listener’s ear, coupled with some wish so fervent, that he seemed to breathe it in an agony of supplication.

‘God be merciful to us!’ cried the child within herself, ‘and help us in this trying hour! What shall I do to save him!’

The remainder of their conversation was carried on in a lower tone of voice, and was sufficiently concise; relating merely to the execution of the project, and the best precautions for diverting suspicion. The old man then shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew.

They watched his bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly, and when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved their hands, or shouted some brief encouragement. It was not until they had seen him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the distant road, that they turned to each other, and ventured to laugh aloud.

‘So,’ said Jowl, warming his hands at the fire, ‘it’s done at last. He wanted more persuading than I expected. It’s three weeks ago, since we first put this in his head. What’ll he bring, do you think?’

‘Whatever he brings, it’s halved between us,’ returned Isaac List.

The other man nodded. ‘We must make quick work of it,’ he said, ‘and then cut his acquaintance, or we may be suspected. Sharp’s the word.’

List and the gipsy acquiesced. When they had all three amused themselves a little with their victim’s infatuation, they dismissed the subject as one which had been sufficiently discussed, and began to talk in a jargon which the child did not understand. As their discourse appeared to relate to matters in which they were warmly interested, however, she deemed it the best time for escaping unobserved; and crept away with slow and cautious steps, keeping in the shadow of the hedges, or forcing a path through them or the dry ditches, until she could emerge upon the road at a point beyond their range of vision. Then she fled homeward as quickly as she could, torn and bleeding from the wounds of thorns and briars, but more lacerated in mind, and threw herself upon her bed, distracted.

The first idea that flashed upon her mind was flight, instant flight; dragging him from that place, and rather dying of want upon the roadside, than ever exposing him again to such terrible temptations. Then, she remembered that the crime was not to be committed until next night, and there was the intermediate time for thinking, and resolving what to do. Then, she was distracted with a horrible fear that he might be committing it at that moment; with a dread of hearing shrieks and cries piercing the silence of the night; with fearful thoughts of what he might be tempted and led on to do, if he were detected in the act, and had but a woman to struggle with. It was impossible to bear such torture. She stole to the room where the money was, opened the door, and looked in. God be praised! He was not there, and she was sleeping soundly.

She went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed. But who could sleep—sleep! who could lie passively down, distracted by such terrors? They came upon her more and more strongly yet. Half undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old man’s bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and roused him from his sleep.

‘What’s this!’ he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes upon her spectral face.

‘I have had a dreadful dream,’ said the child, with an energy that nothing but such terrors could have inspired. ‘A dreadful, horrible dream. I have had it once before. It is a dream of grey-haired men like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing sleepers of their gold. Up, up!’

The old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who prays.

‘Not to me,’ said the child, ‘not to me—to Heaven, to save us from such deeds! This dream is too real. I cannot sleep, I cannot stay here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come. Up! We must fly.’

He looked at her as if she were a spirit—she might have been for all the look of earth she had—and trembled more and more.

‘There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute,’ said the child. ‘Up! and away with me!’

‘To-night?’ murmured the old man.

‘Yes, to-night,’ replied the child. ‘To-morrow night will be too late. The dream will have come again. Nothing but flight can save us. Up!’

The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat of fear: and, bending before the child as if she had been an angel messenger sent to lead him where she would, made ready to follow her. She took him by the hand and led him on. As they passed the door of the room he had proposed to rob, she shuddered and looked up into his face. What a white face was that, and with what a look did he meet hers!

She took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand as if she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the little stock she had, and hung her basket on her arm. The old man took his wallet from her hands and strapped it on his shoulders—his staff, too, she had brought away—and then she led him forth.

Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their trembling feet passed quickly. Up the steep hill too, crowned by the old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once looked behind.

But as they drew nearer the ruined walls, the moon rose in all her gentle glory, and, from their venerable age, garlanded with ivy, moss, and waving grass, the child looked back upon the sleeping town, deep in the valley’s shade: and on the far-off river with its winding track of light: and on the distant hills; and as she did so, she clasped the hand she held, less firmly, and bursting into tears, fell upon the old man’s neck.

CHAPTER 43

Her momentary weakness past, the child again summoned the resolution which had until now sustained her, and, endeavouring to keep steadily in her view the one idea that they were flying from disgrace and crime, and that her grandfather’s preservation must depend solely on her firmness, unaided by one word of advice or any helping hand, urged him onward and looked back no more.

While he, subdued and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to shrink and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior creature, the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within her, which elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and confidence she had never known. There was no divided responsibility now; the whole burden of their two lives had fallen upon her, and henceforth she must think and act for both. ‘I have saved him,’ she thought. ‘In all dangers and distresses, I will remember that.’

At any other time, the recollection of having deserted the friend who had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of justification—the thought that they were guilty, in appearance, of treachery and ingratitude—even the having parted from the two sisters—would have filled her with sorrow and regret. But now, all other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and anxieties of their wild and wandering life; and the very desperation of their condition roused and stimulated her.

In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate face where thoughtful care already mingled with the winning grace and loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spiritual head, the lips that pressed each other with such high resolve and courage of the heart, the slight figure firm in its bearing and yet so very weak, told their silent tale; but told it only to the wind that rustled by, which, taking up its burden, carried, perhaps to some mother’s pillow, faint dreams of childhood fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that knows no waking.

The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Then, from behind a distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in phantom shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly forms till darkness came again. When it had climbed higher into the sky, and there was warmth in its cheerful beams, they laid them down to sleep, upon a bank, hard by some water.

But Nell retained her grasp upon the old man’s arm, and long after he was slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes. Fatigue stole over her at last; her grasp relaxed, tightened, relaxed again, and they slept side by side.

A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her. A man of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them, and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping. The boat had neither oar nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to which they were harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting on the path.

‘Holloa!’ said the man roughly. ‘What’s the matter here?’

‘We were only asleep, Sir,’ said Nell. ‘We have been walking all night.’

‘A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,’ observed the man who had first accosted them. ‘One of you is a trifle too old for that sort of work, and the other a trifle too young. Where are you going?’

Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which the man inquired if she meant a certain town which he named. Nell, to avoid more questioning, said ‘Yes, that was the place.’

‘Where have you come from?’ was the next question; and this being an easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in which their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to be known to the men or to provoke further inquiry.

‘I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,’ said the man. ‘That’s all. Good day.’

Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure, Nell looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat went on. It had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she saw the men beckoning to her.

‘Did you call to me?’ said Nell, running up to them.

‘You may go with us if you like,’ replied one of those in the boat. ‘We’re going to the same place.’

The child hesitated for a moment. Thinking, as she had thought with great trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she had seen with her grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness for the booty, follow them, and regaining their influence over him, set hers at nought; and that if they went with these men, all traces of them must surely be lost at that spot; determined to accept the offer. The boat came close to the bank again, and before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.

The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes shaded by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country, intersected by running streams, and rich with wooded hills, cultivated land, and sheltered farms. Now and then, a village with its modest spire, thatched roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out from among the trees; and, more than once, a distant town, with great church towers looming through its smoke, and high factories or workshops rising above the mass of houses, would come in view, and, by the length of time it lingered in the distance, show them how slowly they travelled. Their way lay, for the most part, through the low grounds, and open plains; and except these distant places, and occasionally some men working in the fields, or lounging on the bridges under which they passed, to see them creep along, nothing encroached on their monotonous and secluded track.

Nell was rather disheartened, when they stopped at a kind of wharf late in the afternoon, to learn from one of the men that they would not reach their place of destination until next day, and that, if she had no provision with her, she had better buy it there. She had but a few pence, having already bargained with them for some bread, but even of these it was necessary to be very careful, as they were on their way to an utterly strange place, with no resource whatever. A small loaf and a morsel of cheese, therefore, were all she could afford, and with these she took her place in the boat again, and, after half an hour’s delay during which the men were drinking at the public-house, proceeded on the journey.

They brought some beer and spirits into the boat with them, and what with drinking freely before, and again now, were soon in a fair way of being quarrelsome and intoxicated. Avoiding the small cabin, therefore, which was very dark and filthy, and to which they often invited both her and her grandfather, Nell sat in the open air with the old man by her side: listening to their boisterous hosts with a palpitating heart, and almost wishing herself safe on shore again though she should have to walk all night.

They were, in truth, very rugged, noisy fellows, and quite brutal among themselves, though civil enough to their two passengers. Thus, when a quarrel arose between the man who was steering and his friend in the cabin, upon the question who had first suggested the propriety of offering Nell some beer, and when the quarrel led to a scuffle in which they beat each other fearfully, to her inexpressible terror, neither visited his displeasure upon her, but each contented himself with venting it on his adversary, on whom, in addition to blows, he bestowed a variety of compliments, which, happily for the child, were conveyed in terms, to her quite unintelligible. The difference was finally adjusted, by the man who had come out of the cabin knocking the other into it head first, and taking the helm into his own hands, without evincing the least discomposure himself, or causing any in his friend, who, being of a tolerably strong constitution and perfectly inured to such trifles, went to sleep as he was, with his heels upwards, and in a couple of minutes or so was snoring comfortably.

By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold, being but poorly clad, her anxious thoughts were far removed from her own suffering or uneasiness, and busily engaged in endeavouring to devise some scheme for their joint subsistence. The same spirit which had supported her on the previous night, upheld and sustained her now. Her grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the crime to which his madness urged him, was not committed. That was her comfort.

How every circumstance of her short, eventful life, came thronging into her mind, as they travelled on! Slight incidents, never thought of or remembered until now; faces, seen once and ever since forgotten; words scarcely heeded at the time; scenes, of a year ago and those of yesterday, mixing up and linking themselves together; familiar places shaping themselves out in the darkness from things which, when approached, were, of all others, the most remote and most unlike them; sometimes, a strange confusion in her mind relative to the occasion of her being there, and the place to which she was going, and the people she was with; and imagination suggesting remarks and questions which sounded so plainly in her ears, that she would start, and turn, and be almost tempted to reply;—all the fancies and contradictions common in watching and excitement and restless change of place, beset the child.

She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of the man on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had now succeeded to the boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a short pipe, quilted over with string for its longer preservation, requested that she would oblige him with a song.

‘You’ve got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong memory,’ said this gentleman; ‘the voice and eye I’ve got evidence for, and the memory’s an opinion of my own. And I’m never wrong. Let me hear a song this minute.’

‘I don’t think I know one, sir,’ returned Nell.

‘You know forty-seven songs,’ said the man, with a gravity which admitted of no altercation on the subject. ‘Forty-seven’s your number. Let me hear one of ‘em—the best. Give me a song this minute.’

Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her friend, and trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him some little ditty which she had learned in happier times, and which was so agreeable to his ear, that on its conclusion he in the same peremptory manner requested to be favoured with another, to which he was so obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and with no words at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy for its deficiency in other respects. The noise of this vocal performance awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck and shaking his late opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his pride and joy and chief delight, and that he desired no better entertainment. With a third call, more imperative than either of the two former, Nell felt obliged to comply, and this time a chorus was maintained not only by the two men together, but also by the third man on horseback, who being by his position debarred from a nearer participation in the revels of the night, roared when his companions roared, and rent the very air. In this way, with little cessation, and singing the same songs again and again, the tired and exhausted child kept them in good humour all that night; and many a cottager, who was roused from his soundest sleep by the discordant chorus as it floated away upon the wind, hid his head beneath the bed-clothes and trembled at the sounds.

At length the morning dawned. It was no sooner light than it began to rain heavily. As the child could not endure the intolerable vapours of the cabin, they covered her, in return for her exertions, with some pieces of sail-cloth and ends of tarpaulin, which sufficed to keep her tolerably dry and to shelter her grandfather besides. As the day advanced the rain increased. At noon it poured down more hopelessly and heavily than ever without the faintest promise of abatement.

They had, for some time, been gradually approaching the place for which they were bound. The water had become thicker and dirtier; other barges, coming from it, passed them frequently; the paths of coal-ash and huts of staring brick, marked the vicinity of some great manufacturing town; while scattered streets and houses, and smoke from distant furnaces, indicated that they were already in the outskirts. Now, the clustered roofs, and piles of buildings, trembling with the working of engines, and dimly resounding with their shrieks and throbbings; the tall chimneys vomiting forth a black vapour, which hung in a dense ill-favoured cloud above the housetops and filled the air with gloom; the clank of hammers beating upon iron, the roar of busy streets and noisy crowds, gradually augmenting until all the various sounds blended into one and none was distinguishable for itself, announced the termination of their journey.

The boat floated into the wharf to which it belonged. The men were occupied directly. The child and her grandfather, after waiting in vain to thank them or ask them whither they should go, passed through a dirty lane into a crowded street, and stood, amid its din and tumult, and in the pouring rain, as strange, bewildered, and confused, as if they had lived a thousand years before, and were raised from the dead and placed there by a miracle.

CHAPTER 44

The throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no symptom of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs; and undisturbed in their business speculations, by the roar of carts and waggons laden with clashing wares, the slipping of horses’ feet upon the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the rain on windows and umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more impatient passengers, and all the noise and tumult of a crowded street in the high tide of its occupation: while the two poor strangers, stunned and bewildered by the hurry they beheld but had no part in, looked mournfully on; feeling, amidst the crowd, a solitude which has no parallel but in the thirst of the shipwrecked mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the billows of a mighty ocean, his red eyes blinded by looking on the water which hems him in on every side, has not one drop to cool his burning tongue.

They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a ray of encouragement or hope. Some frowned, some smiled, some muttered to themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating the conversation in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the cunning look of bargaining and plotting, some were anxious and eager, some slow and dull; in some countenances, were written gain; in others, loss. It was like being in the confidence of all these people to stand quietly there, looking into their faces as they flitted past. In busy places, where each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that every other man has his, his character and purpose are written broadly in his face. In the public walks and lounges of a town, people go to see and to be seen, and there the same expression, with little variety, is repeated a hundred times. The working-day faces come nearer to the truth, and let it out more plainly.

Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude awakens, the child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a wondering interest, amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness of her own condition. But cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and lack of any place in which to lay her aching head, soon brought her thoughts back to the point whence they had strayed. No one passed who seemed to notice them, or to whom she durst appeal. After some time, they left their place of refuge from the weather, and mingled with the concourse.

Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with fewer people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own breasts, and the same indifference from all around. The lights in the streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, for with their help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster. Shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her utmost firmness and resolution even to creep along.

Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were peaceful country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered and thirsted, with less suffering than in its squalid strife! They were but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very sight of which increased their hopelessness and suffering.

The child had not only to endure the accumulated hardships of their destitute condition, but to bear the reproaches of her grandfather, who began to murmur at having been led away from their late abode, and demand that they should return to it. Being now penniless, and no relief or prospect of relief appearing, they retraced their steps through the deserted streets, and went back to the wharf, hoping to find the boat in which they had come, and to be allowed to sleep on board that night. But here again they were disappointed, for the gate was closed, and some fierce dogs, barking at their approach, obliged them to retreat.

‘We must sleep in the open air to-night, dear,’ said the child in a weak voice, as they turned away from this last repulse; ‘and to-morrow we will beg our way to some quiet part of the country, and try to earn our bread in very humble work.’

‘Why did you bring me here?’ returned the old man fiercely. ‘I cannot bear these close eternal streets. We came from a quiet part. Why did you force me to leave it?’

‘Because I must have that dream I told you of, no more,’ said the child, with a momentary firmness that lost itself in tears; ‘and we must live among poor people, or it will come again. Dear grandfather, you are old and weak, I know; but look at me. I never will complain if you will not, but I have some suffering indeed.’

‘Ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!’ cried the old man, clasping his hands and gazing as if for the first time upon her anxious face, her travel-stained dress, and bruised and swollen feet; ‘has all my agony of care brought her to this at last! Was I a happy man once, and have I lost happiness and all I had, for this!’

‘If we were in the country now,’ said the child, with assumed cheerfulness, as they walked on looking about them for a shelter, we should find some good old tree, stretching out his green arms as if he loved us, and nodding and rustling as if he would have us fall asleep, thinking of him while he watched. Please God, we shall be there soon—to-morrow or next day at the farthest—and in the meantime let us think, dear, that it was a good thing we came here; for we are lost in the crowd and hurry of this place, and if any cruel people should pursue us, they could surely never trace us further. There’s comfort in that. And here’s a deep old doorway—very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind don’t blow in here—What’s that!’

Uttering a half shriek, she recoiled from a black figure which came suddenly out of the dark recess in which they were about to take refuge, and stood still, looking at them.

‘Speak again,’ it said; ‘do I know the voice?’

‘No,’ replied the child timidly; ‘we are strangers, and having no money for a night’s lodging, were going to rest here.’

There was a feeble lamp at no great distance; the only one in the place, which was a kind of square yard, but sufficient to show how poor and mean it was. To this, the figure beckoned them; at the same time drawing within its rays, as if to show that it had no desire to conceal itself or take them at an advantage. The form was that of a man, miserably clad and begrimed with smoke, which, perhaps by its contrast with the natural colour of his skin, made him look paler than he really was. That he was naturally of a very wan and pallid aspect, however, his hollow cheeks, sharp features, and sunken eyes, no less than a certain look of patient endurance, sufficiently testified. His voice was harsh by nature, but not brutal; and though his face, besides possessing the characteristics already mentioned, was overshadowed by a quantity of long dark hair, its expression was neither ferocious nor bad.

‘How came you to think of resting there?’ he said. ‘Or how,’ he added, looking more attentively at the child, ‘do you come to want a place of rest at this time of night?’

‘Our misfortunes,’ the grandfather answered, ‘are the cause.’

‘Do you know,’ said the man, looking still more earnestly at Nell, ‘how wet she is, and that the damp streets are not a place for her?’

‘I know it well, God help me,’ he replied. ‘What can I do!’

The man looked at Nell again, and gently touched her garments, from which the rain was running off in little streams. ‘I can give you warmth,’ he said, after a pause; ‘nothing else. Such lodging as I have, is in that house,’ pointing to the doorway from which he had emerged, ‘but she is safer and better there than here. The fire is in a rough place, but you can pass the night beside it safely, if you’ll trust yourselves to me. You see that red light yonder?’

They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the dark sky; the dull reflection of some distant fire.

‘It’s not far,’ said the man. ‘Shall I take you there? You were going to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes—nothing better.’

Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their looks, he took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.

Carrying her as tenderly, and as easily too, as if she had been an infant, and showing himself both swift and sure of foot, he led the way through what appeared to be the poorest and most wretched quarter of the town; and turning aside to avoid the overflowing kennels or running waterspouts, but holding his course, regardless of such obstructions, and making his way straight through them. They had proceeded thus, in silence, for some quarter of an hour, and had lost sight of the glare to which he had pointed, in the dark and narrow ways by which they had come, when it suddenly burst upon them again, streaming up from the high chimney of a building close before them.

‘This is the place,’ he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down and take her hand. ‘Don’t be afraid. There’s nobody here will harm you.’

It needed a strong confidence in this assurance to induce them to enter, and what they saw inside did not diminish their apprehension and alarm. In a large and lofty building, supported by pillars of iron, with great black apertures in the upper walls, open to the external air; echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers and roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal plunged in water, and a hundred strange unearthly noises never heard elsewhere; in this gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame and smoke, dimly and fitfully seen, flushed and tormented by the burning fires, and wielding great weapons, a faulty blow from any one of which must have crushed some workman’s skull, a number of men laboured like giants. Others, reposing upon heaps of coals or ashes, with their faces turned to the black vault above, slept or rested from their toil. Others again, opening the white-hot furnace-doors, cast fuel on the flames, which came rushing and roaring forth to meet it, and licked it up like oil. Others drew forth, with clashing noise, upon the ground, great sheets of glowing steel, emitting an insupportable heat, and a dull deep light like that which reddens in the eyes of savage beasts.

Through these bewildering sights and deafening sounds, their conductor led them to where, in a dark portion of the building, one furnace burnt by night and day—so, at least, they gathered from the motion of his lips, for as yet they could only see him speak: not hear him. The man who had been watching this fire, and whose task was ended for the present, gladly withdrew, and left them with their friend, who, spreading Nell’s little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and showing her where she could hang her outer-clothes to dry, signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep. For himself, he took his station on a rugged mat before the furnace-door, and resting his chin upon his hands, watched the flame as it shone through the iron chinks, and the white ashes as they fell into their bright hot grave below.

The warmth of her bed, hard and humble as it was, combined with the great fatigue she had undergone, soon caused the tumult of the place to fall with a gentler sound upon the child’s tired ears, and was not long in lulling her to sleep. The old man was stretched beside her, and with her hand upon his neck she lay and dreamed.

It was yet night when she awoke, nor did she know how long, or for how short a time, she had slept. But she found herself protected, both from any cold air that might find its way into the building, and from the scorching heat, by some of the workmen’s clothes; and glancing at their friend saw that he sat in exactly the same attitude, looking with a fixed earnestness of attention towards the fire, and keeping so very still that he did not even seem to breathe. She lay in the state between sleeping and waking, looking so long at his motionless figure that at length she almost feared he had died as he sat there; and softly rising and drawing close to him, ventured to whisper in his ear.

He moved, and glancing from her to the place she had lately occupied, as if to assure himself that it was really the child so near him, looked inquiringly into her face.

‘I feared you were ill,’ she said. ‘The other men are all in motion, and you are so very quiet.’

‘They leave me to myself,’ he replied. ‘They know my humour. They laugh at me, but don’t harm me in it. See yonder there—that’s my friend.’

‘The fire?’ said the child.

‘It has been alive as long as I have,’ the man made answer. ‘We talk and think together all night long.’

The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise, but he had turned his eyes in their former direction, and was musing as before.

‘It’s like a book to me,’ he said—‘the only book I ever learned to read; and many an old story it tells me. It’s music, for I should know its voice among a thousand, and there are other voices in its roar. It has its pictures too. You don’t know how many strange faces and different scenes I trace in the red-hot coals. It’s my memory, that fire, and shows me all my life.’

The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse.

‘Yes,’ he said, with a faint smile, ‘it was the same when I was quite a baby, and crawled about it, till I fell asleep. My father watched it then.’

‘Had you no mother?’ asked the child.

‘No, she was dead. Women work hard in these parts. She worked herself to death they told me, and, as they said so then, the fire has gone on saying the same thing ever since. I suppose it was true. I have always believed it.’

‘Were you brought up here, then?’ said the child.

‘Summer and winter,’ he replied. ‘Secretly at first, but when they found it out, they let him keep me here. So the fire nursed me—the same fire. It has never gone out.’

‘You are fond of it?’ said the child.

‘Of course I am. He died before it. I saw him fall down—just there, where those ashes are burning now—and wondered, I remember, why it didn’t help him.’

‘Have you been here ever since?’ asked the child.

‘Ever since I came to watch it; but there was a while between, and a very cold dreary while it was. It burned all the time though, and roared and leaped when I came back, as it used to do in our play days. You may guess, from looking at me, what kind of child I was, but for all the difference between us I was a child, and when I saw you in the street to-night, you put me in mind of myself, as I was after he died, and made me wish to bring you to the fire. I thought of those old times again, when I saw you sleeping by it. You should be sleeping now. Lie down again, poor child, lie down again!’

With that, he led her to her rude couch, and covering her with the clothes with which she had found herself enveloped when she woke, returned to his seat, whence he moved no more unless to feed the furnace, but remained motionless as a statue. The child continued to watch him for a little time, but soon yielded to the drowsiness that came upon her, and, in the dark strange place and on the heap of ashes, slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace chamber, and the bed, a bed of down.

When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty openings in the walls, and, stealing in slanting rays but midway down, seemed to make the building darker than it had been at night. The clang and tumult were still going on, and the remorseless fires were burning fiercely as before; for few changes of night and day brought rest or quiet there.

Her friend parted his breakfast—a scanty mess of coffee and some coarse bread—with the child and her grandfather, and inquired whither they were going. She told him that they sought some distant country place remote from towns or even other villages, and with a faltering tongue inquired what road they would do best to take.

‘I know little of the country,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘for such as I, pass all our lives before our furnace doors, and seldom go forth to breathe. But there are such places yonder.’

‘And far from here?’ said Nell.

‘Aye surely. How could they be near us, and be green and fresh? The road lies, too, through miles and miles, all lighted up by fires like ours—a strange black road, and one that would frighten you by night.’

‘We are here and must go on,’ said the child boldly; for she saw that the old man listened with anxious ears to this account.

‘Rough people—paths never made for little feet like yours—a dismal blighted way—is there no turning back, my child?’

‘There is none,’ cried Nell, pressing forward. ‘If you can direct us, do. If not, pray do not seek to turn us from our purpose. Indeed you do not know the danger that we shun, and how right and true we are in flying from it, or you would not try to stop us, I am sure you would not.’

‘God forbid, if it is so!’ said their uncouth protector, glancing from the eager child to her grandfather, who hung his head and bent his eyes upon the ground. ‘I’ll direct you from the door, the best I can. I wish I could do more.’

He showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town, and what course they should hold when they had gained it. He lingered so long on these instructions, that the child, with a fervent blessing, tore herself away, and stayed to hear no more.

But, before they had reached the corner of the lane, the man came running after them, and, pressing her hand, left something in it—two old, battered, smoke-encrusted penny pieces. Who knows but they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels, as golden gifts that have been chronicled on tombs?

And thus they separated; the child to lead her sacred charge farther from guilt and shame; the labourer to attach a fresh interest to the spot where his guests had slept, and read new histories in his furnace fire.

CHAPTER 45

In all their journeying, they had never longed so ardently, they had never so pined and wearied, for the freedom of pure air and open country, as now. No, not even on that memorable morning, when, deserting their old home, they abandoned themselves to the mercies of a strange world, and left all the dumb and senseless things they had known and loved, behind—not even then, had they so yearned for the fresh solitudes of wood, hillside, and field, as now, when the noise and dirt and vapour, of the great manufacturing town reeking with lean misery and hungry wretchedness, hemmed them in on every side, and seemed to shut out hope, and render escape impossible.

‘Two days and nights!’ thought the child. ‘He said two days and nights we should have to spend among such scenes as these. Oh! if we live to reach the country once again, if we get clear of these dreadful places, though it is only to lie down and die, with what a grateful heart I shall thank God for so much mercy!’

With thoughts like this, and with some vague design of travelling to a great distance among streams and mountains, where only very poor and simple people lived, and where they might maintain themselves by very humble helping work in farms, free from such terrors as that from which they fled—the child, with no resource but the poor man’s gift, and no encouragement but that which flowed from her own heart, and its sense of the truth and right of what she did, nerved herself to this last journey and boldly pursued her task.

‘We shall be very slow to-day, dear,’ she said, as they toiled painfully through the streets; ‘my feet are sore, and I have pains in all my limbs from the wet of yesterday. I saw that he looked at us and thought of that, when he said how long we should be upon the road.’

‘It was a dreary way he told us of,’ returned her grandfather, piteously. ‘Is there no other road? Will you not let me go some other way than this?’

‘Places lie beyond these,’ said the child, firmly, ‘where we may live in peace, and be tempted to do no harm. We will take the road that promises to have that end, and we would not turn out of it, if it were a hundred times worse than our fears lead us to expect. We would not, dear, would we?’

‘No,’ replied the old man, wavering in his voice, no less than in his manner. ‘No. Let us go on. I am ready. I am quite ready, Nell.’

The child walked with more difficulty than she had led her companion to expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of no common severity, and every exertion increased them. But they wrung from her no complaint, or look of suffering; and, though the two travellers proceeded very slowly, they did proceed. Clearing the town in course of time, they began to feel that they were fairly on their way.

A long suburb of red brick houses—some with patches of garden-ground, where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the shrinking leaves, and coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling vegetation sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace, making them by its presence seem yet more blighting and unwholesome than in the town itself—a long, flat, straggling suburb passed, they came, by slow degrees, upon a cheerless region, where not a blade of grass was seen to grow, where not a bud put forth its promise in the spring, where nothing green could live but on the surface of the stagnant pools, which here and there lay idly sweltering by the black road-side.

Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its dark depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them with a dismal gloom. On every side, and far as the eye could see into the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and presenting that endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form, which is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air. On mounds of ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their agonies. Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited. Men, women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in attire, tended the engines, fed their tributary fire, begged upon the road, or scowled half-naked from the doorless houses. Then came more of the wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in their wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and round again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left, was the same interminable perspective of brick towers, never ceasing in their black vomit, blasting all things living or inanimate, shutting out the face of day, and closing in on all these horrors with a dense dark cloud.

But night-time in this dreadful spot!—night, when the smoke was changed to fire; when every chimney spirited up its flame; and places, that had been dark vaults all day, now shone red-hot, with figures moving to and fro within their blazing jaws, and calling to one another with hoarse cries—night, when the noise of every strange machine was aggravated by the darkness; when the people near them looked wilder and more savage; when bands of unemployed labourers paraded the roads, or clustered by torch-light round their leaders, who told them, in stern language, of their wrongs, and urged them on to frightful cries and threats; when maddened men, armed with sword and firebrand, spurning the tears and prayers of women who would restrain them, rushed forth on errands of terror and destruction, to work no ruin half so surely as their own—night, when carts came rumbling by, filled with rude coffins (for contagious disease and death had been busy with the living crops); when orphans cried, and distracted women shrieked and followed in their wake—night, when some called for bread, and some for drink to drown their cares, and some with tears, and some with staggering feet, and some with bloodshot eyes, went brooding home—night, which, unlike the night that Heaven sends on earth, brought with it no peace, nor quiet, nor signs of blessed sleep—who shall tell the terrors of the night to the young wandering child!

And yet she lay down, with nothing between her and the sky; and, with no fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer for the poor old man. So very weak and spent, she felt, so very calm and unresisting, that she had no thought of any wants of her own, but prayed that God would raise up some friend for him. She tried to recall the way they had come, and to look in the direction where the fire by which they had slept last night was burning. She had forgotten to ask the name of the poor man, their friend, and when she had remembered him in her prayers, it seemed ungrateful not to turn one look towards the spot where he was watching.

A penny loaf was all they had had that day. It was very little, but even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that crept over her senses. She lay down, very gently, and, with a quiet smile upon her face, fell into a slumber. It was not like sleep—and yet it must have been, or why those pleasant dreams of the little scholar all night long! Morning came. Much weaker, diminished powers even of sight and hearing, and yet the child made no complaint—perhaps would have made none, even if she had not had that inducement to be silent, travelling by her side. She felt a hopelessness of their ever being extricated together from that forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very ill, perhaps dying; but no fear or anxiety.

A loathing of food that she was not conscious of until they expended their last penny in the purchase of another loaf, prevented her partaking even of this poor repast. Her grandfather ate greedily, which she was glad to see.

Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety or improvement. There was the same thick air, difficult to breathe; the same blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the same misery and distress. Objects appeared more dim, the noise less, the path more rugged and uneven, for sometimes she stumbled, and became roused, as it were, in the effort to prevent herself from falling. Poor child! the cause was in her tottering feet.

Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained bitterly of hunger. She approached one of the wretched hovels by the way-side, and knocked with her hand upon the door.

‘What would you have here?’ said a gaunt man, opening it.

‘Charity. A morsel of bread.’

‘Do you see that?’ returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a kind of bundle on the ground. ‘That’s a dead child. I and five hundred other men were thrown out of work, three months ago. That is my third dead child, and last. Do you think I have charity to bestow, or a morsel of bread to spare?’

The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her. Impelled by strong necessity, she knocked at another: a neighbouring one, which, yielding to the slight pressure of her hand, flew open.

It seemed that a couple of poor families lived in this hovel, for two women, each among children of her own, occupied different portions of the room. In the centre, stood a grave gentleman in black who appeared to have just entered, and who held by the arm a boy.

‘Here, woman,’ he said, ‘here’s your deaf and dumb son. You may thank me for restoring him to you. He was brought before me, this morning, charged with theft; and with any other boy it would have gone hard, I assure you. But, as I had compassion on his infirmities, and thought he might have learnt no better, I have managed to bring him back to you. Take more care of him for the future.’

‘And won’t you give me back MY son!’ said the other woman, hastily rising and confronting him. ‘Won’t you give me back MY son, Sir, who was transported for the same offence!’

‘Was he deaf and dumb, woman?’ asked the gentleman sternly.

‘Was he not, Sir?’

‘You know he was not.’

‘He was,’ cried the woman. ‘He was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all that was good and right, from his cradle. Her boy may have learnt no better! where did mine learn better? where could he? who was there to teach him better, or where was it to be learnt?’

‘Peace, woman,’ said the gentleman, ‘your boy was in possession of all his senses.’

‘He was,’ cried the mother; ‘and he was the more easy to be led astray because he had them. If you save this boy because he may not know right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never taught the difference? You gentlemen have as good a right to punish her boy, that God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech, as you have to punish mine, that you kept in ignorance yourselves. How many of the girls and boys—ah, men and women too—that are brought before you and you don’t pity, are deaf and dumb in their minds, and go wrong in that state, and are punished in that state, body and soul, while you gentlemen are quarrelling among yourselves whether they ought to learn this or that?—Be a just man, Sir, and give me back my son.’

‘You are desperate,’ said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box, ‘and I am sorry for you.’

‘I AM desperate,’ returned the woman, ‘and you have made me so. Give me back my son, to work for these helpless children. Be a just man, Sir, and, as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me back my son!’

The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a place at which to ask for alms. She led the old man softly from the door, and they pursued their journey.

With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with an undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her sinking state, so long as she had energy to move, the child, throughout the remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to proceed: not even stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to compensate in some measure for the tardy pace at which she was obliged to walk. Evening was drawing on, but had not closed in, when—still travelling among the same dismal objects—they came to a busy town.

Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable. After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being repulsed, they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and try if the inmates of any lone house beyond, would have more pity on their exhausted state.

They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers would bear no more. There appeared before them, at this juncture, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who, with a portmanteau strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as he walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand.

It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. At length, he stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book. Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and, going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to implore his help.

He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.

CHAPTER 46

It was the poor schoolmaster. No other than the poor schoolmaster. Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she had been on recognising him, he stood, for a moment, silent and confounded by this unexpected apparition, without even the presence of mind to raise her from the ground.

But, quickly recovering his self-possession, he threw down his stick and book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured, by such simple means as occurred to him, to restore her to herself; while her grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and implored her with many endearing expressions to speak to him, were it only a word.

‘She is quite exhausted,’ said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into his face. ‘You have taxed her powers too far, friend.’

‘She is perishing of want,’ rejoined the old man. ‘I never thought how weak and ill she was, till now.’

Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate, the schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man gather up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at his utmost speed.

There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had been directing his steps when so unexpectedly overtaken. Towards this place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make way for God’s sake, deposited it on a chair before the fire.

The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster’s entrance, did as people usually do under such circumstances. Everybody called for his or her favourite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more air, at the same time carefully excluding what air there was, by closing round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody else didn’t do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by themselves.

The landlady, however, who possessed more readiness and activity than any of them, and who had withal a quicker perception of the merits of the case, soon came running in, with a little hot brandy and water, followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar, hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which, being duly administered, recovered the child so far as to enable her to thank them in a faint voice, and to extend her hand to the poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, hard by. Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir a finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed; and, having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel, they despatched a messenger for the doctor.

The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his watch, and felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.

‘I should give her,’ said the doctor at length, ‘a tea-spoonful, every now and then, of hot brandy and water.’

‘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 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 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 fitted 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 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 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. 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 he had carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and hurried off, full of ardour and excitement.

The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage hid him from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old churchyard—so solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress upon the fallen leaves, which strewed the path and made her footsteps noiseless, seemed an invasion of its silence. It was a very aged, ghostly place; the church had been built many hundreds of years ago, and had once had a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing; while other portions of the old building, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as if they too claimed a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes with the dust of men. Hard by these gravestones of dead years, and forming a part of the ruin which some pains had been taken to render habitable in modern times, were two small dwellings with sunken windows and oaken doors, fast hastening to decay, empty and desolate.

Upon these tenements, the attention of the child became exclusively riveted. She knew not why. The church, the ruin, the antiquated graves, had equal claims at least upon a stranger’s thoughts, but from the moment when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings, she could turn to nothing else. Even when she had made the circuit of the enclosure, and, returning to the porch, sat pensively waiting for their friend, she took her station where she could still look upon them, and felt as if fascinated towards that spot.

CHAPTER 47

Kit’s mother and the single gentleman—upon whose track it is expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its characters in situations of uncertainty and doubt—Kit’s mother and the single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four whose departure from the Notary’s door we have already witnessed, soon left the town behind them, and struck fire from the flints of the broad highway.

The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of her situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by this time little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the fire, or tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or had scalded their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst at the spouts of tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and meeting from the window the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers, and others, felt in the new dignity of her position like a mourner at a funeral, who, not being greatly afflicted by the loss of the departed, recognizes his every-day acquaintance from the window of the mourning coach, but is constrained to preserve a decent solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent to all external objects.

To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single gentleman would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of steel. Never did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless gentleman as he. He never sat in the same position for two minutes together, but was perpetually tossing his arms and legs about, pulling up the sashes and letting them violently down, or thrusting his head out of one window to draw it in again and thrust it out of another. He carried in his pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious and unknown construction; and as sure as ever Kit’s mother closed her eyes, so surely—whisk, rattle, fizz—there was the single gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of fire, and letting the sparks fall down among the straw as if there were no such thing as a possibility of himself and Kit’s mother being roasted alive before the boys could stop their horses. Whenever they halted to change, there he was—out of the carriage without letting down the steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before he put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that Kit’s mother was quite afraid of him. Then, when the horses were to, in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile, out came the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit’s mother as wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage.

‘Are you comfortable?’ the single gentleman would say after one of these exploits, turning sharply round.

‘Quite, Sir, thank you.’

‘Are you sure? An’t you cold?’

‘It is a little chilly, Sir,’ Kit’s mother would reply.

‘I knew it!’ cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the front glasses. ‘She wants some brandy and water! Of course she does. How could I forget it? Hallo! Stop at the next inn, and call out for a glass of hot brandy and water.’

It was in vain for Kit’s mother to protest that she stood in need of nothing of the kind. The single gentleman was inexorable; and whenever he had exhausted all other modes and fashions of restlessness, it invariably occurred to him that Kit’s mother wanted brandy and water.

In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they stopped to supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered everything eatable that the house contained; and because Kit’s mother didn’t eat everything at once, and eat it all, he took it into his head that she must be ill.

‘You’re faint,’ said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself but walk about the room. ‘I see what’s the matter with you, ma’am. You’re faint.’

‘Thank you, sir, I’m not indeed.’

‘I know you are. I’m sure of it. I drag this poor woman from the bosom of her family at a minute’s notice, and she goes on getting fainter and fainter before my eyes. I’m a pretty fellow! How many children have you got, ma’am?’

‘Two, sir, besides Kit.’

‘Boys, ma’am?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Are they christened?’

‘Only half baptised as yet, sir.’

‘I’m godfather to both of ‘em. Remember that, if you please, ma’am. You had better have some mulled wine.’

‘I couldn’t touch a drop indeed, sir.’

‘You must,’ said the single gentleman. ‘I see you want it. I ought to have thought of it before.’

Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the recovery of some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman made Kit’s mother swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature that the tears ran down her face, and then hustled her off to the chaise again, where—not impossibly from the effects of this agreeable sedative—she soon became insensible to his restlessness, and fell fast asleep. Nor were the happy effects of this prescription of a transitory nature, as, notwithstanding that the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the single gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town.

‘This is the place!’ cried her companion, letting down all the glasses. ‘Drive to the wax-work!’

The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his horse, to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke into a smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise that brought the good folks wondering to their doors and windows, and drowned the sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out half-past eight. They drove up to a door round which a crowd of persons were collected, and there stopped.

‘What’s this?’ said the single gentleman thrusting out his head. ‘Is anything the matter here?’

‘A wedding Sir, a wedding!’ cried several voices. ‘Hurrah!’

The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of the postilions, and handed out Kit’s mother, at sight of whom the populace cried out, ‘Here’s another wedding!’ and roared and leaped for joy.

‘The world has gone mad, I think,’ said the single gentleman, pressing through the concourse with his supposed bride. ‘Stand back here, will you, and let me knock.’

Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. A score of dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question. Having rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little, preferring that the single gentleman should bear their consequences alone.

‘Now, sir, what do you want!’ said a man with a large white bow at his button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical aspect.

‘Who has been married here, my friend?’ said the single gentleman.

‘I have.’

‘You! and to whom in the devil’s name?’

‘What right have you to ask?’ returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from top to toe.

‘What right!’ cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit’s mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had it in contemplation to run away. ‘A right you little dream of. Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor—tut, tut, that can’t be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call her Nell. Where is she?’

As he propounded this question, which Kit’s mother echoed, somebody in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the bridegroom’s arm.

‘Where is she!’ cried this lady. ‘What news have you brought me? What has become of her?’

The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length he stammered out,

‘I ask YOU where she is? What do you mean?’

‘Oh sir!’ cried the bride, ‘If you have come here to do her any good, why weren’t you here a week ago?’

‘She is not—not dead?’ said the person to whom she addressed herself, turning very pale.

‘No, not so bad as that.’

‘I thank God!’ cried the single gentleman feebly. ‘Let me come in.’

They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.

‘You see in me, good people,’ he said, turning to the newly-married couple, ‘one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons whom I seek. They would not know me. My features are strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with you, and let them see her first, for her they both know. If you deny them from any mistaken regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their old humble friend.’

‘I always said it!’ cried the bride, ‘I knew she was not a common child! Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we could do, has been tried in vain.’

With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment, all that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance; adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible effort to trace them, but without success; having been at first in great alarm for their safety, as well as on account of the suspicions to which they themselves might one day be exposed in consequence of their abrupt departure. They dwelt upon the old man’s imbecility of mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always testified when he was absent, upon the company he had been supposed to keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually crept over her and changed her both in health and spirits. Whether she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing or conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or whether they had left the house together, they had no means of determining. Certain they considered it, that there was but slender prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there was now no hope of their return. To all this, the single gentleman listened with the air of a man quite borne down by grief and disappointment. He shed tears when they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep affliction.

Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short work of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the interview came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had sufficient evidence of having been told the truth, and that he endeavoured to force upon the bride and bridegroom an acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child, which, however, they steadily declined accepting. In the end, the happy couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit’s mother stood ruefully before their carriage-door.

‘Where shall we drive you, sir?’ said the post-boy.

‘You may drive me,’ said the single gentleman, ‘to the—’ He was not going to add ‘inn,’ but he added it for the sake of Kit’s mother; and to the inn they went.

Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to show the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been stolen from her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced. Opinion was divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a duke, an earl, a viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main fact, and that the single gentleman was her father; and all bent forward to catch a glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.

What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been saved if he had only known, that at that moment both child and grandfather were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting the schoolmaster’s return!

CHAPTER 48

Popular rumour concerning the single gentleman and his errand, travelling from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the marvellous as it was bandied about—for your popular rumour, unlike the rolling stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its wanderings up and down—occasioned his dismounting at the inn-door to be looked upon as an exciting and attractive spectacle, which could scarcely be enough admired; and drew together a large concourse of idlers, who having recently been, as it were, thrown out of employment by the closing of the wax-work and the completion of the nuptial ceremonies, considered his arrival as little else than a special providence, and hailed it with demonstrations of the liveliest joy.

Not at all participating in the general sensation, but wearing the depressed and wearied look of one who sought to meditate on his disappointment in silence and privacy, the single gentleman alighted, and handed out Kit’s mother with a gloomy politeness which impressed the lookers-on extremely. That done, he gave her his arm and escorted her into the house, while several active waiters ran on before as a skirmishing party, to clear the way and to show the room which was ready for their reception.

‘Any room will do,’ said the single gentleman. ‘Let it be near at hand, that’s all.’

‘Close here, sir, if you please to walk this way.’

‘Would the gentleman like this room?’ said a voice, as a little out-of-the-way door at the foot of the well staircase flew briskly open and a head popped out. ‘He’s quite welcome to it. He’s as welcome as flowers in May, or coals at Christmas. Would you like this room, sir? Honour me by walking in. Do me the favour, pray.’

‘Goodness gracious me!’ cried Kit’s mother, falling back in extreme surprise, ‘only think of this!’

She had some reason to be astonished, for the person who proffered the gracious invitation was no other than Daniel Quilp. The little door out of which he had thrust his head was close to the inn larder; and there he stood, bowing with grotesque politeness; as much at his ease as if the door were that of his own house; blighting all the legs of mutton and cold roast fowls by his close companionship, and looking like the evil genius of the cellars come from underground upon some work of mischief.

‘Would you do me the honour?’ said Quilp.

‘I prefer being alone,’ replied the single gentleman.

‘Oh!’ said Quilp. And with that, he darted in again with one jerk and clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch clock when the hour strikes.

‘Why it was only last night, sir,’ whispered Kit’s mother, ‘that I left him in Little Bethel.’

‘Indeed!’ said her fellow-passenger. ‘When did that person come here, waiter?’

‘Come down by the night-coach, this morning, sir.’

‘Humph! And when is he going?’

‘Can’t say, sir, really. When the chambermaid asked him just now if he should want a bed, sir, he first made faces at her, and then wanted to kiss her.’

‘Beg him to walk this way,’ said the single gentleman. ‘I should be glad to exchange a word with him, tell him. Beg him to come at once, do you hear?’

The man stared on receiving these instructions, for the single gentleman had not only displayed as much astonishment as Kit’s mother at sight of the dwarf, but, standing in no fear of him, had been at less pains to conceal his dislike and repugnance. He departed on his errand, however, and immediately returned, ushering in its object.

‘Your servant, sir,’ said the dwarf, ‘I encountered your messenger half-way. I thought you’d allow me to pay my compliments to you. I hope you’re well. I hope you’re very well.’

There was a short pause, while the dwarf, with half-shut eyes and puckered face, stood waiting for an answer. Receiving none, he turned towards his more familiar acquaintance.

‘Christopher’s mother!’ he cried. ‘Such a dear lady, such a worthy woman, so blest in her honest son! How is Christopher’s mother? Have change of air and scene improved her? Her little family too, and Christopher? Do they thrive? Do they flourish? Are they growing into worthy citizens, eh?’

Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding question, Mr Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into the panting look which was customary with him, and which, whether it were assumed or natural, had equally the effect of banishing all expression from his face, and rendering it, as far as it afforded any index to his mood or meaning, a perfect blank.

‘Mr Quilp,’ said the single gentleman.

The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited the closest attention.

‘We two have met before—’

‘Surely,’ cried Quilp, nodding his head. ‘Oh surely, sir. Such an honour and pleasure—it’s both, Christopher’s mother, it’s both—is not to be forgotten so soon. By no means!’

‘You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the house to which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some of the neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for rest or refreshment?’

‘How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous measure!’ said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his friend Mr Sampson Brass.

‘I found,’ said the single gentleman, ‘you most unaccountably, in possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another man, and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon his property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden beggary, and driven from house and home.’

‘We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,’ rejoined Quilp, ‘we had our warrant. Don’t say driven either. He went of his own accord—vanished in the night, sir.’

‘No matter,’ said the single gentleman angrily. ‘He was gone.’

‘Yes, he was gone,’ said Quilp, with the same exasperating composure. ‘No doubt he was gone. The only question was, where. And it’s a question still.’

‘Now, what am I to think,’ said the single gentleman, sternly regarding him, ‘of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any information then—nay, obviously holding back, and sheltering yourself with all kinds of cunning, trickery, and evasion—are dogging my footsteps now?’

‘I dogging!’ cried Quilp.

‘Why, are you not?’ returned his questioner, fretted into a state of the utmost irritation. ‘Were you not a few hours since, sixty miles off, and in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say her prayers?’

‘She was there too, I think?’ said Quilp, still perfectly unmoved. ‘I might say, if I was inclined to be rude, how do I know but you are dogging MY footsteps. Yes, I was at chapel. What then? I’ve read in books that pilgrims were used to go to chapel before they went on journeys, to put up petitions for their safe return. Wise men! journeys are very perilous—especially outside the coach. Wheels come off, horses take fright, coachmen drive too fast, coaches overturn. I always go to chapel before I start on journeys. It’s the last thing I do on such occasions, indeed.’

That Quilp lied most heartily in this speech, it needed no very great penetration to discover, although for anything that he suffered to appear in his face, voice, or manner, he might have been clinging to the truth with the quiet constancy of a martyr.

‘In the name of all that’s calculated to drive one crazy, man,’ said the unfortunate single gentleman, ‘have you not, for some reason of your own, taken upon yourself my errand? don’t you know with what object I have come here, and if you do know, can you throw no light upon it?’

‘You think I’m a conjuror, sir,’ replied Quilp, shrugging up his shoulders. ‘If I was, I should tell my own fortune—and make it.’

‘Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,’ returned the other, throwing himself impatiently upon a sofa. ‘Pray leave us, if you please.’

‘Willingly,’ returned Quilp. ‘Most willingly. Christopher’s mother, my good soul, farewell. A pleasant journey—back, sir. Ahem!’

With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features altogether indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of every monstrous grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the dwarf slowly retreated and closed the door behind him.

‘Oho!’ he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself down in a chair with his arms akimbo. ‘Oho! Are you there, my friend? In-deed!’

Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself for the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by twisting it into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp, rocking himself to and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at the same time, fell into certain meditations, of which it may be necessary to relate the substance.

First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing to that spot, which were briefly these. Dropping in at Mr Sampson Brass’s office on the previous evening, in the absence of that gentleman and his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller, who chanced at the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and water on the dust of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the phrase goes, rather copiously. But as clay in the abstract, when too much moistened, becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency, breaking down in unexpected places, retaining impressions but faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of character, so Mr Swiveller’s clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture, was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the various ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinctive character, and running into each other. It is not uncommon for human clay in this condition to value itself above all things upon its great prudence and sagacity; and Mr Swiveller, especially prizing himself upon these qualities, took occasion to remark that he had made strange discoveries in connection with the single gentleman who lodged above, which he had determined to keep within his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor cajolery should ever induce him to reveal. Of this determination Mr Quilp expressed his high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to goad Mr Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this was the secret which was never to be disclosed.

Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who had waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries that this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit was the recovery of his old client and the child. Burning with curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce upon Kit’s mother as the person least able to resist his arts, and consequently the most likely to be entrapped into such revelations as he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her house. The good woman being from home, he made inquiries of a neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and being directed to the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay her, at the conclusion of the service.

He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over the joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared. Watchful as a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business. Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he withdrew with his family, shot out after him. In fine, he traced them to the notary’s house; learnt the destination of the carriage from one of the postilions; and knowing that a fast night-coach started for the same place, at the very hour which was on the point of striking, from a street hard by, darted round to the coach-office without more ado, and took his seat upon the roof. After passing and repassing the carriage on the road, and being passed and repassed by it sundry times in the course of the night, according as their stoppages were longer or shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they reached the town almost together. Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the crowd, learnt the single gentleman’s errand, and its failure, and having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried off, reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed, and shut himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all these occurrences.

‘You are there, are you, my friend?’ he repeated, greedily biting his nails. ‘I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit’s the confidential agent, is he? I shall have to dispose of him, I fear. If we had come up with them this morning,’ he continued, after a thoughtful pause, ‘I was ready to prove a pretty good claim. I could have made my profit. But for these canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get this fiery gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend—our mutual friend, ha! ha!—and chubby, rosy Nell. At the worst, it’s a golden opportunity, not to be lost. Let us find them first, and I’ll find means of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while there are prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or kinsman safely. I hate your virtuous people!’ said the dwarf, throwing off a bumper of brandy, and smacking his lips, ‘ah! I hate ‘em every one!’

This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client:—the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him and elude his vigilance—the child, because she was the object of Mrs Quilp’s commiseration and constant self-reproach—the single gentleman, because of his unconcealed aversion to himself—Kit and his mother, most mortally, for the reasons shown. Above and beyond that general feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from his ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances, Daniel Quilp hated them every one.

In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man and his grandchild. But all was in vain. Not the slightest trace or clue could be obtained. They had left the town by night; no one had seen them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no coach, cart, or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their description; nobody had fallen in with them, or heard of them. Convinced at last that for the present all such attempts were hopeless, he appointed two or three scouts, with promises of large rewards in case of their forwarding him any intelligence, and returned to London by next day’s coach.

It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place upon the roof, that Kit’s mother was alone inside; from which circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another; getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and embody that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little Bethel, and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley’s and oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.

Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother’s intended return, was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise when he saw, leering over the coachman’s shoulder like some familiar demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp.

‘How are you, Christopher?’ croaked the dwarf from the coach-top. ‘All right, Christopher. Mother’s inside.’

‘Why, how did he come here, mother?’ whispered Kit.

‘I don’t know how he came or why, my dear,’ rejoined Mrs Nubbles, dismounting with her son’s assistance, ‘but he has been a terrifying of me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.’

‘He has?’ cried Kit.

‘You wouldn’t believe it, that you wouldn’t,’ replied his mother, ‘but don’t say a word to him, for I really don’t believe he’s human. Hush! Don’t turn round as if I was talking of him, but he’s a squinting at me now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!’

In spite of his mother’s injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look. Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial contemplation.

‘Oh, he’s the artfullest creetur!’ cried Mrs Nubbles. ‘But come away. Don’t speak to him for the world.’

‘Yes I will, mother. What nonsense. I say, sir—’

Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.

‘You let my mother alone, will you?’ said Kit. ‘How dare you tease a poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she hadn’t got enough to make her so, without you. An’t you ashamed of yourself, you little monster?’

‘Monster!’ said Quilp inwardly, with a smile. ‘Ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywhere for a penny—monster—ah!’

‘You show her any of your impudence again,’ resumed Kit, shouldering the bandbox, ‘and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won’t bear with you any more. You have no right to do it; I’m sure we never interfered with you. This isn’t the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her again, you’ll oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on account of your size) to beat you.’

Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him, retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in a phantasmagoria. Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an immediate assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures, snapped his fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as fast as she could, and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob and the baby, looking anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were following.

CHAPTER 49

Kit’s mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp’s thoughts than any intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with which they had parted. He went his way, whistling from time to time some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed, jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no intelligence of him for three whole days and two nights, and having had no previous notice of his absence, was doubtless by that time in a state of distraction, and constantly fainting away with anxiety and grief.

This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf’s humour, and so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on before him expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.

In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when, gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried more light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing nearer, and listening attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.

‘Ha!’ cried the jealous dwarf, ‘What’s this! Do they entertain visitors while I’m away!’

A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his pockets for his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no resource but to knock at the door.

‘A light in the passage,’ said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole. ‘A very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you unawares. Soho!’

A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within. But after a second application to the knocker, no louder than the first, the door was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom Quilp instantly gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street with the other.

‘You’ll throttle me, master,’ whispered the boy. ‘Let go, will you.’

‘Who’s up stairs, you dog?’ retorted Quilp in the same tone. ‘Tell me. And don’t speak above your breath, or I’ll choke you in good earnest.’

The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution, or at least have made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy’s nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to catch him by the hair of the head, his master was obliged to come to a parley.

‘Will you answer me?’ said Quilp. ‘What’s going on, above?’

‘You won’t let one speak,’ replied the boy. ‘They—ha, ha, ha!—they think you’re—you’re dead. Ha ha ha!’

‘Dead!’ cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. ‘No. Do they? Do they really, you dog?’

‘They think you’re—you’re drowned,’ replied the boy, who in his malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. ‘You was last seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over. Ha ha!’

The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have inspired him with. He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant, and they both stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping and wagging their heads at each other, on either side of the post, like an unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.

‘Not a word,’ said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. ‘Not a sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb. Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp! Drowned!’

So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy of summersets on the pavement.

The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped in, and planted himself behind the door of communication between that chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed enlarged with his pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but to see distinctly, what was passing.

Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum—his own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica—convenient to his hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy. At the same table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; no longer sipping other people’s punch feloniously with teaspoons, but taking deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter—not exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow nevertheless—was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid. There were also present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them certain machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated with a stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish, and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.

‘If I could poison that dear old lady’s rum and water,’ murmured Quilp, ‘I’d die happy.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the ceiling with a sigh, ‘Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now! Who knows but he may be surveying of us from—from somewheres or another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh Lor!’

Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed; looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.

‘I can almost fancy,’ said the lawyer shaking his head, ‘that I see his eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we look upon his like again? Never, never!’ One minute we are here’—holding his tumbler before his eyes—‘the next we are there’—gulping down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a little below the chest—‘in the silent tomb. To think that I should be drinking his very rum! It seems like a dream.’

With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners.

‘The search has been quite unsuccessful then?’

‘Quite, master. But I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he’ll come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?’

The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to receive him whenever he arrived.

‘Then we have nothing for it but resignation,’ said Mr Brass; ‘nothing but resignation and expectation. It would be a comfort to have his body; it would be a dreary comfort.’

‘Oh, beyond a doubt,’ assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; ‘if we once had that, we should be quite sure.’

‘With regard to the descriptive advertisement,’ said Sampson Brass, taking up his pen. ‘It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his traits. Respecting his legs now—?’

‘Crooked, certainly,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. ‘Do you think they WERE crooked?’ said Brass, in an insinuating tone. ‘I think I see them now coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen’ pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we say crooked?’

‘I think they were a little so,’ observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.

‘Legs crooked,’ said Brass, writing as he spoke. ‘Large head, short body, legs crooked—’

‘Very crooked,’ suggested Mrs Jiniwin.

‘We’ll not say very crooked, ma’am,’ said Brass piously. ‘Let us not bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone, ma’am, to where his legs will never come in question.—We will content ourselves with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.’

‘I thought you wanted the truth,’ said the old lady. ‘That’s all.’

‘Bless your eyes, how I love you,’ muttered Quilp. ‘There she goes again. Nothing but punch!’

‘This is an occupation,’ said the lawyer, laying down his pen and emptying his glass, ‘which seems to bring him before my eyes like the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, in the very clothes that he wore on work-a-days. His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before me like visions of my youth. His linen!’ said Mr Brass smiling fondly at the wall, ‘his linen which was always of a particular colour, for such was his whim and fancy—how plain I see his linen now!’

‘You had better go on, sir,’ said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.

‘True, ma’am, true,’ cried Mr Brass. ‘Our faculties must not freeze with grief. I’ll trouble you for a little more of that, ma’am. A question now arises, with relation to his nose.’

‘Flat,’ said Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Aquiline!’ cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the feature with his fist. ‘Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you call this flat? Do you? Eh?’

‘Oh capital, capital!’ shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit. ‘Excellent! How very good he is! He’s a most remarkable man—so extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by surprise!’

Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the dubious and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually subsided, nor to the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to the latter’s running from the room, nor to the former’s fainting away. Keeping his eye fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the table, and beginning with his glass, drank off the contents, and went regularly round until he had emptied the other two, when he seized the case-bottle, and hugging it under his arm, surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer.

‘Not yet, Sampson,’ said Quilp. ‘Not just yet!’

‘Oh very good indeed!’ cried Brass, recovering his spirits a little. ‘Ha ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! There’s not another man alive who could carry it off like that. A most difficult position to carry off. But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!’

‘Good night,’ said the dwarf, nodding expressively.

‘Good night, sir, good night,’ cried the lawyer, retreating backwards towards the door. ‘This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful. Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed, remarkably so!’

Waiting until Mr Brass’s ejaculations died away in the distance (for he continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp advanced towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid amazement.

‘Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?’ said the dwarf, holding the door open with great politeness.

‘And yesterday too, master.’

‘Dear me, you’ve had a deal of trouble. Pray consider everything yours that you find upon the—upon the body. Good night!’

The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to argue the point just then, and shuffled out of the room. The speedy clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still embracing the case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded arms, stood looking at his insensible wife like a dismounted nightmare.

CHAPTER 50

Matrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties concerned in the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least her full half share. Those of Mr and Mrs Quilp, however, were an exception to the general rule; the remarks which they occasioned being limited to a long soliloquy on the part of the gentleman, with perhaps a few deprecatory observations from the lady, not extending beyond a trembling monosyllable uttered at long intervals, and in a very submissive and humble tone. On the present occasion, Mrs Quilp did not for a long time venture even on this gentle defence, but when she had recovered from her fainting-fit, sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to the reproaches of her lord and master.

Of these Mr Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that even his wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his proficiency in these respects, was well-nigh beside herself with alarm. But the Jamaica rum, and the joy of having occasioned a heavy disappointment, by degrees cooled Mr Quilp’s wrath; which from being at savage heat, dropped slowly to the bantering or chuckling point, at which it steadily remained.

‘So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?’ said Quilp. ‘You thought you were a widow, eh? Ha, ha, ha, you jade.’

‘Indeed, Quilp,’ returned his wife. ‘I’m very sorry—’

‘Who doubts it!’ cried the dwarf. ‘You very sorry! to be sure you are. Who doubts that you’re VERY sorry!’

‘I don’t mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,’ said his wife, ‘but sorry that I should have been led into such a belief. I am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.’

In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her lord than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of interest in his safety which, all things considered, was rather unaccountable. Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance made no impression, farther than as it moved him to snap his fingers close to his wife’s eyes, with divers grins of triumph and derision.

‘How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or letting me hear of you or know anything about you?’ asked the poor little woman, sobbing. ‘How could you be so cruel, Quilp?’

‘How could I be so cruel! cruel!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Because I was in the humour. I’m in the humour now. I shall be cruel when I like. I’m going away again.’

‘Not again!’

‘Yes, again. I’m going away now. I’m off directly. I mean to go and live wherever the fancy seizes me—at the wharf—at the counting-house—and be a jolly bachelor. You were a widow in anticipation. Damme,’ screamed the dwarf, ‘I’ll be a bachelor in earnest.’

‘You can’t be serious, Quilp,’ sobbed his wife.

‘I tell you,’ said the dwarf, exulting in his project, ‘that I’ll be a bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I’ll have my bachelor’s hall at the counting-house, and at such times come near it if you dare. And mind too that I don’t pounce in upon you at unseasonable hours again, for I’ll be a spy upon you, and come and go like a mole or a weazel. Tom Scott—where’s Tom Scott?’

‘Here I am, master,’ cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up the window.

‘Wait there, you dog,’ returned the dwarf, ‘to carry a bachelor’s portmanteau. Pack it up, Mrs Quilp. Knock up the dear old lady to help; knock her up. Halloa there! Halloa!’

With these exclamations, Mr Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying to the door of the good lady’s sleeping-closet, beat upon it therewith until she awoke in inexpressible terror, thinking that her amiable son-in-law surely intended to murder her in justification of the legs she had slandered. Impressed with this idea, she was no sooner fairly awake than she screamed violently, and would have quickly precipitated herself out of the window and through a neighbouring skylight, if her daughter had not hastened in to undeceive her, and implore her assistance. Somewhat reassured by her account of the service she was required to render, Mrs Jiniwin made her appearance in a flannel dressing-gown; and both mother and daughter, trembling with terror and cold—for the night was now far advanced—obeyed Mr Quilp’s directions in submissive silence. Prolonging his preparations as much as possible, for their greater comfort, that eccentric gentleman superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and having added to it with his own hands, a plate, knife and fork, spoon, teacup and saucer, and other small household matters of that nature, strapped up the portmanteau, took it on his shoulders, and actually marched off without another word, and with the case-bottle (which he had never once put down) still tightly clasped under his arm. Consigning his heavier burden to the care of Tom Scott when he reached the street, taking a dram from the bottle for his own encouragement, and giving the boy a rap on the head with it as a small taste for himself, Quilp very deliberately led the way to the wharf, and reached it at between three and four o’clock in the morning.

‘Snug!’ said Quilp, when he had groped his way to the wooden counting-house, and opened the door with a key he carried about with him. ‘Beautifully snug! Call me at eight, you dog.’

With no more formal leave-taking or explanation, he clutched the portmanteau, shut the door on his attendant, and climbing on the desk, and rolling himself up as round as a hedgehog, in an old boat-cloak, fell fast asleep.

Being roused in the morning at the appointed time, and roused with difficulty, after his late fatigues, Quilp instructed Tom Scott to make a fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and to prepare some coffee for breakfast; for the better furnishing of which repast he entrusted him with certain small moneys, to be expended in the purchase of hot rolls, butter, sugar, Yarmouth bloaters, and other articles of housekeeping; so that in a few minutes a savoury meal was smoking on the board. With this substantial comfort, the dwarf regaled himself to his heart’s content; and being highly satisfied with this free and gipsy mode of life (which he had often meditated, as offering, whenever he chose to avail himself of it, an agreeable freedom from the restraints of matrimony, and a choice means of keeping Mrs Quilp and her mother in a state of incessant agitation and suspense), bestirred himself to improve his retreat, and render it more commodious and comfortable.

With this view, he issued forth to a place hard by, where sea-stores were sold, purchased a second-hand hammock, and had it slung in seamanlike fashion from the ceiling of the counting-house. He also caused to be erected, in the same mouldy cabin, an old ship’s stove with a rusty funnel to carry the smoke through the roof; and these arrangements completed, surveyed them with ineffable delight.

‘I’ve got a country-house like Robinson Crusoe,’ said the dwarf, ogling the accommodations; ‘a solitary, sequestered, desolate-island sort of spot, where I can be quite alone when I have business on hand, and be secure from all spies and listeners. Nobody near me here, but rats, and they are fine stealthy secret fellows. I shall be as merry as a grig among these gentry. I’ll look out for one like Christopher, and poison him—ha, ha, ha! Business though—business—we must be mindful of business in the midst of pleasure, and the time has flown this morning, I declare.’

Enjoining Tom Scott to await his return, and not to stand upon his head, or throw a summerset, or so much as walk upon his hands meanwhile, on pain of lingering torments, the dwarf threw himself into a boat, and crossing to the other side of the river, and then speeding away on foot, reached Mr Swiveller’s usual house of entertainment in Bevis Marks, just as that gentleman sat down alone to dinner in its dusky parlour.

‘Dick,’ said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, ‘my pet, my pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!’

‘Oh you’re there, are you?’ returned Mr Swiveller; ‘how are you?’

‘How’s Dick?’ retorted Quilp. ‘How’s the cream of clerkship, eh?’

‘Why, rather sour, sir,’ replied Mr Swiveller. ‘Beginning to border upon cheesiness, in fact.’

‘What’s the matter?’ said the dwarf, advancing. ‘Has Sally proved unkind. “Of all the girls that are so smart, there’s none like—” eh, Dick!’

‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr Swiveller, eating his dinner with great gravity, ‘none like her. She’s the sphynx of private life, is Sally B.’

‘You’re out of spirits,’ said Quilp, drawing up a chair. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The law don’t agree with me,’ returned Dick. ‘It isn’t moist enough, and there’s too much confinement. I have been thinking of running away.’

‘Bah!’ said the dwarf. ‘Where would you run to, Dick?’

‘I don’t know’ returned Mr Swiveller. ‘Towards Highgate, I suppose. Perhaps the bells might strike up “Turn again Swiveller, Lord Mayor of London.” Whittington’s name was Dick. I wish cats were scarcer.’

Quilp looked at his companion with his eyes screwed up into a comical expression of curiosity, and patiently awaited his further explanation; upon which, however, Mr Swiveller appeared in no hurry to enter, as he ate a very long dinner in profound silence, finally pushed away his plate, threw himself back into his chair, folded his arms, and stared ruefully at the fire, in which some ends of cigars were smoking on their own account, and sending up a fragrant odour.

‘Perhaps you’d like a bit of cake’—said Dick, at last turning to the dwarf. ‘You’re quite welcome to it. You ought to be, for it’s of your making.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Quilp.

Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very greasy parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of plum-cake extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with a paste of white sugar an inch and a half deep.

‘What should you say this was?’ demanded Mr Swiveller.

‘It looks like bride-cake,’ replied the dwarf, grinning.

‘And whose should you say it was?’ inquired Mr Swiveller, rubbing the pastry against his nose with a dreadful calmness. ‘Whose?’

‘Not—’

‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘the same. You needn’t mention her name. There’s no such name now. Her name is Cheggs now, Sophy Cheggs. Yet loved I as man never loved that hadn’t wooden legs, and my heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Sophy Cheggs.’

With this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the distressing circumstances of his own case, Mr Swiveller folded up the parcel again, beat it very flat between the palms of his hands, thrust it into his breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded his arms upon the whole.

‘Now, I hope you’re satisfied, sir,’ said Dick; ‘and I hope Fred’s satisfied. You went partners in the mischief, and I hope you like it. This is the triumph I was to have, is it? It’s like the old country-dance of that name, where there are two gentlemen to one lady, and one has her, and the other hasn’t, but comes limping up behind to make out the figure. But it’s Destiny, and mine’s a crusher.’

Disguising his secret joy in Mr Swiveller’s defeat, Daniel Quilp adopted the surest means of soothing him, by ringing the bell, and ordering in a supply of rosy wine (that is to say, of its usual representative), which he put about with great alacrity, calling upon Mr Swiveller to pledge him in various toasts derisive of Cheggs, and eulogistic of the happiness of single men. Such was their impression on Mr Swiveller, coupled with the reflection that no man could oppose his destiny, that in a very short space of time his spirits rose surprisingly, and he was enabled to give the dwarf an account of the receipt of the cake, which, it appeared, had been brought to Bevis Marks by the two surviving Miss Wackleses in person, and delivered at the office door with much giggling and joyfulness.

‘Ha!’ said Quilp. ‘It will be our turn to giggle soon. And that reminds me—you spoke of young Trent—where is he?’

Mr Swiveller explained that his respectable friend had recently accepted a responsible situation in a locomotive gaming-house, and was at that time absent on a professional tour among the adventurous spirits of Great Britain.

‘That’s unfortunate,’ said the dwarf, ‘for I came, in fact, to ask you about him. A thought has occurred to me, Dick; your friend over the way—’

‘Which friend?’

‘In the first floor.’

‘Yes?’

‘Your friend in the first floor, Dick, may know him.’

‘No, he don’t,’ said Mr Swiveller, shaking his head.

‘Don’t! No, because he has never seen him,’ rejoined Quilp; ‘but if we were to bring them together, who knows, Dick, but Fred, properly introduced, would serve his turn almost as well as little Nell or her grandfather—who knows but it might make the young fellow’s fortune, and, through him, yours, eh?’

‘Why, the fact is, you see,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘that they HAVE been brought together.’

‘Have been!’ cried the dwarf, looking suspiciously at his companion. ‘Through whose means?’

‘Through mine,’ said Dick, slightly confused. ‘Didn’t I mention it to you the last time you called over yonder?’

‘You know you didn’t,’ returned the dwarf.

‘I believe you’re right,’ said Dick. ‘No. I didn’t, I recollect. Oh yes, I brought ‘em together that very day. It was Fred’s suggestion.’

‘And what came of it?’

‘Why, instead of my friend’s bursting into tears when he knew who Fred was, embracing him kindly, and telling him that he was his grandfather, or his grandmother in disguise (which we fully expected), he flew into a tremendous passion; called him all manner of names; said it was in a great measure his fault that little Nell and the old gentleman had ever been brought to poverty; didn’t hint at our taking anything to drink; and—and in short rather turned us out of the room than otherwise.’

‘That’s strange,’ said the dwarf, musing.

‘So we remarked to each other at the time,’ returned Dick coolly, ‘but quite true.’

Quilp was plainly staggered by this intelligence, over which he brooded for some time in moody silence, often raising his eyes to Mr Swiveller’s face, and sharply scanning its expression. As he could read in it, however, no additional information or anything to lead him to believe he had spoken falsely; and as Mr Swiveller, left to his own meditations, sighed deeply, and was evidently growing maudlin on the subject of Mrs Cheggs; the dwarf soon broke up the conference and took his departure, leaving the bereaved one to his melancholy ruminations.

‘Have been brought together, eh?’ said the dwarf as he walked the streets alone. ‘My friend has stolen a march upon me. It led him to nothing, and therefore is no great matter, save in the intention. I’m glad he has lost his mistress. Ha ha! The blockhead mustn’t leave the law at present. I’m sure of him where he is, whenever I want him for my own purposes, and, besides, he’s a good unconscious spy on Brass, and tells, in his cups, all that he sees and hears. You’re useful to me, Dick, and cost nothing but a little treating now and then. I am not sure that it may not be worth while, before long, to take credit with the stranger, Dick, by discovering your designs upon the child; but for the present we’ll remain the best friends in the world, with your good leave.’

Pursuing these thoughts, and gasping as he went along, after his own peculiar fashion, Mr Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and shut himself up in his Bachelor’s Hall, which, by reason of its newly-erected chimney depositing the smoke inside the room and carrying none of it off, was not quite so agreeable as more fastidious people might have desired. Such inconveniences, however, instead of disgusting the dwarf with his new abode, rather suited his humour; so, after dining luxuriously from the public-house, he lighted his pipe, and smoked against the chimney until nothing of him was visible through the mist but a pair of red and highly inflamed eyes, with sometimes a dim vision of his head and face, as, in a violent fit of coughing, he slightly stirred the smoke and scattered the heavy wreaths by which they were obscured. In the midst of this atmosphere, which must infallibly have smothered any other man, Mr Quilp passed the evening with great cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time with the pipe and the case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself with a melodious howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever invented by man. Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight, when he turned into his hammock with the utmost satisfaction.

The first sound that met his ears in the morning—as he half opened his eyes, and, finding himself so unusually near the ceiling, entertained a drowsy idea that he must have been transformed into a fly or blue-bottle in the course of the night,—was that of a stifled sobbing and weeping in the room. Peeping cautiously over the side of his hammock, he descried Mrs Quilp, to whom, after contemplating her for some time in silence, he communicated a violent start by suddenly yelling out—‘Halloa!’

‘Oh, Quilp!’ cried his poor little wife, looking up. ‘How you frightened me!’

‘I meant to, you jade,’ returned the dwarf. ‘What do you want here? I’m dead, an’t I?’

‘Oh, please come home, do come home,’ said Mrs Quilp, sobbing; ‘we’ll never do so any more, Quilp, and after all it was only a mistake that grew out of our anxiety.’

‘Out of your anxiety,’ grinned the dwarf. ‘Yes, I know that—out of your anxiety for my death. I shall come home when I please, I tell you. I shall come home when I please, and go when I please. I’ll be a Will o’ the Wisp, now here, now there, dancing about you always, starting up when you least expect me, and keeping you in a constant state of restlessness and irritation. Will you begone?’

Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty.

‘I tell you no,’ cried the dwarf. ‘No. If you dare to come here again unless you’re sent for, I’ll keep watch-dogs in the yard that’ll growl and bite—I’ll have man-traps, cunningly altered and improved for catching women—I’ll have spring guns, that shall explode when you tread upon the wires, and blow you into little pieces. Will you begone?’

‘Do forgive me. Do come back,’ said his wife, earnestly.

‘No-o-o-o-o!’ roared Quilp. ‘Not till my own good time, and then I’ll return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to nobody for my goings or comings. You see the door there. Will you go?’

Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic voice, and moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture, indicative of an intention to spring out of his hammock, and, night-capped as he was, bear his wife home again through the public streets, that she sped away like an arrow. Her worthy lord stretched his neck and eyes until she had crossed the yard, and then, not at all sorry to have had this opportunity of carrying his point, and asserting the sanctity of his castle, fell into an immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down to sleep again.

CHAPTER 51

The bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor’s Hall slept on amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog, and rats, until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom Scott to assist him to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted his couch, and made his toilet. This duty performed, and his repast ended, he again betook himself to Bevis Marks.

This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend and employer Mr Sampson Brass. Both gentlemen however were from home, nor was the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post either. The fact of their joint desertion of the office was made known to all comers by a scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr Swiveller, which was attached to the bell-handle, and which, giving the reader no clue to the time of day when it was first posted, furnished him with the rather vague and unsatisfactory information that that gentleman would ‘return in an hour.’

‘There’s a servant, I suppose,’ said the dwarf, knocking at the house-door. ‘She’ll do.’

After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a small voice immediately accosted him with, ‘Oh please will you leave a card or message?’

‘Eh?’ said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to him) upon the small servant.

To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the occasion of her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied, ‘Oh please will you leave a card or message?’

‘I’ll write a note,’ said the dwarf, pushing past her into the office; ‘and mind your master has it directly he comes home.’ So Mr Quilp climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note, and the small servant, carefully tutored for such emergencies, looked on with her eyes wide open, ready, if he so much as abstracted a wafer, to rush into the street and give the alarm to the police.

As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very short one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant. He looked at her, long and earnestly.

‘How are you?’ said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible grimaces.

The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no audible reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she was inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the note or message.

‘Do they use you ill here? is your mistress a Tartar?’ said Quilp with a chuckle.

In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look of infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very tight and round, and nodded violently. Whether there was anything in the peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or anything in the expression of her features at the moment which attracted his attention for some other reason; or whether it merely occurred to him as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out of countenance; certain it is, that he planted his elbows square and firmly on the desk, and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands, looked at her fixedly.

‘Where do you come from?’ he said after a long pause, stroking his chin.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nonsense!’ retorted Quilp. ‘What does your mistress call you when she wants you?’

‘A little devil,’ said the child.

She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further questioning, ‘But please will you leave a card or message?’

These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more inquiries. Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew his eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully than before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it with scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly but very narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows. The result of this secret survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and laughed slyly and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen almost to bursting. Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his mirth and its effects, he tossed the letter to the child, and hastily withdrew.

Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and held his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the dusty area railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child, until he was quite tired out. At last, he travelled back to the Wilderness, which was within rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat, and ordered tea in the wooden summer-house that afternoon for three persons; an invitation to Miss Sally Brass and her brother to partake of that entertainment at that place, having been the object both of his journey and his note.

It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually take tea in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced state of decay, and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at low water. Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr Quilp ordered a cold collation to be prepared, and it was beneath its cracked and leaky roof that he, in due course of time, received Mr Sampson and his sister Sally.

‘You’re fond of the beauties of nature,’ said Quilp with a grin. ‘Is this charming, Brass? Is it unusual, unsophisticated, primitive?’

‘It’s delightful indeed, sir,’ replied the lawyer.

‘Cool?’ said Quilp.

‘N-not particularly so, I think, sir,’ rejoined Brass, with his teeth chattering in his head.

‘Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?’ said Quilp.

‘Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,’ rejoined Brass. ‘Nothing more, sir, nothing more.’

‘And Sally?’ said the delighted dwarf. ‘Does she like it?’

‘She’ll like it better,’ returned that strong-minded lady, ‘when she has tea; so let us have it, and don’t bother.’

‘Sweet Sally!’ cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to embrace her. ‘Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.’

‘He’s a very remarkable man indeed!’ soliloquised Mr Brass. ‘He’s quite a Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!’

These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent and distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having a bad cold in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have willingly borne some pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted his present raw quarters to a warm room, and dried himself at a fire. Quilp, however—who, beyond the gratification of his demon whims, owed Sampson some acknowledgment of the part he had played in the mourning scene of which he had been a hidden witness, marked these symptoms of uneasiness with a delight past all expression, and derived from them a secret joy which the costliest banquet could never have afforded him.

It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in the character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own account she would have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with a very ill grace, and would probably, indeed, have walked off before the tea appeared, she no sooner beheld the latent uneasiness and misery of her brother than she developed a grim satisfaction, and began to enjoy herself after her own manner. Though the wet came stealing through the roof and trickling down upon their heads, Miss Brass uttered no complaint, but presided over the tea equipage with imperturbable composure. While Mr Quilp, in his uproarious hospitality, seated himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted the place as the most beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms, and elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that jovial spot; and Mr Brass, with the rain plashing down into his tea-cup, made a dismal attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear at his ease; and Tom Scott, who was in waiting at the door under an old umbrella, exulted in his agonies, and bade fair to split his sides with laughing; while all this was passing, Miss Sally Brass, unmindful of the wet which dripped down upon her own feminine person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind the tea-board, erect and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her brother with a mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of self, to sit there all night, witnessing the torments which his avaricious and grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade him to resent. And this, it must be observed, or the illustration would be incomplete, although in a business point of view she had the strongest sympathy with Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond measure indignant if he had thwarted their client in any one respect.

In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his usual manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his hand upon the lawyer’s sleeve.

‘A word,’ said the dwarf, ‘before we go farther. Sally, hark’ee for a minute.’

Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences with their host which were the better for not having air.

‘Business,’ said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister. ‘Very private business. Lay your heads together when you’re by yourselves.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and pencil. ‘I’ll take down the heads if you please, sir. Remarkable documents,’ added the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling, ‘most remarkable documents. He states his points so clearly that it’s a treat to have ‘em! I don’t know any act of parliament that’s equal to him in clearness.’

‘I shall deprive you of a treat,’ said Quilp. ‘Put up your book. We don’t want any documents. So. There’s a lad named Kit—’

Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.

‘Kit!’ said Mr Sampson.—‘Kit! Ha! I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t exactly call to mind—I don’t exactly—’

‘You’re as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a rhinoceros,’ returned his obliging client with an impatient gesture.

‘He’s extremely pleasant!’ cried the obsequious Sampson. ‘His acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising. Quite a Buffoon, quite!’

There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other; and it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said Buffon, but made use of a superfluous vowel. Be this as it may, Quilp gave him no time for correction, as he performed that office himself by more than tapping him on the head with the handle of his umbrella.

‘Don’t let’s have any wrangling,’ said Miss Sally, staying his hand. ‘I’ve showed you that I know him, and that’s enough.’

‘She’s always foremost!’ said the dwarf, patting her on the back and looking contemptuously at Sampson. ‘I don’t like Kit, Sally.’

‘Nor I,’ rejoined Miss Brass.

‘Nor I,’ said Sampson.

‘Why, that’s right!’ cried Quilp. ‘Half our work is done already. This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters; a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, white-livered, sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a barking yelping dog to all besides.’

‘Fearfully eloquent!’ cried Brass with a sneeze. ‘Quite appalling!’

‘Come to the point,’ said Miss Sally, ‘and don’t talk so much.’

‘Right again!’ exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at Sampson, ‘always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog to all besides, and most of all, to me. In short, I owe him a grudge.’ ‘That’s enough, sir,’ said Sampson.

‘No, it’s not enough, sir,’ sneered Quilp; ‘will you hear me out? Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at this minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise prove a golden one to us all. Apart from that, I repeat that he crosses my humour, and I hate him. Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest. Devise your own means of putting him out of my way, and execute them. Shall it be done?’

‘It shall, sir,’ said Sampson.

‘Then give me your hand,’ retorted Quilp. ‘Sally, girl, yours. I rely as much, or more, on you than him. Tom Scott comes back. Lantern, pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!’

No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting. The trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to each other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing more was needed. Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease with which he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same uproarious, reckless little savage he had been a few seconds before. It was ten o’clock at night before the amiable Sally supported her beloved and loving brother from the Wilderness, by which time he needed the utmost support her tender frame could render; his walk being from some unknown reason anything but steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in unexpected places.

Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping to his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock. Leaving him to visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in the old church porch were not without their share, be it our task to rejoin them as they sat and watched.

CHAPTER 52

After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of the churchyard, and hurried towards them, tingling in his hand, as he came along, a bundle of rusty keys. He was quite breathless with pleasure and haste when he reached the porch, and at first could only point towards the old building which the child had been contemplating so earnestly.

‘You see those two old houses,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, surely,’ replied Nell. ‘I have been looking at them nearly all the time you have been away.’

‘And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could have guessed what I have to tell you,’ said her friend. ‘One of those houses is mine.’

Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke.

They stopped before its low arched door. After trying several of the keys in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock, which turned back, creaking, and admitted them into the house.

The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its beautiful groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of its ancient splendour. Foliage carved in the stone, and emulating the mastery of Nature’s hand, yet remained to tell how many times the leaves outside had come and gone, while it lived on unchanged. The broken figures supporting the burden of the chimney-piece, though mutilated, were still distinguishable for what they had been—far different from the dust without—and showed sadly by the empty hearth, like creatures who had outlived their kind, and mourned their own too slow decay.

In some old time—for even change was old in that old place—a wooden partition had been constructed in one part of the chamber to form a sleeping-closet, into which the light was admitted at the same period by a rude window, or rather niche, cut in the solid wall. This screen, together with two seats in the broad chimney, had at some forgotten date been part of the church or convent; for the oak, hastily appropriated to its present purpose, had been little altered from its former shape, and presented to the eye a pile of fragments of rich carving from old monkish stalls.

An open door leading to a small room or cell, dim with the light that came through leaves of ivy, completed the interior of this portion of the ruin. It was not quite destitute of furniture. A few strange chairs, whose arms and legs looked as though they had dwindled away with age; a table, the very spectre of its race: a great old chest that had once held records in the church, with other quaintly-fashioned domestic necessaries, and store of fire-wood for the winter, were scattered around, and gave evident tokens of its occupation as a dwelling-place at no very distant time.

The child looked around her, with that solemn feeling with which we contemplate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in the great ocean of eternity. The old man had followed them, but they were all three hushed for a space, and drew their breath softly, as if they feared to break the silence even by so slight a sound.

‘It is a very beautiful place!’ said the child, in a low voice.

‘I almost feared you thought otherwise,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘You shivered when we first came in, as if you felt it cold or gloomy.’

‘It was not that,’ said Nell, glancing round with a slight shudder. ‘Indeed I cannot tell you what it was, but when I saw the outside, from the church porch, the same feeling came over me. It is its being so old and grey perhaps.’

‘A peaceful place to live in, don’t you think so?’ said her friend.

‘Oh yes,’ rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly. ‘A quiet, happy place—a place to live and learn to die in!’ She would have said more, but that the energy of her thoughts caused her voice to falter, and come in trembling whispers from her lips.

‘A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and body in,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘for this old house is yours.’

‘Ours!’ cried the child.

‘Ay,’ returned the schoolmaster gaily, ‘for many a merry year to come, I hope. I shall be a close neighbour—only next door—but this house is yours.’

Having now disburdened himself of his great surprise, the schoolmaster sat down, and drawing Nell to his side, told her how he had learnt that ancient tenement had been occupied for a very long time by an old person, nearly a hundred years of age, who kept the keys of the church, opened and closed it for the services, and showed it to strangers; how she had died not many weeks ago, and nobody had yet been found to fill the office; how, learning all this in an interview with the sexton, who was confined to his bed by rheumatism, he had been bold to make mention of his fellow-traveller, which had been so favourably received by that high authority, that he had taken courage, acting on his advice, to propound the matter to the clergyman. In a word, the result of his exertions was, that Nell and her grandfather were to be carried before the last-named gentleman next day; and, his approval of their conduct and appearance reserved as a matter of form, that they were already appointed to the vacant post.

‘There’s a small allowance of money,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘It is not much, but still enough to live upon in this retired spot. By clubbing our funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of that.’

‘Heaven bless and prosper you!’ sobbed the child.

‘Amen, my dear,’ returned her friend cheerfully; ‘and all of us, as it will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble to this tranquil life. But we must look at MY house now. Come!’

They repaired to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as before; at length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten door. It led into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which they had come, but not so spacious, and having only one other little room attached. It was not difficult to divine that the other house was of right the schoolmaster’s, and that he had chosen for himself the least commodious, in his care and regard for them. Like the adjoining habitation, it held such old articles of furniture as were absolutely necessary, and had its stack of fire-wood.

To make these dwellings as habitable and full of comfort as they could, was now their pleasant care. In a short time, each had its cheerful fire glowing and crackling on the hearth, and reddening the pale old wall with a hale and healthy blush. Nell, busily plying her needle, repaired the tattered window-hangings, drew together the rents that time had worn in the threadbare scraps of carpet, and made them whole and decent. The schoolmaster swept and smoothed the ground before the door, trimmed the long grass, trained the ivy and creeping plants which hung their drooping heads in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer walls a cheery air of home. The old man, sometimes by his side and sometimes with the child, lent his aid to both, went here and there on little patient services, and was happy. Neighbours, too, as they came from work, proffered their help; or sent their children with such small presents or loans as the strangers needed most. It was a busy day; and night came on, and found them wondering that there was yet so much to do, and that it should be dark so soon.

They took their supper together, in the house which may be henceforth called the child’s; and, when they had finished their meal, drew round the fire, and almost in whispers—their hearts were too quiet and glad for loud expression—discussed their future plans. Before they separated, the schoolmaster read some prayers aloud; and then, full of gratitude and happiness, they parted for the night.

At that silent hour, when her grandfather was sleeping peacefully in his bed, and every sound was hushed, the child lingered before the dying embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had been a dream And she only now awoke. The glare of the sinking flame, reflected in the oaken panels whose carved tops were dimly seen in the dusky roof—the aged walls, where strange shadows came and went with every flickering of the fire—the solemn presence, within, of that decay which falls on senseless things the most enduring in their nature: and, without, and round about on every side, of Death—filled her with deep and thoughtful feelings, but with none of terror or alarm. A change had been gradually stealing over her, in the time of her loneliness and sorrow. With failing strength and heightening resolution, there had sprung up a purified and altered mind; there had grown in her bosom blessed thoughts and hopes, which are the portion of few but the weak and drooping. There were none to see the frail, perishable figure, as it glided from the fire and leaned pensively at the open casement; none but the stars, to look into the upturned face and read its history. The old church bell rang out the hour with a mournful sound, as if it had grown sad from so much communing with the dead and unheeded warning to the living; the fallen leaves rustled; the grass stirred upon the graves; all else was still and sleeping.

Some of those dreamless sleepers lay close within the shadow of the church—touching the wall, as if they clung to it for comfort and protection. Others had chosen to lie beneath the changing shade of trees; others by the path, that footsteps might come near them; others, among the graves of little children. Some had desired to rest beneath the very ground they had trodden in their daily walks; some, where the setting sun might shine upon their beds; some, where its light would fall upon them when it rose. Perhaps not one of the imprisoned souls had been able quite to separate itself in living thought from its old companion. If any had, it had still felt for it a love like that which captives have been known to bear towards the cell in which they have been long confined, and, even at parting, hung upon its narrow bounds affectionately.

It was long before the child closed the window, and approached her bed. Again something of the same sensation as before—an involuntary chill—a momentary feeling akin to fear—but vanishing directly, and leaving no alarm behind. Again, too, dreams of the little scholar; of the roof opening, and a column of bright faces, rising far away into the sky, as she had seen in some old scriptural picture once, and looking down on her, asleep. It was a sweet and happy dream. The quiet spot, outside, seemed to remain the same, saving that there was music in the air, and a sound of angels’ wings. After a time the sisters came there, hand in hand, and stood among the graves. And then the dream grew dim, and faded.

With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of yesterday’s labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the restoration of its energies, cheerfulness, and hope. They worked gaily in ordering and arranging their houses until noon, and then went to visit the clergyman.

He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued spirit, accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with the world, which he had left many years before to come and settle in that place. His wife had died in the house in which he still lived, and he had long since lost sight of any earthly cares or hopes beyond it.

He received them very kindly, and at once showed an interest in Nell; asking her name, and age, her birthplace, the circumstances which had led her there, and so forth. The schoolmaster had already told her story. They had no other friends or home to leave, he said, and had come to share his fortunes. He loved the child as though she were his own.

‘Well, well,’ said the clergyman. ‘Let it be as you desire. She is very young.’

‘Old in adversity and trial, sir,’ replied the schoolmaster.

‘God help her. Let her rest, and forget them,’ said the old gentleman. ‘But an old church is a dull and gloomy place for one so young as you, my child.’

‘Oh no, sir,’ returned Nell. ‘I have no such thoughts, indeed.’

‘I would rather see her dancing on the green at nights,’ said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, and smiling sadly, ‘than have her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches. You must look to this, and see that her heart does not grow heavy among these solemn ruins. Your request is granted, friend.’

After more kind words, they withdrew, and repaired to the child’s house; where they were yet in conversation on their happy fortune, when another friend appeared.

This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house, and had resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since the death of the clergyman’s wife, which had happened fifteen years before. He had been his college friend and always his close companion; in the first shock of his grief he had come to console and comfort him; and from that time they had never parted company. The little old gentleman was the active spirit of the place, the adjuster of all differences, the promoter of all merry-makings, the dispenser of his friend’s bounty, and of no small charity of his own besides; the universal mediator, comforter, and friend. None of the simple villagers had cared to ask his name, or, when they knew it, to store it in their memory. Perhaps from some vague rumour of his college honours which had been whispered abroad on his first arrival, perhaps because he was an unmarried, unencumbered gentleman, he had been called the bachelor. The name pleased him, or suited him as well as any other, and the Bachelor he had ever since remained. And the bachelor it was, it may be added, who with his own hands had laid in the stock of fuel which the wanderers had found in their new habitation.

The bachelor, then—to call him by his usual appellation—lifted the latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the door, and stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it.

‘You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?’ he said, greeting Nell’s kind friend.

‘I am, sir.’

‘You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you. I should have been in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across the country to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter in service some miles off, and have but just now returned. This is our young church-keeper? You are not the less welcome, friend, for her sake, or for this old man’s; nor the worse teacher for having learnt humanity.’ ‘She has been ill, sir, very lately,’ said the schoolmaster, in answer to the look with which their visitor regarded Nell when he had kissed her cheek.

‘Yes, yes. I know she has,’ he rejoined. ‘There have been suffering and heartache here.’

‘Indeed there have, sir.’

The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again at the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held.

‘You will be happier here,’ he said; ‘we will try, at least, to make you so. You have made great improvements here already. Are they the work of your hands?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We may make some others—not better in themselves, but with better means perhaps,’ said the bachelor. ‘Let us see now, let us see.’

Nell accompanied him into the other little rooms, and over both the houses, in which he found various small comforts wanting, which he engaged to supply from a certain collection of odds and ends he had at home, and which must have been a very miscellaneous and extensive one, as it comprehended the most opposite articles imaginable. They all came, however, and came without loss of time; for the little old gentleman, disappearing for some five or ten minutes, presently returned, laden with old shelves, rugs, blankets, and other household gear, and followed by a boy bearing a similar load. These being cast on the floor in a promiscuous heap, yielded a quantity of occupation in arranging, erecting, and putting away; the superintendence of which task evidently afforded the old gentleman extreme delight, and engaged him for some time with great briskness and activity. When nothing more was left to be done, he charged the boy to run off and bring his schoolmates to be marshalled before their new master, and solemnly reviewed.

‘As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you’d wish to see,’ he said, turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; ‘but I don’t let ‘em know I think so. That wouldn’t do, at all.’

The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins, great and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house door, fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their hats and caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible dimensions, and making all manner of bows and scrapes, which the little old gentleman contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and expressed his approval of by a great many nods and smiles. Indeed, his approbation of the boys was by no means so scrupulously disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which were perfectly audible to them every one.

‘This first boy, schoolmaster,’ said the bachelor, ‘is John Owen; a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far. That boy, my good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his parents of their chief comfort—and between ourselves, when you come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the finger-post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry, you’ll never forget it. It’s beautiful!’

John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.

‘Now, look at that lad, sir,’ said the bachelor. ‘You see that fellow? Richard Evans his name is, sir. An amazing boy to learn, blessed with a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover with a good voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the best among us. Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he’ll never die in his bed; he’s always falling asleep in sermon-time—and to tell you the truth, Mr Marton, I always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain that it was natural to my constitution and I couldn’t help it.’

This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor turned to another.

‘But if we talk of examples to be shunned,’ said he, ‘if we come to boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here’s the one, and I hope you won’t spare him. This is the lad, sir; this one with the blue eyes and light hair. This is a swimmer, sir, this fellow—a diver, Lord save us! This is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for plunging into eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man’s dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of his guide and friend. I sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir,’ added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, ‘directly I heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he hasn’t the least idea that it came from me.’

Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart and were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example. Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he could have obeyed when he was a boy, had his life depended on it.

Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor’s disposition as so many assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the schoolmaster parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits, and deemed himself one of the happiest men on earth. The windows of the two old houses were ruddy again, that night, with the reflection of the cheerful fires that burnt within; and the bachelor and his friend, pausing to look upon them as they returned from their evening walk, spoke softly together of the beautiful child, and looked round upon the churchyard with a sigh.

CHAPTER 53

Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her household tasks, and put everything in order for the good schoolmaster (though sorely against his will, for he would have spared her the pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a little bundle of keys with which the bachelor had formally invested her on the previous day, and went out alone to visit the old church.

The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the fresh scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense. The neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful sound; the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by Good Spirits over the dead. Some young children sported among the tombs, and hid from each other, with laughing faces. They had an infant with them, and had laid it down asleep upon a child’s grave, in a little bed of leaves. It was a new grave—the resting-place, perhaps, of some little creature, who, meek and patient in its illness, had often sat and watched them, and now seemed, to their minds, scarcely changed.

She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was. The child answered that that was not its name; it was a garden—his brother’s. It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens, and the birds loved it better because he had been used to feed them. When he had done speaking, he looked at her with a smile, and kneeling down and nestling for a moment with his cheek against the turf, bounded merrily away.

She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through the wicket gate, and so into the village. The old sexton, leaning on a crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her good morrow.

‘You are better?’ said the child, stopping to speak with him.

‘Ay surely,’ returned the old man. ‘I’m thankful to say, much better.’

‘You will be quite well soon.’

‘With Heaven’s leave, and a little patience. But come in, come in!’ The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step, which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way into his little cottage.

‘It is but one room you see. There is another up above, but the stair has got harder to climb o’ late years, and I never use it. I’m thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.’

The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him—one of his trade too—could talk of time so easily. He saw her eyes wandering to the tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.

‘I warrant now,’ he said, ‘that you think all those are used in making graves.’

‘Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.’

‘And well you might. I am a gardener. I dig the ground, and plant things that are to live and grow. My works don’t all moulder away, and rot in the earth. You see that spade in the centre?’

‘The very old one—so notched and worn? Yes.’

‘That’s the sexton’s spade, and it’s a well-used one, as you see. We’re healthy people here, but it has done a power of work. If it could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an unexpected job that it and I have done together; but I forget ‘em, for my memory’s a poor one.—That’s nothing new,’ he added hastily. ‘It always was.’

‘There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,’ said the child.

‘Oh yes. And tall trees. But they are not so separate from the sexton’s labours as you think.’

‘No!’

‘Not in my mind, and recollection—such as it is,’ said the old man. ‘Indeed they often help it. For say that I planted such a tree for such a man. There it stands, to remind me that he died. When I look at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his time, it helps me to the age of my other work, and I can tell you pretty nearly when I made his grave.’

‘But it may remind you of one who is still alive,’ said the child.

‘Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives, then,’ rejoined the old man; ‘wife, husband, parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends—a score at least. So it happens that the sexton’s spade gets worn and battered. I shall need a new one—next summer.’

The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with his age and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in earnest.

‘Ah!’ he said, after a brief silence. ‘People never learn. They never learn. It’s only we who turn up the ground, where nothing grows and everything decays, who think of such things as these—who think of them properly, I mean. You have been into the church?’

‘I am going there now,’ the child replied.

‘There’s an old well there,’ said the sexton, ‘right underneath the belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well. Forty year ago, you had only to let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of the windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water. By little and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after that, a second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or the bucket swung tight and empty at the end. In ten years’ time, the water fell again, and a third knot was made. In ten years more, the well dried up; and now, if you lower the bucket till your arms are tired, and let out nearly all the cord, you’ll hear it, of a sudden, clanking and rattling on the ground below; with a sound of being so deep and so far down, that your heart leaps into your mouth, and you start away as if you were falling in.’

‘A dreadful place to come on in the dark!’ exclaimed the child, who had followed the old man’s looks and words until she seemed to stand upon its brink.

‘What is it but a grave!’ said the sexton. ‘What else! And which of our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring subsided, of their own failing strength, and lessening life? Not one!’

‘Are you very old yourself?’ asked the child, involuntarily.

‘I shall be seventy-nine—next summer.’

‘You still work when you are well?’

‘Work! To be sure. You shall see my gardens hereabout. Look at the window there. I made, and have kept, that plot of ground entirely with my own hands. By this time next year I shall hardly see the sky, the boughs will have grown so thick. I have my winter work at night besides.’

He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and produced some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made of old wood.

‘Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to them,’ he said, ‘like to buy these keepsakes from our church and ruins. Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here and there; sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long preserved. See here—this is a little chest of the last kind, clasped at the edges with fragments of brass plates that had writing on ‘em once, though it would be hard to read it now. I haven’t many by me at this time of year, but these shelves will be full—next summer.’

The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old man, drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one stern moral, never contemplated its application to himself; and, while he dwelt upon the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and deed to deem himself immortal. But her musings did not stop here, for she was wise enough to think that by a good and merciful adjustment this must be human nature, and that the old sexton, with his plans for next summer, was but a type of all mankind.

Full of these meditations, she reached the church. It was easy to find the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on a scrap of yellow parchment. Its very turning in the lock awoke a hollow sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the echoes that it raised in closing, made her start.

If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly, because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep impression of finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the very light, coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and the air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone! Here was the broken pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing on the pilgrims’ steps, had trodden out their track, and left but crumbling stones. Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately tomb on which no epitaph remained—all—marble, stone, iron, wood, and dust—one common monument of ruin. The best work and the worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least imposing—both of Heaven’s work and Man’s—all found one common level here, and told one common tale.

Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded hands—cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars—girded with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived. Some of these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty hooks. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet retained their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect. Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.

The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the stark figures on the tombs—they made it more quiet there, than elsewhere, to her fancy—and gazing round with a feeling of awe, tempered with a calm delight, felt that now she was happy, and at rest. She took a Bible from the shelf, and read; then, laying it down, thought of the summer days and the bright springtime that would come—of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant, upon the sleeping forms—of the leaves that would flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the pavement—of the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors—of the sweet air, that would steal in, and gently wave the tattered banners overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of death! Die who would, it would still remain the same; these sights and sounds would still go on, as happily as ever. It would be no pain to sleep amidst them.

She left the chapel—very slowly and often turning back to gaze again—and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower, opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where she looked down, through narrow loopholes, on the place she had left, or caught a glimmering vision of the dusty bells. At length she gained the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top.

Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the bright blue sky; the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke, that, coming from among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the green earth; the children yet at their gambols down below—all, everything, so beautiful and happy! It was like passing from death to life; it was drawing nearer Heaven.

The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked the door. As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy hum of voices. Her friend had begun his labours only on that day. The noise grew louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come trooping out and disperse themselves with merry shouts and play. ‘It’s a good thing,’ thought the child, ‘I am very glad they pass the church.’ And then she stopped, to fancy how the noise would sound inside, and how gently it would seem to die away upon the ear.

Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel, and in her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the same quiet train of thought. Even when it had grown dusk, and the shadows of coming night made it more solemn still, the child remained, like one rooted to the spot, and had no fear or thought of stirring.

They found her there, at last, and took her home. She looked pale but very happy, until they separated for the night; and then, as the poor schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he felt a tear upon his face.

CHAPTER 54

The bachelor, among his various occupations, found in the old church a constant source of interest and amusement. Taking that pride in it which men conceive for the wonders of their own little world, he had made its history his study; and many a summer day within its walls, and many a winter’s night beside the parsonage fire, had found the bachelor still poring over, and adding to, his goodly store of tale and legend.

As he was not one of those rough spirits who would strip fair Truth of every little shadowy vestment in which time and teeming fancies love to array her—and some of which become her pleasantly enough, serving, like the waters of her well, to add new graces to the charms they half conceal and half suggest, and to awaken interest and pursuit rather than languor and indifference—as, unlike this stern and obdurate class, he loved to see the goddess crowned with those garlands of wild flowers which tradition wreathes for her gentle wearing, and which are often freshest in their homeliest shapes—he trod with a light step and bore with a light hand upon the dust of centuries, unwilling to demolish any of the airy shrines that had been raised above it, if any good feeling or affection of the human heart were hiding thereabouts. Thus, in the case of an ancient coffin of rough stone, supposed, for many generations, to contain the bones of a certain baron, who, after ravaging, with cut, and thrust, and plunder, in foreign lands, came back with a penitent and sorrowing heart to die at home, but which had been lately shown by learned antiquaries to be no such thing, as the baron in question (so they contended) had died hard in battle, gnashing his teeth and cursing with his latest breath—the bachelor stoutly maintained that the old tale was the true one; that the baron, repenting him of the evil, had done great charities and meekly given up the ghost; and that, if ever baron went to heaven, that baron was then at peace. In like manner, when the aforesaid antiquaries did argue and contend that a certain secret vault was not the tomb of a grey-haired lady who had been hanged and drawn and quartered by glorious Queen Bess for succouring a wretched priest who fainted of thirst and hunger at her door, the bachelor did solemnly maintain, against all comers, that the church was hallowed by the said poor lady’s ashes; that her remains had been collected in the night from four of the city’s gates, and thither in secret brought, and there deposited; and the bachelor did further (being highly excited at such times) deny the glory of Queen Bess, and assert the immeasurably greater glory of the meanest woman in her realm, who had a merciful and tender heart. As to the assertion that the flat stone near the door was not the grave of the miser who had disowned his only child and left a sum of money to the church to buy a peal of bells, the bachelor did readily admit the same, and that the place had given birth to no such man. In a word, he would have had every stone, and plate of brass, the monument only of deeds whose memory should survive. All others he was willing to forget. They might be buried in consecrated ground, but he would have had them buried deep, and never brought to light again.

It was from the lips of such a tutor, that the child learnt her easy task. Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent building and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood—majestic age surrounded by perpetual youth—it seemed to her, when she heard these things, sacred to all goodness and virtue. It was another world, where sin and sorrow never came; a tranquil place of rest, where nothing evil entered.

When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every tomb and flat grave-stone some history of its own, he took her down into the old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it had been lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps depending from the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented odours, and habits glittering with gold and silver, and pictures, and precious stuffs, and jewels all flashing and glistening through the low arches, the chaunt of aged voices had been many a time heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt and prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads. Thence, he took her above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along—dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off—or to pause like gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers. He showed her too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those rotting scraps of armour up above—how this had been a helmet, and that a shield, and that a gauntlet—and how they had wielded the great two-handed swords, and beaten men down, with yonder iron mace. All that he told the child she treasured in her mind; and sometimes, when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times, and rising from her bed looked out at the dark church, she almost hoped to see the windows lighted up, and hear the organ’s swell, and sound of voices, on the rushing wind.

The old sexton soon got better, and was about again. From him the child learnt many other things, though of a different kind. He was not able to work, but one day there was a grave to be made, and he came to overlook the man who dug it. He was in a talkative mood; and the child, at first standing by his side, and afterwards sitting on the grass at his feet, with her thoughtful face raised towards his, began to converse with him.

Now, the man who did the sexton’s duty was a little older than he, though much more active. But he was deaf; and when the sexton (who peradventure, on a pinch, might have walked a mile with great difficulty in half-a-dozen hours) exchanged a remark with him about his work, the child could not help noticing that he did so with an impatient kind of pity for his infirmity, as if he were himself the strongest and heartiest man alive.

‘I’m sorry to see there is this to do,’ said the child when she approached. ‘I heard of no one having died.’

‘She lived in another hamlet, my dear,’ returned the sexton. ‘Three mile away.’

‘Was she young?’

‘Ye-yes’ said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think. David, was she more than sixty-four?’

David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question. The sexton, as he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was too infirm to rise without assistance, called his attention by throwing a little mould upon his red nightcap.

‘What’s the matter now?’ said David, looking up.

‘How old was Becky Morgan?’ asked the sexton.

‘Becky Morgan?’ repeated David.

‘Yes,’ replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half irritable tone, which the old man couldn’t hear, ‘you’re getting very deaf, Davy, very deaf to be sure!’

The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a piece of slate he had by him for the purpose—and scraping off, in the process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans—set himself to consider the subject.

‘Let me think’ quoth he. ‘I saw last night what they had put upon the coffin—was it seventy-nine?’

‘No, no,’ said the sexton.

‘Ah yes, it was though,’ returned the old man with a sigh. ‘For I remember thinking she was very near our age. Yes, it was seventy-nine.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t mistake a figure, Davy?’ asked the sexton, with signs of some emotion.

‘What?’ said the old man. ‘Say that again.’

‘He’s very deaf. He’s very deaf indeed,’ cried the sexton petulantly; ‘are you sure you’re right about the figures?’

‘Oh quite,’ replied the old man. ‘Why not?’

‘He’s exceedingly deaf,’ muttered the sexton to himself. ‘I think he’s getting foolish.’

The child rather wondered what had led him to this belief, as, to say the truth, the old man seemed quite as sharp as he, and was infinitely more robust. As the sexton said nothing more just then, however, she forgot it for the time, and spoke again.

‘You were telling me,’ she said, ‘about your gardening. Do you ever plant things here?’

‘In the churchyard?’ returned the sexton, ‘Not I.’

‘I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,’ the child rejoined; ‘there are some over there, you see. I thought they were of your rearing, though indeed they grow but poorly.’

‘They grow as Heaven wills,’ said the old man; ‘and it kindly ordains that they shall never flourish here.’

‘I do not understand you.’

‘Why, this it is,’ said the sexton. ‘They mark the graves of those who had very tender, loving friends.’

‘I was sure they did!’ the child exclaimed. ‘I am very glad to know they do!’

‘Aye,’ returned the old man, ‘but stay. Look at them. See how they hang their heads, and droop, and wither. Do you guess the reason?’

‘No,’ the child replied.

‘Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon. At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once a week to once a month; then, at long and uncertain intervals; then, not at all. Such tokens seldom flourish long. I have known the briefest summer flowers outlive them.’

‘I grieve to hear it,’ said the child.

‘Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,’ returned the old man, shaking his head, ‘but I say otherwise. “It’s a pretty custom you have in this part of the country,” they say to me sometimes, “to plant the graves, but it’s melancholy to see these things all withering or dead.” I crave their pardon and tell them that, as I take it, ‘tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And so it is. It’s nature.’

‘Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves,’ said the child in an earnest voice.

‘Perhaps so,’ replied the old man doubtfully. ‘It may be.’

‘Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,’ thought the child within herself, ‘I’ll make this place my garden. It will be no harm at least to work here day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of it, I am sure.’

Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton, who turned towards old David, and called him by his name. It was plain that Becky Morgan’s age still troubled him; though why, the child could scarcely understand.

The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man’s attention. Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put his hand to his dull ear.

‘Did you call?’ he said.

‘I have been thinking, Davy,’ replied the sexton, ‘that she,’ he pointed to the grave, ‘must have been a deal older than you or me.’

‘Seventy-nine,’ answered the old man with a shake of the head, ‘I tell you that I saw it.’

‘Saw it?’ replied the sexton; ‘aye, but, Davy, women don’t always tell the truth about their age.’

‘That’s true indeed,’ said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle in his eye. ‘She might have been older.’

‘I’m sure she must have been. Why, only think how old she looked. You and I seemed but boys to her.’

‘She did look old,’ rejoined David. ‘You’re right. She did look old.’

‘Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and say if she could be but seventy-nine at last—only our age,’ said the sexton.

‘Five year older at the very least!’ cried the other.

‘Five!’ retorted the sexton. ‘Ten. Good eighty-nine. I call to mind the time her daughter died. She was eighty-nine if she was a day, and tries to pass upon us now, for ten year younger. Oh! human vanity!’

The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such weight as to render it doubtful—not whether the deceased was of the age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal term of a hundred. When they had settled this question to their mutual satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend’s assistance, rose to go.

‘It’s chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful—till the summer,’ he said, as he prepared to limp away.

‘What?’ asked old David.

‘He’s very deaf, poor fellow!’ cried the sexton. ‘Good-bye!’

‘Ah!’ said old David, looking after him. ‘He’s failing very fast. He ages every day.’

And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in him than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the little fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose decease was no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and would be no business of theirs for half a score of years to come.

The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as he threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to cough and fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind of sober chuckle, that the sexton was wearing fast. At length she turned away, and walking thoughtfully through the churchyard, came unexpectedly upon the schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green grave in the sun, reading.

‘Nell here?’ he said cheerfully, as he closed his book. ‘It does me good to see you in the air and light. I feared you were again in the church, where you so often are.’

‘Feared!’ replied the child, sitting down beside him. ‘Is it not a good place?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘But you must be gay sometimes—nay, don’t shake your head and smile so sadly.’

‘Not sadly, if you knew my heart. Do not look at me as if you thought me sorrowful. There is not a happier creature on earth, than I am now.’

Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it between her own. ‘It’s God’s will!’ she said, when they had been silent for some time.

‘What?’

‘All this,’ she rejoined; ‘all this about us. But which of us is sad now? You see that I am smiling.’

‘And so am I,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘smiling to think how often we shall laugh in this same place. Were you not talking yonder?’

‘Yes,’ the child rejoined.

‘Of something that has made you sorrowful?’

There was a long pause.

‘What was it?’ said the schoolmaster, tenderly. ‘Come. Tell me what it was.’

‘I rather grieve—I do rather grieve to think,’ said the child, bursting into tears, ‘that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.’

‘And do you think,’ said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, ‘that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world, at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves—neglected as they look to us—are the chief instruments.’

‘Tell me no more,’ said the child quickly. ‘Tell me no more. I feel, I know it. How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of you?’

‘There is nothing,’ cried her friend, ‘no, nothing innocent or good, that dies, and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here. Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!’

‘Yes,’ said the child, ‘it is the truth; I know it is. Who should feel its force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives again! Dear, dear, good friend, if you knew the comfort you have given me!’

The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in silence; for his heart was full.

They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather approached. Before they had spoken many words together, the church clock struck the hour of school, and their friend withdrew.

‘A good man,’ said the grandfather, looking after him; ‘a kind man. Surely he will never harm us, Nell. We are safe here, at last, eh? We will never go away from here?’

The child shook her head and smiled.

‘She needs rest,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘too pale—too pale. She is not like what she was.’

‘When?’ asked the child.

‘Ha!’ said the old man, ‘to be sure—when? How many weeks ago? Could I count them on my fingers? Let them rest though; they’re better gone.’

‘Much better, dear,’ replied the child. ‘We will forget them; or, if we ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream that has passed away.’

‘Hush!’ said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand and looking over his shoulder; ‘no more talk of the dream, and all the miseries it brought. There are no dreams here. ‘Tis a quiet place, and they keep away. Let us never think about them, lest they should pursue us again. Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks—wet, cold, and famine—and horrors before them all, that were even worse—we must forget such things if we would be tranquil here.’

‘Thank Heaven!’ inwardly exclaimed the child, ‘for this most happy change!’

‘I will be patient,’ said the old man, ‘humble, very thankful, and obedient, if you will let me stay. But do not hide from me; do not steal away alone; let me keep beside you. Indeed, I will be very true and faithful, Nell.’

‘I steal away alone! why that,’ replied the child, with assumed gaiety, ‘would be a pleasant jest indeed. See here, dear grandfather, we’ll make this place our garden—why not! It is a very good one—and to-morrow we’ll begin, and work together, side by side.’

‘It is a brave thought!’ cried her grandfather. ‘Mind, darling—we begin to-morrow!’

Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their labour! Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the spot, as he! They plucked the long grass and nettles from the tombs, thinned the poor shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and cleared it of the leaves and weeds. They were yet in the ardour of their work, when the child, raising her head from the ground over which she bent, observed that the bachelor was sitting on the stile close by, watching them in silence.

‘A kind office,’ said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she curtseyed to him. ‘Have you done all that, this morning?’

‘It is very little, sir,’ returned the child, with downcast eyes, ‘to what we mean to do.’

‘Good work, good work,’ said the bachelor. ‘But do you only labour at the graves of children, and young people?’

‘We shall come to the others in good time, sir,’ replied Nell, turning her head aside, and speaking softly.

It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident, or the child’s unconscious sympathy with youth. But it seemed to strike upon her grandfather, though he had not noticed it before. He looked in a hurried manner at the graves, then anxiously at the child, then pressed her to his side, and bade her stop to rest. Something he had long forgotten, appeared to struggle faintly in his mind. It did not pass away, as weightier things had done; but came uppermost again, and yet again, and many times that day, and often afterwards. Once, while they were yet at work, the child, seeing that he often turned and looked uneasily at her, as though he were trying to resolve some painful doubts or collect some scattered thoughts, urged him to tell the reason. But he said it was nothing—nothing—and, laying her head upon his arm, patted her fair cheek with his hand, and muttered that she grew stronger every day, and would be a woman, soon.

CHAPTER 55

From that time, there sprung up in the old man’s mind, a solicitude about the child which never slept or left him. There are chords in the human heart—strange, varying strings—which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch. In the most insensible or childish minds, there is some train of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the discoverer has the plainest end in view. From that time, the old man never, for a moment, forgot the weakness and devotion of the child; from the time of that slight incident, he who had seen her toiling by his side through so much difficulty and suffering, and had scarcely thought of her otherwise than as the partner of miseries which he felt severely in his own person, and deplored for his own sake at least as much as hers, awoke to a sense of what he owed her, and what those miseries had made her. Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment from that time to the end, did any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort, any selfish consideration or regard distract his thoughts from the gentle object of his love.

He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire and lean upon his arm—he would sit opposite to her in the chimney-corner, content to watch, and look, until she raised her head and smiled upon him as of old—he would discharge by stealth, those household duties which tasked her powers too heavily—he would rise, in the cold dark nights, to listen to her breathing in her sleep, and sometimes crouch for hours by her bedside only to touch her hand. He who knows all, can only know what hopes, and fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were in that one disordered brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor old man. Sometimes—weeks had crept on, then—the child, exhausted, though with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside the fire. At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and read to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor came in, and took his turn of reading. The old man sat and listened—with little understanding for the words, but with his eyes fixed upon the child—and if she smiled or brightened with the story, he would say it was a good one, and conceive a fondness for the very book. When, in their evening talk, the bachelor told some tale that pleased her (as his tales were sure to do), the old man would painfully try to store it in his mind; nay, when the bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip out after him, and humbly beg that he would tell him such a part again, that he might learn to win a smile from Nell.

But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be out of doors, and walking in her solemn garden. Parties, too, would come to see the church; and those who came, speaking to others of the child, sent more; so even at that season of the year they had visitors almost daily. The old man would follow them at a little distance through the building, listening to the voice he loved so well; and when the strangers left, and parted from Nell, he would mingle with them to catch up fragments of their conversation; or he would stand for the same purpose, with his grey head uncovered, at the gate as they passed through.

They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was proud to hear them! But what was that, so often added, which wrung his heart, and made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner! Alas! even careless strangers—they who had no feeling for her, but the interest of the moment—they who would go away and forget next week that such a being lived—even they saw it—even they pitied her—even they bade him good day compassionately, and whispered as they passed.

The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew to have a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the same feeling; a tenderness towards her—a compassionate regard for her, increasing every day. The very schoolboys, light-hearted and thoughtless as they were, even they cared for her. The roughest among them was sorry if he missed her in the usual place upon his way to school, and would turn out of the path to ask for her at the latticed window. If she were sitting in the church, they perhaps might peep in softly at the open door; but they never spoke to her, unless she rose and went to speak to them. Some feeling was abroad which raised the child above them all.

So, when Sunday came. They were all poor country people in the church, for the castle in which the old family had lived, was an empty ruin, and there were none but humble folks for seven miles around. There, as elsewhere, they had an interest in Nell. They would gather round her in the porch, before and after service; young children would cluster at her skirts; and aged men and women forsake their gossips, to give her kindly greeting. None of them, young or old, thought of passing the child without a friendly word. Many who came from three or four miles distant, brought her little presents; the humblest and rudest had good wishes to bestow.

She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in the churchyard. One of these—he who had spoken of his brother—was her little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in the church, or climbed with her to the tower-top. It was his delight to help her, or to fancy that he did so, and they soon became close companions.

It happened, that, as she was reading in the old spot by herself one day, this child came running in with his eyes full of tears, and after holding her from him, and looking at her eagerly for a moment, clasped his little arms passionately about her neck.

‘What now?’ said Nell, soothing him. ‘What is the matter?’

‘She is not one yet!’ cried the boy, embracing her still more closely. ‘No, no. Not yet.’

She looked at him wonderingly, and putting his hair back from his face, and kissing him, asked what he meant.

‘You must not be one, dear Nell,’ cried the boy. ‘We can’t see them. They never come to play with us, or talk to us. Be what you are. You are better so.’

‘I do not understand you,’ said the child. ‘Tell me what you mean.’

‘Why, they say,’ replied the boy, looking up into her face, that you will be an Angel, before the birds sing again. But you won’t be, will you? Don’t leave us Nell, though the sky is bright. Do not leave us!’

The child dropped her head, and put her hands before her face.

‘She cannot bear the thought!’ cried the boy, exulting through his tears. ‘You will not go. You know how sorry we should be. Dear Nell, tell me that you’ll stay amongst us. Oh! Pray, pray, tell me that you will.’

The little creature folded his hands, and knelt down at her feet.

‘Only look at me, Nell,’ said the boy, ‘and tell me that you’ll stop, and then I shall know that they are wrong, and will cry no more. Won’t you say yes, Nell?’

Still the drooping head and hidden face, and the child quite silent—save for her sobs.

‘After a time,’ pursued the boy, trying to draw away her hand, ‘the kind angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and that you stayed here to be with us. Willy went away, to join them; but if he had known how I should miss him in our little bed at night, he never would have left me, I am sure.’

Yet the child could make him no answer, and sobbed as though her heart were bursting. ‘Why would you go, dear Nell? I know you would not be happy when you heard that we were crying for your loss. They say that Willy is in Heaven now, and that it’s always summer there, and yet I’m sure he grieves when I lie down upon his garden bed, and he cannot turn to kiss me. But if you do go, Nell,’ said the boy, caressing her, and pressing his face to hers, ‘be fond of him for my sake. Tell him how I love him still, and how much I loved you; and when I think that you two are together, and are happy, I’ll try to bear it, and never give you pain by doing wrong—indeed I never will!’

The child suffered him to move her hands, and put them round his neck. There was a tearful silence, but it was not long before she looked upon him with a smile, and promised him, in a very gentle, quiet voice, that she would stay, and be his friend, as long as Heaven would let her. He clapped his hands for joy, and thanked her many times; and being charged to tell no person what had passed between them, gave her an earnest promise that he never would.

Nor did he, so far as the child could learn; but was her quiet companion in all her walks and musings, and never again adverted to the theme, which he felt had given her pain, although he was unconscious of its cause. Something of distrust lingered about him still; for he would often come, even in the dark evenings, and call in a timid voice outside the door to know if she were safe within; and being answered yes, and bade to enter, would take his station on a low stool at her feet, and sit there patiently until they came to seek, and take him home. Sure as the morning came, it found him lingering near the house to ask if she were well; and, morning, noon, or night, go where she would, he would forsake his playmates and his sports to bear her company.

‘And a good little friend he is, too,’ said the old sexton to her once. ‘When his elder brother died—elder seems a strange word, for he was only seven years old—I remember this one took it sorely to heart.’

The child thought of what the schoolmaster had told her, and felt how its truth was shadowed out even in this infant.

‘It has given him something of a quiet way, I think,’ said the old man, ‘though for that he is merry enough at times. I’d wager now that you and he have been listening by the old well.’

‘Indeed we have not,’ the child replied. ‘I have been afraid to go near it; for I am not often down in that part of the church, and do not know the ground.’

‘Come down with me,’ said the old man. ‘I have known it from a boy. Come!’

They descended the narrow steps which led into the crypt, and paused among the gloomy arches, in a dim and murky spot.

‘This is the place,’ said the old man. ‘Give me your hand while you throw back the cover, lest you should stumble and fall in. I am too old—I mean rheumatic—to stoop, myself.’

‘A black and dreadful place!’ exclaimed the child.

‘Look in,’ said the old man, pointing downward with his finger.

The child complied, and gazed down into the pit.

‘It looks like a grave itself,’ said the old man.

‘It does,’ replied the child.

‘I have often had the fancy,’ said the sexton, ‘that it might have been dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old monks more religious. It’s to be closed up, and built over.’

The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault.

‘We shall see,’ said the sexton, ‘on what gay heads other earth will have closed, when the light is shut out from here. God knows! They’ll close it up, next spring.’

‘The birds sing again in spring,’ thought the child, as she leaned at her casement window, and gazed at the declining sun. ‘Spring! a beautiful and happy time!’

CHAPTER 56

A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr Swiveller walked into Sampson Brass’s office at the usual hour, and being alone in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking from his pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to folding and pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband. Having completed the construction of this appendage, he surveyed his work with great complacency, and put his hat on again—very much over one eye, to increase the mournfulness of the effect. These arrangements perfected to his entire satisfaction, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the office with measured steps.

‘It has always been the same with me,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘always. ‘Twas ever thus—from childhood’s hour I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay, I never loved a tree or flower but ‘twas the first to fade away; I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a market-gardener.’

Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the clients’ chair, and flung himself into its open arms.

‘And this,’ said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure, ‘is life, I believe. Oh, certainly. Why not! I’m quite satisfied. I shall wear,’ added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary considerations from spurning it with his foot, ‘I shall wear this emblem of woman’s perfidy, in remembrance of her with whom I shall never again thread the windings of the mazy; whom I shall never more pledge in the rosy; who, during the short remainder of my existence, will murder the balmy. Ha, ha, ha!’

It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any incongruity in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr Swiveller did not wind up with a cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been undoubtedly at variance with his solemn reflections, but that, being in a theatrical mood, he merely achieved that performance which is designated in melodramas ‘laughing like a fiend,’—for it seems that your fiends always laugh in syllables, and always in three syllables, never more nor less, which is a remarkable property in such gentry, and one worthy of remembrance.

The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr Swiveller was still sitting in a very grim state in the clients’ chair, when there came a ring—or, if we may adapt the sound to his then humour, a knell—at the office bell. Opening the door with all speed, he beheld the expressive countenance of Mr Chuckster, between whom and himself a fraternal greeting ensued.

‘You’re devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter-house,’ said that gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the other in an easy manner.

‘Rather,’ returned Dick.

‘Rather!’ retorted Mr Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling which so well became him. ‘I should think so. Why, my good feller, do you know what o’clock it is—half-past nine a.m. in the morning?’

‘Won’t you come in?’ said Dick. ‘All alone. Swiveller solus. “‘Tis now the witching—“’

‘“Hour of night!”’

‘“When churchyards yawn,”’

‘“And graves give up their dead.”’

At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the office. Such morsels of enthusiasm are common among the Glorious Apollos, and were indeed the links that bound them together, and raised them above the cold dull earth.

‘Well, and how are you my buck?’ said Mr Chuckster, taking a stool. ‘I was forced to come into the City upon some little private matters of my own, and couldn’t pass the corner of the street without looking in, but upon my soul I didn’t expect to find you. It is so everlastingly early.’

Mr Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments; and it appearing on further conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr Chuckster was in the like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in compliance with a solemn custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which they belonged, joined in a fragment of the popular duet of ‘All’s Well,’ with a long shake at the end.

‘And what’s the news?’ said Richard.

‘The town’s as flat, my dear feller,’ replied Mr Chuckster, ‘as the surface of a Dutch oven. There’s no news. By-the-bye, that lodger of yours is a most extraordinary person. He quite eludes the most vigorous comprehension, you know. Never was such a feller!’

‘What has he been doing now?’ said Dick.

‘By Jove, Sir,’ returned Mr Chuckster, taking out an oblong snuff-box, the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox’s head curiously carved in brass, ‘that man is an unfathomable. Sir, that man has made friends with our articled clerk. There’s no harm in him, but he is so amazingly slow and soft. Now, if he wanted a friend, why couldn’t he have one that knew a thing or two, and could do him some good by his manners and conversation. I have my faults, sir,’ said Mr Chuckster—

‘No, no,’ interposed Mr Swiveller.

‘Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better than I know mine. But,’ said Mr Chuckster, ‘I’m not meek. My worst enemies—every man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine—never accused me of being meek. And I tell you what, Sir, if I hadn’t more of these qualities that commonly endear man to man, than our articled clerk has, I’d steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it round my neck, and drown myself. I’d die degraded, as I had lived. I would upon my honour.’

Mr Chuckster paused, rapped the fox’s head exactly on the nose with the knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he was going to sneeze, he would find himself mistaken.

‘Not contented, Sir,’ said Mr Chuckster, ‘with making friends with Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother. Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there— actually been there. He patronises young Snobby besides; you’ll find, Sir, that he’ll be constantly coming backwards and forwards to this place: yet I don’t suppose that beyond the common forms of civility, he has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me. Now, upon my soul, you know,’ said Mr Chuckster, shaking his head gravely, as men are wont to do when they consider things are going a little too far, ‘this is altogether such a low-minded affair, that if I didn’t feel for the governor, and know that he could never get on without me, I should be obliged to cut the connection. I should have no alternative.’

Mr Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend, stirred the fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing.

‘As to young Snob, sir,’ pursued Mr Chuckster with a prophetic look, ‘you’ll find he’ll turn out bad. In our profession we know something of human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller that came back to work out that shilling, will show himself one of these days in his true colours. He’s a low thief, sir. He must be.’

Mr Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door, which seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business, caused him to assume a greater appearance of meekness than was perhaps quite consistent with his late declaration. Mr Swiveller, hearing the same sound, caused his stool to revolve rapidly on one leg until it brought him to his desk, into which, having forgotten in the sudden flurry of his spirits to part with the poker, he thrust it as he cried ‘Come in!’

Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme of Mr Chuckster’s wrath! Never did man pluck up his courage so quickly, or look so fierce, as Mr Chuckster when he found it was he. Mr Swiveller stared at him for a moment, and then leaping from his stool, and drawing out the poker from its place of concealment, performed the broad-sword exercise with all the cuts and guards complete, in a species of frenzy.

‘Is the gentleman at home?’ said Kit, rather astonished by this uncommon reception.

Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took occasion to enter his indignant protest against this form of inquiry; which he held to be of a disrespectful and snobbish tendency, inasmuch as the inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and there present, should have spoken of the other gentleman; or rather (for it was not impossible that the object of his search might be of inferior quality) should have mentioned his name, leaving it to his hearers to determine his degree as they thought proper. Mr Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had some reason to believe this form of address was personal to himself, and that he was not a man to be trifled with—as certain snobs (whom he did not more particularly mention or describe) might find to their cost.

‘I mean the gentleman up-stairs,’ said Kit, turning to Richard Swiveller. ‘Is he at home?’

‘Why?’ rejoined Dick.

‘Because if he is, I have a letter for him.’

‘From whom?’ said Dick.

‘From Mr Garland.’

‘Oh!’ said Dick, with extreme politeness. ‘Then you may hand it over, Sir. And if you’re to wait for an answer, Sir, you may wait in the passage, Sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated apartment, sir.’

‘Thank you,’ returned Kit. ‘But I am to give it to himself, if you please.’

The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster, and so moved his tender regard for his friend’s honour, that he declared, if he were not restrained by official considerations, he must certainly have annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of the affront which he did consider, under the extraordinary circumstances of aggravation attending it, could but have met with the proper sanction and approval of a jury of Englishmen, who, he had no doubt, would have returned a verdict of justifiable Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the morals and character of the Avenger. Mr Swiveller, without being quite so hot upon the matter, was rather shamed by his friend’s excitement, and not a little puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and good-humoured), when the single gentleman was heard to call violently down the stairs.

‘Didn’t I see somebody for me, come in?’ cried the lodger.

‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Dick. ‘Certainly, Sir.’

‘Then where is he?’ roared the single gentleman.

‘He’s here, sir,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller. ‘Now young man, don’t you hear you’re to go up-stairs? Are you deaf?’

Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing at each other in silence.

‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ said Mr Chuckster. ‘What do you think of that?’

Mr Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not perceiving in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude, scarcely knew what answer to return. He was relieved from his perplexity, however, by the entrance of Mr Sampson and his sister, Sally, at sight of whom Mr Chuckster precipitately retired.

Mr Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of great interest and importance. On the occasion of such conferences, they generally appeared in the office some half an hour after their usual time, and in a very smiling state, as though their late plots and designs had tranquillised their minds and shed a light upon their toilsome way. In the present instance, they seemed particularly gay; Miss Sally’s aspect being of a most oily kind, and Mr Brass rubbing his hands in an exceedingly jocose and light-hearted manner.

‘Well, Mr Richard,’ said Brass. ‘How are we this morning? Are we pretty fresh and cheerful sir—eh, Mr Richard?’

‘Pretty well, sir,’ replied Dick.

‘That’s well,’ said Brass. ‘Ha ha! We should be as gay as larks, Mr Richard—why not? It’s a pleasant world we live in sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. Ha ha! Any letters by the post this morning, Mr Richard?’

Mr Swiveller answered in the negative.

‘Ha!’ said Brass, ‘no matter. If there’s little business to-day, there’ll be more to-morrow. A contented spirit, Mr Richard, is the sweetness of existence. Anybody been here, sir?’

‘Only my friend’—replied Dick. ‘May we ne’er want a—’

‘Friend,’ Brass chimed in quickly, ‘or a bottle to give him. Ha ha! That’s the way the song runs, isn’t it? A very good song, Mr Richard, very good. I like the sentiment of it. Ha ha! Your friend’s the young man from Witherden’s office I think—yes—May we ne’er want a— Nobody else at all, been, Mr Richard?’

‘Only somebody to the lodger,’ replied Mr Swiveller.

‘Oh indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘Somebody to the lodger eh? Ha ha! May we ne’er want a friend, or a---- Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr Richard?’

‘Yes,’ said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy of spirits which his employer displayed. ‘With him now.’

‘With him now!’ cried Brass; ‘Ha ha! There let ‘em be, merry and free, toor rul lol le. Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!’

‘Oh certainly,’ replied Dick.

‘And who,’ said Brass, shuffling among his papers, ‘who is the lodger’s visitor—not a lady visitor, I hope, eh, Mr Richard? The morals of the Marks you know, sir—“when lovely women stoops to folly”—and all that—eh, Mr Richard?’

‘Another young man, who belongs to Witherden’s too, or half belongs there,’ returned Richard. ‘Kit, they call him.’

‘Kit, eh!’ said Brass. ‘Strange name—name of a dancing-master’s fiddle, eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha! Kit’s there, is he? Oh!’

Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn’t check this uncommon exuberance on the part of Mr Sampson; but as she made no attempt to do so, and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit acquiescence in it, he concluded that they had just been cheating somebody, and receiving the bill.

‘Will you have the goodness, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, taking a letter from his desk, ‘just to step over to Peckham Rye with that? There’s no answer, but it’s rather particular and should go by hand. Charge the office with your coach-hire back, you know; don’t spare the office; get as much out of it as you can—clerk’s motto—Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!’

Mr Swiveller solemnly doffed the aquatic jacket, put on his coat, took down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed. As soon as he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling sweetly at her brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return) withdrew also.

Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-door wide open, and establishing himself at his desk directly opposite, so that he could not fail to see anybody who came down-stairs and passed out at the street door, began to write with extreme cheerfulness and assiduity; humming as he did so, in a voice that was anything but musical, certain vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the union between Church and State, inasmuch as they were compounded of the Evening Hymn and God save the King.

Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for a long time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning face, and hearing nothing, went on humming louder, and writing slower than ever. At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his lodger’s door opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the stairs. Then, Mr Brass left off writing entirely, and, with his pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest; shaking his head meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul was in the music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic.

It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the sweet sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass stopped his singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at the same time beckoning to him with his pen.

‘Kit,’ said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, ‘how do you do?’

Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had his hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him softly back.

‘You are not to go, if you please, Kit,’ said the attorney in a mysterious and yet business-like way. ‘You are to step in here, if you please. Dear me, dear me! When I look at you,’ said the lawyer, quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his back towards it, ‘I am reminded of the sweetest little face that ever my eyes beheld. I remember your coming there, twice or thrice, when we were in possession. Ah Kit, my dear fellow, gentleman in my profession have such painful duties to perform sometimes, that you needn’t envy us—you needn’t indeed!’

‘I don’t, sir,’ said Kit, ‘though it isn’t for the like of me to judge.’

‘Our only consolation, Kit,’ pursued the lawyer, looking at him in a sort of pensive abstraction, ‘is, that although we cannot turn away the wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so, to the shorn lambs.’

‘Shorn indeed!’ thought Kit. ‘Pretty close!’ But he didn’t say so.

‘On that occasion, Kit,’ said Mr Brass, ‘on that occasion that I have just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr Quilp is a very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had. It might have cost me a client. But suffering virtue inspired me, and I prevailed.’

‘He’s not so bad after all,’ thought honest Kit, as the attorney pursed up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with his better feelings.

‘I respect you, Kit,’ said Brass with emotion. ‘I saw enough of your conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is humble, and your fortune lowly. It isn’t the waistcoat that I look at. It is the heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. But the heart is the bird. Ah! How many sich birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all mankind!’

This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to his own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass’s voice and manner added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all the mild austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be completely set up in that line of business.

‘Well, well,’ said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-creatures, ‘this is wide of the bull’s-eye. You’re to take that, if you please.’ As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns on the desk.

Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.

‘For yourself,’ said Brass. ‘From—’

‘No matter about the person they came from,’ replied the lawyer. ‘Say me, if you like. We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and we mustn’t ask questions or talk too much—you understand? You’re to take them, that’s all; and between you and me, I don’t think they’ll be the last you’ll have to take from the same place. I hope not. Good bye, Kit. Good bye!’

With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took the money and made the best of his way home. Mr Brass remained airing himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his seraphic smile, simultaneously.

‘May I come in?’ said Miss Sally, peeping.

‘Oh yes, you may come in,’ returned her brother.

‘Ahem!’ coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.

‘Why, yes,’ returned Sampson, ‘I should say as good as done.’

CHAPTER 57

Mr Chuckster’s indignant apprehensions were not without foundation. Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr Garland was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and flourished exceedingly. They were soon in habits of constant intercourse and communication; and the single gentleman labouring at this time under a slight attack of illness—the consequence most probably of his late excited feelings and subsequent disappointment—furnished a reason for their holding yet more frequent correspondence; so that some one of the inmates of Abel Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between that place and Bevis Marks, almost every day.

As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any mincing of the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused to be driven by anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether old Mr Garland came, or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party. Of all messages and inquiries, Kit was, in right of his position, the bearer; thus it came about that, while the single gentleman remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis Marks every morning with nearly as much regularity as the General Postman.

Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony’s trot and the clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever the sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee.

‘Ha ha!’ he would cry. ‘Here’s the pony again! Most remarkable pony, extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?’

Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass standing on the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of the street over the top of the window-blind, would take an observation of the visitors.

‘The old gentleman again!’ he would exclaim, ‘a very prepossessing old gentleman, Mr Richard—charming countenance, sir—extremely calm—benevolence in every feature, sir. He quite realises my idea of King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his kingdom, Mr Richard—the same good humour, the same white hair and partial baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon. Ah! A sweet subject for contemplation, sir, very sweet!’

Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would nod and smile to Kit from the window, and presently walk out into the street to greet him, when some such conversation as the following would ensue.

‘Admirably groomed, Kit’—Mr Brass is patting the pony—‘does you great credit—amazingly sleek and bright to be sure. He literally looks as if he had been varnished all over.’

Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses his conviction, ‘that Mr Brass will not find many like him.’

‘A beautiful animal indeed!’ cries Brass. ‘Sagacious too?’

‘Bless you!’ replies Kit, ‘he knows what you say to him as well as a Christian does.’

‘Does he indeed!’ cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the same place from the same person in the same words a dozen times, but is paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding. ‘Dear me!’

‘I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,’ says Kit, pleased with the attorney’s strong interest in his favourite, ‘that I should come to be as intimate with him as I am now.’

‘Ah!’ rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of virtue. ‘A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming. A subject of proper pride and congratulation, Christopher. Honesty is the best policy.—I always find it so myself. I lost forty-seven pound ten by being honest this morning. But it’s all gain, it’s gain!’

Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with the water standing in his eyes. Kit thinks that if ever there was a good man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass.

‘A man,’ says Sampson, ‘who loses forty-seven pound ten in one morning by his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been eighty pound, the luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased. Every pound lost, would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained. The still small voice, Christopher,’ cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the bosom, ‘is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy!’

Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so completely home to his feelings, that he is considering what he shall say, when Mr Garland appears. The old gentleman is helped into the chaise with great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and the pony, after shaking his head several times, and standing for three or four minutes with all his four legs planted firmly on the ground, as if he had made up his mind never to stir from that spot, but there to live and die, suddenly darts off, without the smallest notice, at the rate of twelve English miles an hour. Then, Mr Brass and his sister (who has joined him at the door) exchange an odd kind of smile—not at all a pleasant one in its expression—and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, who, during their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats of pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a penknife.

Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr Swiveller, if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some pretty distant place from which he could not be expected to return for two or three hours, or in all probability a much longer period, as that gentleman was not, to say the truth, renowned for using great expedition on such occasions, but rather for protracting and spinning out the time to the very utmost limit of possibility. Mr Swiveller out of sight, Miss Sally immediately withdrew. Mr Brass would then set the office-door wide open, hum his old tune with great gaiety of heart, and smile seraphically as before. Kit coming down-stairs would be called in; entertained with some moral and agreeable conversation; perhaps entreated to mind the office for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over the way; and afterwards presented with one or two half-crowns as the case might be. This occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but that they came from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his mother with great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity; and bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them was having some new trifle every day of their lives.

While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the office of Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone therein, began to find the time hang heavy on his hands. For the better preservation of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent his faculties from rusting, he provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes even fifty thousand pounds aside, besides many hazardous bets to a considerable amount.

As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the magnitude of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think that on those evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp living. Looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct, he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach.

‘Oh! I didn’t mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn’t,’ cried the small servant, struggling like a much larger one. ‘It’s so very dull, down-stairs, Please don’t you tell upon me, please don’t.’

‘Tell upon you!’ said Dick. ‘Do you mean to say you were looking through the keyhole for company?’

‘Yes, upon my word I was,’ replied the small servant.

‘How long have you been cooling your eye there?’ said Dick.

‘Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before.’

Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of which, no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted Mr Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered himself speedily.

‘Well—come in’—he said, after a little consideration. ‘Here—sit down, and I’ll teach you how to play.’

‘Oh! I durstn’t do it,’ rejoined the small servant; ‘Miss Sally ‘ud kill me, if she know’d I come up here.’

‘Have you got a fire down-stairs?’ said Dick.

‘A very little one,’ replied the small servant.

‘Miss Sally couldn’t kill me if she know’d I went down there, so I’ll come,’ said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket. ‘Why, how thin you are! What do you mean by it?’

‘It ain’t my fault.’

‘Could you eat any bread and meat?’ said Dick, taking down his hat. ‘Yes? Ah! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer?’

‘I had a sip of it once,’ said the small servant.

‘Here’s a state of things!’ cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. ‘She never tasted it—it can’t be tasted in a sip! Why, how old are you?’

‘I don’t know.’

Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, vanished straightway.

Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public-house, who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a particular recipe which Mr Swiveller had imparted to the landlord, at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate his friendship. Relieving the boy of his burden at the door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, Mr Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.

‘There!’ said Richard, putting the plate before her. ‘First of all clear that off, and then you’ll see what’s next.’

The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon empty.

‘Next,’ said Dick, handing the purl, ‘take a pull at that; but moderate your transports, you know, for you’re not used to it. Well, is it good?’

‘Oh! isn’t it?’ said the small servant.

Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply, and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his companion while he did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning.

‘Now,’ said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt, ‘those are the stakes. If you win, you get ‘em all. If I win, I get ‘em. To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the Marchioness, do you hear?’

The small servant nodded.

‘Then, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘fire away!’

The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered which to play, and Mr Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air which such society required, took another pull at the tankard, and waited for her lead.

CHAPTER 58

Mr Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the purl, and the striking of ten o’clock, combined to render that gentleman mindful of the flight of Time, and the expediency of withdrawing before Mr Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned.

‘With which object in view, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller gravely, ‘I shall ask your ladyship’s permission to put the board in my pocket, and to retire from the presence when I have finished this tankard; merely observing, Marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, I care not how fast it rolls on, ma’am, on, while such purl on the bank still is growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run. Marchioness, your health. You will excuse my wearing my hat, but the palace is damp, and the marble floor is—if I may be allowed the expression—sloppy.’

As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr Swiveller had been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly sipped the last choice drops of nectar.

‘The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the Play?’ said Mr Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table, and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a theatrical bandit.

The Marchioness nodded.

‘Ha!’ said Mr Swiveller, with a portentous frown. ‘’Tis well. Marchioness!—but no matter. Some wine there. Ho!’ He illustrated these melodramatic morsels by handing the tankard to himself with great humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely.

The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical conventionalities as Mr Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play, or heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors and in other forbidden places), was rather alarmed by demonstrations so novel in their nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks, that Mr Swiveller felt it necessary to discharge his brigand manner for one more suitable to private life, as he asked,

‘Do they often go where glory waits ‘em, and leave you here?’

‘Oh, yes; I believe you they do,’ returned the small servant. ‘Miss Sally’s such a one-er for that, she is.’

‘Such a what?’ said Dick.

‘Such a one-er,’ returned the Marchioness.

After a moment’s reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk on; as it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and her opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a momentary check of little consequence.

‘They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,’ said the small servant with a shrewd look; ‘they go to a many places, bless you!’

‘Is Mr Brass a wunner?’ said Dick.

‘Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn’t,’ replied the small servant, shaking her head. ‘Bless you, he’d never do anything without her.’

‘Oh! He wouldn’t, wouldn’t he?’ said Dick.

‘Miss Sally keeps him in such order,’ said the small servant; ‘he always asks her advice, he does; and he catches it sometimes. Bless you, you wouldn’t believe how much he catches it.’

‘I suppose,’ said Dick, ‘that they consult together, a good deal, and talk about a great many people—about me for instance, sometimes, eh, Marchioness?’

The Marchioness nodded amazingly.

‘Complimentary?’ said Mr Swiveller.

The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side, with a vehemence which threatened to dislocate her neck.

‘Humph!’ Dick muttered. ‘Would it be any breach of confidence, Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has now the honour to—?’

‘Miss Sally says you’re a funny chap,’ replied his friend.

‘Well, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘that’s not uncomplimentary. Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a degrading quality. Old King Cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages of history.’

‘But she says,’ pursued his companion, ‘that you an’t to be trusted.’

‘Why, really Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully; ‘several ladies and gentlemen—not exactly professional persons, but tradespeople, ma’am, tradespeople—have made the same remark. The obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined strongly to that opinion to-night when I ordered him to prepare the banquet. It’s a popular prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure I don’t know why, for I have been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and I can safely say that I never forsook my trust until it deserted me—never. Mr Brass is of the same opinion, I suppose?’

His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that Mr Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, ‘But don’t you ever tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.’

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, rising, ‘the word of a gentleman is as good as his bond—sometimes better, as in the present case, where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. I am your friend, and I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in this same saloon. But, Marchioness,’ added Richard, stopping in his way to the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was following with the candle; ‘it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes, to know all this.’

‘I only wanted,’ replied the trembling Marchioness, ‘to know where the key of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn’t have taken much, if I had found it—only enough to squench my hunger.’

‘You didn’t find it then?’ said Dick. ‘But of course you didn’t, or you’d be plumper. Good night, Marchioness. Fare thee well, and if for ever, then for ever fare thee well—and put up the chain, Marchioness, in case of accidents.’

With this parting injunction, Mr Swiveller emerged from the house; and feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings, and to bed at once. Homeward he went therefore; and his apartments (for he still retained the plural fiction) being at no great distance from the office, he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber, where, having pulled off one boot and forgotten the other, he fell into deep cogitation.

‘This Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, folding his arms, ‘is a very extraordinary person—surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors—can these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an opposition to the decrees of fate? It is a most inscrutable and unmitigated staggerer!’

When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became aware of his remaining boot, of which, with unimpaired solemnity he proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with exceeding gravity all the time, and sighing deeply.

‘These rubbers,’ said Mr Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly the same style as he wore his hat, ‘remind me of the matrimonial fireside. Cheggs’s wife plays cribbage; all-fours likewise. She rings the changes on ‘em now. From sport to sport they hurry her to banish her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that she forgets—but she don’t. By this time, I should say,’ added Richard, getting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; ‘by this time, I should say, the iron has entered into her soul. It serves her right!’

Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic mood, Mr Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.

Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but as Mr Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to playing the flute; thinking after mature consideration that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours. In pursuance of this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most mournfully.

The air was ‘Away with melancholy’—a composition, which, when it is played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect. Yet, for half the night, or more, Mr Swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune over and over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a time to take breath and soliloquise about the Marchioness, and then beginning again with renewed vigour. It was not until he had quite exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs, and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the next doors, and over the way—that he shut up the music-book, extinguished the candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep.

He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having taken half an hour’s exercise at the flute, and graciously received a notice to quit from his landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for that purpose since the dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks; where the beautiful Sally was already at her post, bearing in her looks a radiance, mild as that which beameth from the virgin moon.

Mr Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his coat for the aquatic jacket; which usually took some time fitting on, for in consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only to be got into by a series of struggles. This difficulty overcome, he took his seat at the desk.

‘I say’—quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, ‘you haven’t seen a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?’

‘I didn’t meet many in the street,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller. ‘I saw one—a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance—but as he was in company with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with whom he was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking to him.’

‘No, but have you?’ returned Miss Brass. ‘Seriously, you know.’

‘What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘Haven’t I this moment come?’

‘Well, all I know is,’ replied Miss Sally, ‘that it’s not to be found, and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on the desk.’

‘Halloa!’ thought Richard, ‘I hope the Marchioness hasn’t been at work here.’

‘There was a knife too,’ said Miss Sally, ‘of the same pattern. They were given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone. You haven’t missed anything yourself, have you?’

Mr Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be quite sure that it WAS a jacket and not a skirted coat; and having satisfied himself of the safety of this, his only moveable in Bevis Marks, made answer in the negative.

‘It’s a very unpleasant thing, Dick,’ said Miss Brass, pulling out the tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; ‘but between you and me—between friends you know, for if Sammy knew it, I should never hear the last of it—some of the office-money, too, that has been left about, has gone in the same way. In particular, I have missed three half-crowns at three different times.’

‘You don’t mean that?’ cried Dick. ‘Be careful what you say, old boy, for this is a serious matter. Are you quite sure? Is there no mistake?’

‘It is so, and there can’t be any mistake at all,’ rejoined Miss Brass emphatically.

‘Then by Jove,’ thought Richard, laying down his pen, ‘I am afraid the Marchioness is done for!’

The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more probable it appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was the culprit. When he considered on what a spare allowance of food she lived, how neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural cunning had been sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely doubted it. And yet he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling to have a matter of such gravity disturbing the oddity of their acquaintance, that he thought, and thought truly, that rather than receive fifty pounds down, he would have the Marchioness proved innocent.

While he was plunged in very profound and serious meditation upon this theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great mystery and doubt; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling a cheerful strain, was heard in the passage, and that gentleman himself, beaming with virtuous smiles, appeared.

‘Mr Richard, sir, good morning! Here we are again, sir, entering upon another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and breakfast, and our spirits fresh and flowing. Here we are, Mr Richard, rising with the sun to run our little course—our course of duty, sir—and, like him, to get through our day’s work with credit to ourselves and advantage to our fellow-creatures. A charming reflection sir, very charming!’

While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr Brass was, somewhat ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up against the light a five-pound bank note, which he had brought in, in his hand.

Mr Richard not receiving his remarks with anything like enthusiasm, his employer turned his eyes to his face, and observed that it wore a troubled expression.

‘You’re out of spirits, sir,’ said Brass. ‘Mr Richard, sir, we should fall to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state. It becomes us, Mr Richard, sir, to—’

Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr Sampson, ‘you too! Is anything the matter? Mr Richard, sir—’

Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making signals to him, to acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent conversation. As his own position was not a very pleasant one until the matter was set at rest one way or other, he did so; and Miss Brass, plying her snuff-box at a most wasteful rate, corroborated his account.

The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his features. Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money, as Miss Sally had expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened it, looked outside, shut it softly, returned on tiptoe, and said in a whisper,

‘This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance—Mr Richard, sir, a most painful circumstance. The fact is, that I myself have missed several small sums from the desk, of late, and have refrained from mentioning it, hoping that accident would discover the offender; but it has not done so—it has not done so. Sally—Mr Richard, sir—this is a particularly distressing affair!’

As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some papers, in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Richard Swiveller pointed to it, and admonished him to take it up.

‘No, Mr Richard, sir,’ rejoined Brass with emotion, ‘I will not take it up. I will let it lie there, sir. To take it up, Mr Richard, sir, would imply a doubt of you; and in you, sir, I have unlimited confidence. We will let it lie there, Sir, if you please, and we will not take it up by any means.’ With that, Mr Brass patted him twice or thrice on the shoulder, in a most friendly manner, and entreated him to believe that he had as much faith in his honesty as he had in his own.

Although at another time Mr Swiveller might have looked upon this as a doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then-existing circumstances, a great relief to be assured that he was not wrongfully suspected. When he had made a suitable reply, Mr Brass wrung him by the hand, and fell into a brown study, as did Miss Sally likewise. Richard too remained in a thoughtful state; fearing every moment to hear the Marchioness impeached, and unable to resist the conviction that she must be guilty.

When they had severally remained in this condition for some minutes, Miss Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with her clenched fist, and cried, ‘I’ve hit it!’—as indeed she had, and chipped a piece out of it too; but that was not her meaning.

‘Well,’ cried Brass anxiously. ‘Go on, will you!’

‘Why,’ replied his sister with an air of triumph, ‘hasn’t there been somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or four weeks; hasn’t that somebody been left alone in it sometimes—thanks to you; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody isn’t the thief!’

‘What somebody?’ blustered Brass.

‘Why, what do you call him—Kit.’

‘Mr Garland’s young man?’

‘To be sure.’

‘Never!’ cried Brass. ‘Never. I’ll not hear of it. Don’t tell me’—said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs. ‘I’ll never believe it of him. Never!’

‘I say,’ repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, ‘that he’s the thief.’

‘I say,’ returned Sampson violently, ‘that he is not. What do you mean? How dare you? Are characters to be whispered away like this? Do you know that he’s the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name? Come in, come in!’

These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had been uttered. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at the office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr Brass, when this very Kit himself looked in.

‘Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?’

‘Yes, Kit,’ said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; ‘Yes Kit, he is. I am glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you come down-stairs, Kit. That lad a robber!’ cried Brass when he had withdrawn, ‘with that frank and open countenance! I’d trust him with untold gold. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to Wrasp and Co.’s in Broad Street, and inquire if they have had instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter. THAT lad a robber,’ sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath. ‘Am I blind, deaf, silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see it before me? Kit a robber! Bah!’

Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable scorn and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as if to shut the base world from his view, and breathed defiance from under its half-closed lid.

CHAPTER 59

When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the single gentleman’s apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or so, Mr Sampson Brass was alone in the office. He was not singing as usual, nor was he seated at his desk. The open door showed him standing before the fire with his back towards it, and looking so very strange that Kit supposed he must have been suddenly taken ill.

‘Is anything the matter, sir?’ said Kit.

‘Matter!’ cried Brass. ‘No. Why anything the matter?’

‘You are so very pale,’ said Kit, ‘that I should hardly have known you.’

‘Pooh pooh! mere fancy,’ cried Brass, stooping to throw up the cinders. ‘Never better, Kit, never better in all my life. Merry too. Ha ha! How’s our friend above-stairs, eh?’

‘A great deal better,’ said Kit.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ rejoined Brass; ‘thankful, I may say. An excellent gentleman—worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little trouble—an admirable lodger. Ha ha! Mr Garland—he’s well I hope, Kit—and the pony—my friend, my particular friend you know. Ha ha!’

Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel Cottage. Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and impatient, mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him by the button-hole.

‘I have been thinking, Kit,’ said the lawyer, ‘that I could throw some little emoluments in your mother’s way—You have a mother, I think? If I recollect right, you told me—’

‘Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.’

‘A widow, I think? an industrious widow?’

‘A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.’

‘Ah!’ cried Brass. ‘That’s affecting, truly affecting. A poor widow struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a delicious picture of human goodness.—Put down your hat, Kit.’

‘Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.’

‘Put it down while you stay, at any rate,’ said Brass, taking it from him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a place for it on the desk. ‘I was thinking, Kit, that we have often houses to let for people we are concerned for, and matters of that sort. Now you know we’re obliged to put people into those houses to take care of ‘em—very often undeserving people that we can’t depend upon. What’s to prevent our having a person that we CAN depend upon, and enjoying the delight of doing a good action at the same time? I say, what’s to prevent our employing this worthy woman, your mother? What with one job and another, there’s lodging—and good lodging too—pretty well all the year round, rent free, and a weekly allowance besides, Kit, that would provide her with a great many comforts she don’t at present enjoy. Now what do you think of that? Do you see any objection? My only desire is to serve you, Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.’

As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled among the papers again, as if in search of something.

‘How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?’ replied Kit with his whole heart. ‘I don’t know how to thank you sir, I don’t indeed.’

‘Why then,’ said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his face close to Kit’s with such a repulsive smile that the latter, even in the very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite startled. ‘Why then, it’s done.’

Kit looked at him in some confusion.

‘Done, I say,’ added Sampson, rubbing his hands and veiling himself again in his usual oily manner. ‘Ha ha! and so you shall find Kit, so you shall find. But dear me,’ said Brass, ‘what a time Mr Richard is gone! A sad loiterer to be sure! Will you mind the office one minute, while I run up-stairs? Only one minute. I’ll not detain you an instant longer, on any account, Kit.’

Talking as he went, Mr Brass bustled out of the office, and in a very short time returned. Mr Swiveller came back, almost at the same instant; and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up for lost time, Miss Brass herself encountered him in the doorway.

‘Oh!’ sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered. ‘There goes your pet, Sammy, eh?’

‘Ah! There he goes,’ replied Brass. ‘My pet, if you please. An honest fellow, Mr Richard, sir—a worthy fellow indeed!’

‘Hem!’ coughed Miss Brass.

‘I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,’ said the angry Sampson, ‘that I’d stake my life upon his honesty. Am I never to hear the last of this? Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean suspicions? Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant fellow? If you come to that, I’d sooner suspect your honesty than his.’

Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow pinch, regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time.

‘She drives me wild, Mr Richard, sir,’ said Brass, ‘she exasperates me beyond all bearing. I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am. These are not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she carries me out of myself.’

‘Why don’t you leave him alone?’ said Dick.

‘Because she can’t, sir,’ retorted Brass; ‘because to chafe and vex me is a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don’t believe she’d have her health. But never mind,’ said Brass, ‘never mind. I’ve carried my point. I’ve shown my confidence in the lad. He has minded the office again. Ha ha! Ugh, you viper!’

The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff-box in her pocket; still looking at her brother with perfect composure.

‘He has minded the office again,’ said Brass triumphantly; ‘he has had my confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he—why, where’s the—’

‘What have you lost?’ inquired Mr Swiveller.

‘Dear me!’ said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another, and looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly tossing the papers about, ‘the note, Mr Richard, sir, the five-pound note—what can have become of it? I laid it down here—God bless me!’

‘What!’ cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and scattering the papers on the floor. ‘Gone! Now who’s right? Now who’s got it? Never mind five pounds—what’s five pounds? He’s honest, you know, quite honest. It would be mean to suspect him. Don’t run after him. No, no, not for the world!’

‘Is it really gone though?’ said Dick, looking at Brass with a face as pale as his own.

‘Upon my word, Mr Richard, Sir,’ replied the lawyer, feeling in all his pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, ‘I fear this is a black business. It’s certainly gone, Sir. What’s to be done?’

‘Don’t run after him,’ said Miss Sally, taking more snuff. ‘Don’t run after him on any account. Give him time to get rid of it, you know. It would be cruel to find him out!’

Mr Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each other, in a state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse, caught up their hats and rushed out into the street—darting along in the middle of the road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as though they were running for their lives.

It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and having the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance ahead. As they were pretty certain of the road he must have taken, however, and kept on at a great pace, they came up with him, at the very moment when he had taken breath, and was breaking into a run again.

‘Stop!’ cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr Swiveller pounced upon the other. ‘Not so fast sir. You’re in a hurry?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Kit, looking from one to the other in great surprise.

‘I—I—can hardly believe it,’ panted Sampson, ‘but something of value is missing from the office. I hope you don’t know what.’

‘Know what! good Heaven, Mr Brass!’ cried Kit, trembling from head to foot; ‘you don’t suppose—’

‘No, no,’ rejoined Brass quickly, ‘I don’t suppose anything. Don’t say I said you did. You’ll come back quietly, I hope?’

‘Of course I will,’ returned Kit. ‘Why not?’

‘To be sure!’ said Brass. ‘Why not? I hope there may turn out to be no why not. If you knew the trouble I’ve been in, this morning, through taking your part, Christopher, you’d be sorry for it.’

‘And I am sure you’ll be sorry for having suspected me sir,’ replied Kit. ‘Come. Let us make haste back.’

‘Certainly!’ cried Brass, ‘the quicker, the better. Mr Richard—have the goodness, sir, to take that arm. I’ll take this one. It’s not easy walking three abreast, but under these circumstances it must be done, sir; there’s no help for it.’

Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when they secured him thus, and for a moment seemed disposed to resist. But, quickly recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made any struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the public streets, he only repeated, with great earnestness and with the tears standing in his eyes, that they would be sorry for this—and suffered them to lead him off. While they were on the way back, Mr Swiveller, upon whom his present functions sat very irksomely, took an opportunity of whispering in his ear that if he would confess his guilt, even by so much as a nod, and promise not to do so any more, he would connive at his kicking Sampson Brass on the shins and escaping up a court; but Kit indignantly rejecting this proposal, Mr Richard had nothing for it, but to hold him tight until they reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into the presence of the charming Sarah, who immediately took the precaution of locking the door.

‘Now, you know,’ said Brass, ‘if this is a case of innocence, it is a case of that description, Christopher, where the fullest disclosure is the best satisfaction for everybody. Therefore if you’ll consent to an examination,’ he demonstrated what kind of examination he meant by turning back the cuffs of his coat, ‘it will be a comfortable and pleasant thing for all parties.’

‘Search me,’ said Kit, proudly holding up his arms. ‘But mind, sir—I know you’ll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.’

‘It is certainly a very painful occurrence,’ said Brass with a sigh, as he dived into one of Kit’s pockets, and fished up a miscellaneous collection of small articles; ‘very painful. Nothing here, Mr Richard, Sir, all perfectly satisfactory. Nor here, sir. Nor in the waistcoat, Mr Richard, nor in the coat tails. So far, I am rejoiced, I am sure.’

Richard Swiveller, holding Kit’s hat in his hand, was watching the proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the slightest possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of his eyes, looked with the other up the inside of one of the poor fellow’s sleeves as if it were a telescope—when Sampson turning hastily to him, bade him search the hat.

‘Here’s a handkerchief,’ said Dick.

‘No harm in that sir,’ rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the other sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was contemplating an immense extent of prospect. ‘No harm in a handkerchief Sir, whatever. The faculty don’t consider it a healthy custom, I believe, Mr Richard, to carry one’s handkerchief in one’s hat—I have heard that it keeps the head too warm—but in every other point of view, its being there, is extremely satisfactory—extremely so.’

An exclamation, at once from Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit himself, cut the lawyer short. He turned his head, and saw Dick standing with the bank-note in his hand.

‘In the hat?’ cried Brass in a sort of shriek.

‘Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,’ said Dick, aghast at the discovery.

Mr Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at the floor—everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite stupefied and motionless.

‘And this,’ cried Sampson, clasping his hands, ‘is the world that turns upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions round Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort! This is human natur, is it! Oh natur, natur! This is the miscreant that I was going to benefit with all my little arts, and that, even now, I feel so much for, as to wish to let him go! But,’ added Mr Brass with greater fortitude, ‘I am myself a lawyer, and bound to set an example in carrying the laws of my happy country into effect. Sally my dear, forgive me, and catch hold of him on the other side. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to run and fetch a constable. The weakness is past and over sir, and moral strength returns. A constable, sir, if you please!’

CHAPTER 60

Kit stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed upon the ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr Brass maintained on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp of Miss Sally upon the other; although this latter detention was in itself no small inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides screwing her knuckles inconveniently into his throat from time to time, had fastened upon him in the first instance with so tight a grip that even in the disorder and distraction of his thoughts he could not divest himself of an uneasy sense of choking. Between the brother and sister he remained in this posture, quite unresisting and passive, until Mr Swiveller returned, with a police constable at his heels.

This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes; looking upon all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to housebreaking or ventures on the highway, as matters in the regular course of business; and regarding the perpetrators in the light of so many customers coming to be served at the wholesale and retail shop of criminal law where he stood behind the counter; received Mr Brass’s statement of facts with about as much interest and surprise, as an undertaker might evince if required to listen to a circumstantial account of the last illness of a person whom he was called in to wait upon professionally; and took Kit into custody with a decent indifference.

‘We had better,’ said this subordinate minister of justice, ‘get to the office while there’s a magistrate sitting. I shall want you to come along with us, Mr Brass, and the—’ he looked at Miss Sally as if in some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other fabulous monster.

‘The lady, eh?’ said Sampson.

‘Ah!’ replied the constable. ‘Yes—the lady. Likewise the young man that found the property.’

‘Mr Richard, Sir,’ said Brass in a mournful voice. ‘A sad necessity. But the altar of our country sir—’

‘You’ll have a hackney-coach, I suppose?’ interrupted the constable, holding Kit (whom his other captors had released) carelessly by the arm, a little above the elbow. ‘Be so good as send for one, will you?’

‘But, hear me speak a word,’ cried Kit, raising his eyes and looking imploringly about him. ‘Hear me speak a word. I am no more guilty than any one of you. Upon my soul I am not. I a thief! Oh, Mr Brass, you know me better. I am sure you know me better. This is not right of you, indeed.’

‘I give you my word, constable—’ said Brass. But here the constable interposed with the constitutional principle ‘words be blowed;’ observing that words were but spoon-meat for babes and sucklings, and that oaths were the food for strong men.

‘Quite true, constable,’ assented Brass in the same mournful tone. ‘Strictly correct. I give you my oath, constable, that down to a few minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such confidence in that lad, that I’d have trusted him with—a hackney-coach, Mr Richard, sir; you’re very slow, Sir.’

‘Who is there that knows me,’ cried Kit, ‘that would not trust me— that does not? ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me; whether I have ever wronged them of a farthing. Was I ever once dishonest when I was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would begin now! Oh consider what you do. How can I meet the kindest friends that ever human creature had, with this dreadful charge upon me!’

Mr Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if he had thought of that before and was about to make some other gloomy observations when the voice of the single gentleman was heard, demanding from above-stairs what was the matter, and what was the cause of all that noise and hurry. Kit made an involuntary start towards the door in his anxiety to answer for himself, but being speedily detained by the constable, had the agony of seeing Sampson Brass run out alone to tell the story in his own way.

‘And he can hardly believe it, either,’ said Sampson, when he returned, ‘nor nobody will. I wish I could doubt the evidence of my senses, but their depositions are unimpeachable. It’s of no use cross-examining my eyes,’ cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them, ‘they stick to their first account, and will. Now, Sarah, I hear the coach in the Marks; get on your bonnet, and we’ll be off. A sad errand! a moral funeral, quite!’

‘Mr Brass,’ said Kit. ‘Do me one favour. Take me to Mr Witherden’s first.’

Sampson shook his head irresolutely.

‘Do,’ said Kit. ‘My master’s there. For Heaven’s sake, take me there, first.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons for wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary. ‘How do we stand in point of time, constable, eh?’

The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with great philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would have time enough, but that if they stood shilly-shallying there, any longer, they must go straight to the Mansion House; and finally expressed his opinion that that was where it was, and that was all about it.

Mr Richard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still remaining immoveable in the most commodious corner with his face to the horses, Mr Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner, and declared himself quite ready. Therefore, the constable, still holding Kit in the same manner, and pushing him on a little before him, so as to keep him at about three-quarters of an arm’s length in advance (which is the professional mode), thrust him into the vehicle and followed himself. Miss Sally entered next; and there being now four inside, Sampson Brass got upon the box, and made the coachman drive on.

Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which had taken place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach window, almost hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon in the streets which might give him reason to believe he was in a dream. Alas! Everything was too real and familiar: the same succession of turnings, the same houses, the same streams of people running side by side in different directions upon the pavement, the same bustle of carts and carriages in the road, the same well-remembered objects in the shop windows: a regularity in the very noise and hurry which no dream ever mirrored. Dream-like as the story was, it was true. He stood charged with robbery; the note had been found upon him, though he was innocent in thought and deed; and they were carrying him back, a prisoner.

Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping heart of his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the consciousness of innocence would be insufficient to support him in the presence of his friends if they believed him guilty, and sinking in hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to the notary’s, poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window, observant of nothing,—when all at once, as though it had been conjured up by magic, he became aware of the face of Quilp.

And what a leer there was upon the face! It was from the open window of a tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread himself over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head resting on both his hands, that what between this attitude and his being swoln with suppressed laughter, he looked puffed and bloated into twice his usual breadth. Mr Brass, on recognising him, immediately stopped the coach. As it came to a halt directly opposite to where he stood, the dwarf pulled off his hat, and saluted the party with a hideous and grotesque politeness.

‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘Where now, Brass? where now? Sally with you too? Sweet Sally! And Dick? Pleasant Dick! And Kit! Honest Kit!’

‘He’s extremely cheerful!’ said Brass to the coachman. ‘Very much so! Ah, sir—a sad business! Never believe in honesty any more, sir.’

‘Why not?’ returned the dwarf. ‘Why not, you rogue of a lawyer, why not?’

‘Bank-note lost in our office sir,’ said Brass, shaking his head. ‘Found in his hat sir—he previously left alone there—no mistake at all sir—chain of evidence complete—not a link wanting.’

‘What!’ cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window. ‘Kit a thief! Kit a thief! Ha ha ha! Why, he’s an uglier-looking thief than can be seen anywhere for a penny. Eh, Kit—eh? Ha ha ha! Have you taken Kit into custody before he had time and opportunity to beat me! Eh, Kit, eh?’ And with that, he burst into a yell of laughter, manifestly to the great terror of the coachman, and pointed to a dyer’s pole hard by, where a dangling suit of clothes bore some resemblance to a man upon a gibbet.

‘Is it coming to that, Kit!’ cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands violently. ‘Ha ha ha ha! What a disappointment for little Jacob, and for his darling mother! Let him have the Bethel minister to comfort and console him, Brass. Eh, Kit, eh? Drive on coachey, drive on. Bye bye, Kit; all good go with you; keep up your spirits; my love to the Garlands—the dear old lady and gentleman. Say I inquired after ‘em, will you? Blessings on ‘em, on you, and on everybody, Kit. Blessings on all the world!’

With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and when he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled upon the ground in an ecstacy of enjoyment.

When they reached the notary’s, which they were not long in doing, for they had encountered the dwarf in a bye street at a very little distance from the house, Mr Brass dismounted; and opening the coach door with a melancholy visage, requested his sister to accompany him into the office, with the view of preparing the good people within, for the mournful intelligence that awaited them. Miss Sally complying, he desired Mr Swiveller to accompany them. So, into the office they went; Mr Sampson and his sister arm-in-arm; and Mr Swiveller following, alone.

The notary was standing before the fire in the outer office, talking to Mr Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat writing at the desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation as happened to fall in his way. This posture of affairs Mr Brass observed through the glass-door as he was turning the handle, and seeing that the notary recognised him, he began to shake his head and sigh deeply while that partition yet divided them.

‘Sir,’ said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two fore-fingers of his right hand beaver glove, ‘my name is Brass—Brass of Bevis Marks, Sir. I have had the honour and pleasure, Sir, of being concerned against you in some little testamentary matters. How do you do, sir?’

‘My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr Brass,’ said the notary, turning away.

‘Thank you Sir,’ said Brass, ‘thank you, I am sure. Allow me, Sir, to introduce my sister—quite one of us Sir, although of the weaker sex—of great use in my business Sir, I assure you. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to come foward if you please—No really,’ said Brass, stepping between the notary and his private office (towards which he had begun to retreat), and speaking in the tone of an injured man, ‘really Sir, I must, under favour, request a word or two with you, indeed.’

‘Mr Brass,’ said the other, in a decided tone, ‘I am engaged. You see that I am occupied with these gentlemen. If you will communicate your business to Mr Chuckster yonder, you will receive every attention.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Brass, laying his right hand on his waistcoat, and looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile—‘Gentlemen, I appeal to you—really, gentlemen—consider, I beg of you. I am of the law. I am styled “gentleman” by Act of Parliament. I maintain the title by the annual payment of twelve pound sterling for a certificate. I am not one of your players of music, stage actors, writers of books, or painters of pictures, who assume a station that the laws of their country don’t recognise. I am none of your strollers or vagabonds. If any man brings his action against me, he must describe me as a gentleman, or his action is null and void. I appeal to you—is this quite respectful? Really gentlemen—’

‘Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr Brass?’ said the notary.

‘Sir,’ rejoined Brass, ‘I will. Ah Mr Witherden! you little know the—but I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir, I believe the name of one of these gentlemen is Garland.’

‘Of both,’ said the notary.

‘In-deed!’ rejoined Brass, cringing excessively. ‘But I might have known that, from the uncommon likeness. Extremely happy, I am sure, to have the honour of an introduction to two such gentlemen, although the occasion is a most painful one. One of you gentlemen has a servant called Kit?’

‘Both,’ replied the notary.

‘Two Kits?’ said Brass smiling. ‘Dear me!’

‘One Kit, sir,’ returned Mr Witherden angrily, ‘who is employed by both gentlemen. What of him?’

‘This of him, sir,’ rejoined Brass, dropping his voice impressively. ‘That young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and unlimited confidence in, and always behaved to as if he was my equal—that young man has this morning committed a robbery in my office, and been taken almost in the fact.’

‘This must be some falsehood!’ cried the notary.

‘It is not possible,’ said Mr Abel.

‘I’ll not believe one word of it,’ exclaimed the old gentleman.

Mr Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined,

‘Mr Witherden, sir, YOUR words are actionable, and if I was a man of low and mean standing, who couldn’t afford to be slandered, I should proceed for damages. Hows’ever, sir, being what I am, I merely scorn such expressions. The honest warmth of the other gentleman I respect, and I’m truly sorry to be the messenger of such unpleasant news. I shouldn’t have put myself in this painful position, I assure you, but that the lad himself desired to be brought here in the first instance, and I yielded to his prayers. Mr Chuckster, sir, will you have the goodness to tap at the window for the constable that’s waiting in the coach?’

The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when these words were uttered, and Mr Chuckster, doing as he was desired, and leaping off his stool with something of the excitement of an inspired prophet whose foretellings had in the fulness of time been realised, held the door open for the entrance of the wretched captive.

Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the rude eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called Heaven to witness that he was innocent, and that how the property came to be found upon him he knew not! Such a confusion of tongues, before the circumstances were related, and the proofs disclosed! Such a dead silence when all was told, and his three friends exchanged looks of doubt and amazement!

‘Is it not possible,’ said Mr Witherden, after a long pause, ‘that this note may have found its way into the hat by some accident,—such as the removal of papers on the desk, for instance?’

But this was clearly shown to be quite impossible. Mr Swiveller, though an unwilling witness, could not help proving to demonstration, from the position in which it was found, that it must have been designedly secreted.

‘It’s very distressing,’ said Brass, ‘immensely distressing, I am sure. When he comes to be tried, I shall be very happy to recommend him to mercy on account of his previous good character. I did lose money before, certainly, but it doesn’t quite follow that he took it. The presumption’s against him—strongly against him—but we’re Christians, I hope?’

‘I suppose,’ said the constable, looking round, ‘that no gentleman here can give evidence as to whether he’s been flush of money of late, Do you happen to know, Sir?’

‘He has had money from time to time, certainly,’ returned Mr Garland, to whom the man had put the question. ‘But that, as he always told me, was given him by Mr Brass himself.’

‘Yes to be sure,’ said Kit eagerly. ‘You can bear me out in that, Sir?’

‘Eh?’ cried Brass, looking from face to face with an expression of stupid amazement.

‘The money you know, the half-crowns, that you gave me—from the lodger,’ said Kit.

‘Oh dear me!’ cried Brass, shaking his head and frowning heavily. ‘This is a bad case, I find; a very bad case indeed.’

‘What! Did you give him no money on account of anybody, Sir?’ asked Mr Garland, with great anxiety.

‘I give him money, Sir!’ returned Sampson. ‘Oh, come you know, this is too barefaced. Constable, my good fellow, we had better be going.’

‘What!’ shrieked Kit. ‘Does he deny that he did? ask him, somebody, pray. Ask him to tell you whether he did or not!’

‘Did you, sir?’ asked the notary.

‘I tell you what, gentlemen,’ replied Brass, in a very grave manner, ‘he’ll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some other tack. Did I, sir? Of course I never did.’

‘Gentlemen,’ cried Kit, on whom a light broke suddenly, ‘Master, Mr Abel, Mr Witherden, every one of you—he did it! What I have done to offend him, I don’t know, but this is a plot to ruin me. Mind, gentlemen, it’s a plot, and whatever comes of it, I will say with my dying breath that he put that note in my hat himself! Look at him, gentlemen! see how he changes colour. Which of us looks the guilty person—he, or I?’

‘You hear him, gentlemen?’ said Brass, smiling, ‘you hear him. Now, does this case strike you as assuming rather a black complexion, or does it not? Is it at all a treacherous case, do you think, or is it one of mere ordinary guilt? Perhaps, gentlemen, if he had not said this in your presence and I had reported it, you’d have held this to be impossible likewise, eh?’

With such pacific and bantering remarks did Mr Brass refute the foul aspersion on his character; but the virtuous Sarah, moved by stronger feelings, and having at heart, perhaps, a more jealous regard for the honour of her family, flew from her brother’s side, without any previous intimation of her design, and darted at the prisoner with the utmost fury. It would undoubtedly have gone hard with Kit’s face, but that the wary constable, foreseeing her design, drew him aside at the critical moment, and thus placed Mr Chuckster in circumstances of some jeopardy; for that gentleman happening to be next the object of Miss Brass’s wrath; and rage being, like love and fortune, blind; was pounced upon by the fair enslaver, and had a false collar plucked up by the roots, and his hair very much dishevelled, before the exertions of the company could make her sensible of her mistake.

The constable, taking warning by this desperate attack, and thinking perhaps that it would be more satisfactory to the ends of justice if the prisoner were taken before a magistrate, whole, rather than in small pieces, led him back to the hackney-coach without more ado, and moreover insisted on Miss Brass becoming an outside passenger; to which proposal the charming creature, after a little angry discussion, yielded her consent; and so took her brother Sampson’s place upon the box: Mr Brass with some reluctance agreeing to occupy her seat inside. These arrangements perfected, they drove to the justice-room with all speed, followed by the notary and his two friends in another coach. Mr Chuckster alone was left behind—greatly to his indignation; for he held the evidence he could have given, relative to Kit’s returning to work out the shilling, to be so very material as bearing upon his hypocritical and designing character, that he considered its suppression little better than a compromise of felony.

At the justice-room, they found the single gentleman, who had gone straight there, and was expecting them with desperate impatience. But not fifty single gentlemen rolled into one could have helped poor Kit, who in half an hour afterwards was committed for trial, and was assured by a friendly officer on his way to prison that there was no occasion to be cast down, for the sessions would soon be on, and he would, in all likelihood, get his little affair disposed of, and be comfortably transported, in less than a fortnight.

CHAPTER 61

Let moralists and philosophers say what they may, it is very questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much misery that night, as Kit did, being innocent. The world, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last; ‘in which case,’ say they who have hunted him down, ‘—though we certainly don’t expect it—nobody will be better pleased than we.’ Whereas, the world would do well to reflect, that injustice is in itself, to every generous and properly constituted mind, an injury, of all others the most insufferable, the most torturing, and the most hard to bear; and that many clear consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and many sound hearts have broken, because of this very reason; the knowledge of their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and rendering them the less endurable.

The world, however, was not in fault in Kit’s case. But Kit was innocent; and knowing this, and feeling that his best friends deemed him guilty—that Mr and Mrs Garland would look upon him as a monster of ingratitude—that Barbara would associate him with all that was bad and criminal—that the pony would consider himself forsaken—and that even his own mother might perhaps yield to the strong appearances against him, and believe him to be the wretch he seemed—knowing and feeling all this, he experienced, at first, an agony of mind which no words can describe, and walked up and down the little cell in which he was locked up for the night, almost beside himself with grief.

Even when the violence of these emotions had in some degree subsided, and he was beginning to grow more calm, there came into his mind a new thought, the anguish of which was scarcely less. The child—the bright star of the simple fellow’s life—she, who always came back upon him like a beautiful dream—who had made the poorest part of his existence, the happiest and best—who had ever been so gentle, and considerate, and good—if she were ever to hear of this, what would she think! As this idea occurred to him, the walls of the prison seemed to melt away, and the old place to reveal itself in their stead, as it was wont to be on winter nights—the fireside, the little supper table, the old man’s hat, and coat, and stick—the half-opened door, leading to her little room—they were all there. And Nell herself was there, and he—both laughing heartily as they had often done—and when he had got as far as this, Kit could go no farther, but flung himself upon his poor bedstead and wept.

It was a long night, which seemed as though it would have no end; but he slept too, and dreamed—always of being at liberty, and roving about, now with one person and now with another, but ever with a vague dread of being recalled to prison; not that prison, but one which was in itself a dim idea—not of a place, but of a care and sorrow: of something oppressive and always present, and yet impossible to define. At last, the morning dawned, and there was the jail itself—cold, black, and dreary, and very real indeed.

He was left to himself, however, and there was comfort in that. He had liberty to walk in a small paved yard at a certain hour, and learnt from the turnkey, who came to unlock his cell and show him where to wash, that there was a regular time for visiting, every day, and that if any of his friends came to see him, he would be fetched down to the grate. When he had given him this information, and a tin porringer containing his breakfast, the man locked him up again; and went clattering along the stone passage, opening and shutting a great many other doors, and raising numberless loud echoes which resounded through the building for a long time, as if they were in prison too, and unable to get out.

This turnkey had given him to understand that he was lodged, like some few others in the jail, apart from the mass of prisoners; because he was not supposed to be utterly depraved and irreclaimable, and had never occupied apartments in that mansion before. Kit was thankful for this indulgence, and sat reading the church catechism very attentively (though he had known it by heart from a little child), until he heard the key in the lock, and the man entered again.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘come on!’

‘Where to, Sir?’ asked Kit.

The man contented himself by briefly replying ‘Wisitors;’ and taking him by the arm in exactly the same manner as the constable had done the day before, led him, through several winding ways and strong gates, into a passage, where he placed him at a grating and turned upon his heel. Beyond this grating, at the distance of about four or five feet, was another exactly like it. In the space between, sat a turnkey reading a newspaper, and outside the further railing, Kit saw, with a palpitating heart, his mother with the baby in her arms; Barbara’s mother with her never-failing umbrella; and poor little Jacob, staring in with all his might, as though he were looking for the bird, or the wild beast, and thought the men were mere accidents with whom the bars could have no possible concern.

But when little Jacob saw his brother, and, thrusting his arms between the rails to hug him, found that he came no nearer, but still stood afar off with his head resting on the arm by which he held to one of the bars, he began to cry most piteously; whereupon, Kit’s mother and Barbara’s mother, who had restrained themselves as much as possible, burst out sobbing and weeping afresh. Poor Kit could not help joining them, and not one of them could speak a word. During this melancholy pause, the turnkey read his newspaper with a waggish look (he had evidently got among the facetious paragraphs) until, happening to take his eyes off for an instant, as if to get by dint of contemplation at the very marrow of some joke of a deeper sort than the rest, it appeared to occur to him, for the first time, that somebody was crying.

‘Now, ladies, ladies,’ he said, looking round with surprise, ‘I’d advise you not to waste time like this. It’s allowanced here, you know. You mustn’t let that child make that noise either. It’s against all rules.’

‘I’m his poor mother, sir,’—sobbed Mrs Nubbles, curtseying humbly, ‘and this is his brother, sir. Oh dear me, dear me!’

‘Well!’ replied the turnkey, folding his paper on his knee, so as to get with greater convenience at the top of the next column. ‘It can’t be helped you know. He ain’t the only one in the same fix. You mustn’t make a noise about it!’

With that he went on reading. The man was not unnaturally cruel or hard-hearted. He had come to look upon felony as a kind of disorder, like the scarlet fever or erysipelas: some people had it—some hadn’t—just as it might be.

‘Oh! my darling Kit,’ said his mother, whom Barbara’s mother had charitably relieved of the baby, ‘that I should see my poor boy here!’

‘You don’t believe that I did what they accuse me of, mother dear?’ cried Kit, in a choking voice.

‘I believe it!’ exclaimed the poor woman, ‘I that never knew you tell a lie, or do a bad action from your cradle—that have never had a moment’s sorrow on your account, except it was the poor meals that you have taken with such good humour and content, that I forgot how little there was, when I thought how kind and thoughtful you were, though you were but a child!—I believe it of the son that’s been a comfort to me from the hour of his birth until this time, and that I never laid down one night in anger with! I believe it of you Kit!—’

‘Why then, thank God!’ said Kit, clutching the bars with an earnestness that shook them, ‘and I can bear it, mother! Come what may, I shall always have one drop of happiness in my heart when I think that you said that.’

At this the poor woman fell a-crying again, and Barbara’s mother too. And little Jacob, whose disjointed thoughts had by this time resolved themselves into a pretty distinct impression that Kit couldn’t go out for a walk if he wanted, and that there were no birds, lions, tigers or other natural curiosities behind those bars—nothing indeed, but a caged brother—added his tears to theirs with as little noise as possible.

Kit’s mother, drying her eyes (and moistening them, poor soul, more than she dried them), now took from the ground a small basket, and submissively addressed herself to the turnkey, saying, would he please to listen to her for a minute? The turnkey, being in the very crisis and passion of a joke, motioned to her with his hand to keep silent one minute longer, for her life. Nor did he remove his hand into its former posture, but kept it in the same warning attitude until he had finished the paragraph, when he paused for a few seconds, with a smile upon his face, as who should say ‘this editor is a comical blade—a funny dog,’ and then asked her what she wanted.

‘I have brought him a little something to eat,’ said the good woman. ‘If you please, Sir, might he have it?’

‘Yes,—he may have it. There’s no rule against that. Give it to me when you go, and I’ll take care he has it.’

‘No, but if you please sir—don’t be angry with me sir—I am his mother, and you had a mother once—if I might only see him eat a little bit, I should go away, so much more satisfied that he was all comfortable.’

And again the tears of Kit’s mother burst forth, and of Barbara’s mother, and of little Jacob. As to the baby, it was crowing and laughing with its might—under the idea, apparently, that the whole scene had been invented and got up for its particular satisfaction.

The turnkey looked as if he thought the request a strange one and rather out of the common way, but nevertheless he laid down his paper, and coming round where Kit’s mother stood, took the basket from her, and after inspecting its contents, handed it to Kit, and went back to his place. It may be easily conceived that the prisoner had no great appetite, but he sat down on the ground, and ate as hard as he could, while, at every morsel he put into his mouth, his mother sobbed and wept afresh, though with a softened grief that bespoke the satisfaction the sight afforded her.

While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about his employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion concerning him; but all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself broken the intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and delicacy, late on the previous night, but had himself expressed no opinion of his innocence or guilt. Kit was on the point of mustering courage to ask Barbara’s mother about Barbara, when the turnkey who had conducted him, reappeared, a second turnkey appeared behind his visitors, and the third turnkey with the newspaper cried ‘Time’s up!’—adding in the same breath ‘Now for the next party!’ and then plunging deep into his newspaper again. Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from his mother, and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears. As he was crossing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the guidance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand.

‘This is Christopher Nubbles, isn’t it, that come in last night for felony?’ said the man.

His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question.

‘Then here’s your beer,’ said the other man to Christopher. ‘What are you looking at? There an’t a discharge in it.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Kit. ‘Who sent it me?’

‘Why, your friend,’ replied the man. ‘You’re to have it every day, he says. And so you will, if he pays for it.’

‘My friend!’ repeated Kit.

‘You’re all abroad, seemingly,’ returned the other man. ‘There’s his letter. Take hold!’

Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows.

‘Drink of this cup, you’ll find there’s a spell in its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality. Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen! HER cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and Co.’s).—If they ever send it in a flat state, complain to the Governor. Yours, R. S.’

‘R. S.!’ said Kit, after some consideration. ‘It must be Mr Richard Swiveller. Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him heartily.’

CHAPTER 62

A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on Quilp’s wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog, as though it suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson Brass, as he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the excellent proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and probably waiting with his accustomed patience and sweetness of temper the fulfilment of the appointment which now brought Mr Brass within his fair domain.

‘A treacherous place to pick one’s steps in, of a dark night,’ muttered Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some stray lumber, and limped in pain. ‘I believe that boy strews the ground differently every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one; unless his master does it with his own hands, which is more than likely. I hate to come to this place without Sally. She’s more protection than a dozen men.’

As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr Brass came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and over his shoulder.

‘What’s he about, I wonder?’ murmured the lawyer, standing on tiptoe, and endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing inside, which at that distance was impossible—‘drinking, I suppose,—making himself more fiery and furious, and heating his malice and mischievousness till they boil. I’m always afraid to come here by myself, when his account’s a pretty large one. I don’t believe he’d mind throttling me, and dropping me softly into the river when the tide was at its strongest, any more than he’d mind killing a rat—indeed I don’t know whether he wouldn’t consider it a pleasant joke. Hark! Now he’s singing!’

Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous repetition of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long stress upon the last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar. Nor did the burden of this performance bear any reference to love, or war, or wine, or loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of song, but to a subject not often set to music or generally known in ballads; the words being these:—‘The worthy magistrate, after remarking that the prisoner would find some difficulty in persuading a jury to believe his tale, committed him to take his trial at the approaching sessions; and directed the customary recognisances to be entered into for the pros-e-cu-tion.’

Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and began again.

‘He’s dreadfully imprudent,’ muttered Brass, after he had listened to two or three repetitions of the chant. ‘Horribly imprudent. I wish he was dumb. I wish he was deaf. I wish he was blind. Hang him,’ cried Brass, as the chant began again. ‘I wish he was dead!’

Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client, Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and waiting until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the wooden house, and knocked at the door.

‘Come in!’ cried the dwarf.

‘How do you do to-night sir?’ said Sampson, peeping in. ‘Ha ha ha! How do you do sir? Oh dear me, how very whimsical! Amazingly whimsical to be sure!’

‘Come in, you fool!’ returned the dwarf, ‘and don’t stand there shaking your head and showing your teeth. Come in, you false witness, you perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!’

‘He has the richest humour!’ cried Brass, shutting the door behind him; ‘the most amazing vein of comicality! But isn’t it rather injudicious, sir—?’

‘What?’ demanded Quilp. ‘What, Judas?’

‘Judas!’ cried Brass. ‘He has such extraordinary spirits! His humour is so extremely playful! Judas! Oh yes—dear me, how very good! Ha ha ha!’

All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the dwarf worshipped. A mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with a representation of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral; but, without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea-monster. Being originally much too large for the apartment which it was now employed to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the waist. Even in this state it reached from floor to ceiling; and thrusting itself forward, with that excessively wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive politeness, by which figure-heads are usually characterised, seemed to reduce everything else to mere pigmy proportions.

‘Do you know it?’ said the dwarf, watching Sampson’s eyes. ‘Do you see the likeness?’

‘Eh?’ said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a little back, as connoisseurs do. ‘Now I look at it again, I fancy I see a—yes, there certainly is something in the smile that reminds me of—and yet upon my word I—’

Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much perplexed; being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like himself, and had therefore bought it for a family portrait; or whether he was pleased to consider it as the likeness of some enemy. He was not very long in doubt; for, while he was surveying it with that knowing look which people assume when they are contemplating for the first time portraits which they ought to recognise but don’t, the dwarf threw down the newspaper from which he had been chanting the words already quoted, and seizing a rusty iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the figure such a stroke on the nose that it rocked again.

‘Is it like Kit—is it his picture, his image, his very self?’ cried the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible countenance, and covering it with deep dimples. ‘Is it the exact model and counterpart of the dog—is it—is it—is it?’ And with every repetition of the question, he battered the great image, until the perspiration streamed down his face with the violence of the exercise.

Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from a secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable spectacle by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is better than a play to people who don’t live near it, there was something in the earnestness of Mr Quilp’s manner which made his legal adviser feel that the counting-house was a little too small, and a deal too lonely, for the complete enjoyment of these humours. Therefore, he stood as far off as he could, while the dwarf was thus engaged; whimpering out but feeble applause; and when Quilp left off and sat down again from pure exhaustion, approached with more obsequiousness than ever.

‘Excellent indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘He he! Oh, very good Sir. You know,’ said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised animal, ‘he’s quite a remarkable man—quite!’

‘Sit down,’ said the dwarf. ‘I bought the dog yesterday. I’ve been screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and cutting my name on him. I mean to burn him at last.’

‘Ha ha!’ cried Brass. ‘Extremely entertaining, indeed!’

‘Come here,’ said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near. ‘What’s injudicious, hey?’

‘Nothing Sir—nothing. Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I thought that song—admirably humorous in itself you know—was perhaps rather—’

‘Yes,’ said Quilp, ‘rather what?’

‘Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the confines of injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,’ returned Brass, looking timidly at the dwarf’s cunning eyes, which were turned towards the fire and reflected its red light.

‘Why?’ inquired Quilp, without looking up.

‘Why, you know, sir,’ returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar: ‘—the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings together, of friends, for objects in themselves extremely laudable, but which the law terms conspiracies, are—you take me, sir?—best kept snug and among friends, you know.’

‘Eh!’ said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!’ cried Brass, nodding his head. ‘Mum, sir, even here—my meaning, sir, exactly.’

‘YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,—what’s your meaning?’ retorted Quilp. ‘Why do you talk to me of combining together? Do I combine? Do I know anything about your combinings?’

‘No no, sir—certainly not; not by any means,’ returned Brass.

‘If you so wink and nod at me,’ said the dwarf, looking about him as if for his poker, ‘I’ll spoil the expression of your monkey’s face, I will.’

‘Don’t put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,’ rejoined Brass, checking himself with great alacrity. ‘You’re quite right, sir, quite right. I shouldn’t have mentioned the subject, sir. It’s much better not to. You’re quite right, sir. Let us change it, if you please. You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not returned, sir.’

‘No?’ said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching it to prevent its boiling over. ‘Why not?’

‘Why, sir,’ returned Brass, ‘he—dear me, Mr Quilp, sir—’

‘What’s the matter?’ said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of carrying the saucepan to his mouth.

‘You have forgotten the water, sir,’ said Brass. ‘And—excuse me, sir—but it’s burning hot.’

Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely. Having swallowed this gentle stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr Brass proceed.

‘But first,’ said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, ‘have a drop yourself—a nice drop—a good, warm, fiery drop.’

‘Why, sir,’ replied Brass, ‘if there was such a thing as a mouthful of water that could be got without trouble—’

‘There’s no such thing to be had here,’ cried the dwarf. ‘Water for lawyers! Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering pitch and tar—that’s the thing for them—eh, Brass, eh?’

‘Ha ha ha!’ laughed Mr Brass. ‘Oh very biting! and yet it’s like being tickled—there’s a pleasure in it too, sir!’

‘Drink that,’ said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more. ‘Toss it off, don’t leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy!’

The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form came rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the colour of his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a violent fit of coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard to declare, with the constancy of a martyr, that it was ‘beautiful indeed!’ While he was yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf renewed their conversation.

‘The lodger,’ said Quilp, ‘—what about him?’

‘He is still, sir,’ returned Brass, with intervals of coughing, ‘stopping with the Garland family. He has only been home once, Sir, since the day of the examination of that culprit. He informed Mr Richard, sir, that he couldn’t bear the house after what had taken place; that he was wretched in it; and that he looked upon himself as being in a certain kind of way the cause of the occurrence.—A very excellent lodger Sir. I hope we may not lose him.’

‘Yah!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Never thinking of anybody but yourself—why don’t you retrench then—scrape up, hoard, economise, eh?’

‘Why, sir,’ replied Brass, ‘upon my word I think Sarah’s as good an economiser as any going. I do indeed, Mr Quilp.’

‘Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink, man!’ cried the dwarf. ‘You took a clerk to oblige me.’

‘Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,’ replied Sampson. ‘Yes, Sir, I did.’

‘Then now you may discharge him,’ said Quilp. ‘There’s a means of retrenchment for you at once.’

‘Discharge Mr Richard, sir?’ cried Brass.

‘Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the question? Yes.’

‘Upon my word, Sir,’ said Brass, ‘I wasn’t prepared for this—’

‘How could you be?’ sneered the dwarf, ‘when I wasn’t? How often am I to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have my eye on him and know where he was—and that I had a plot, a scheme, a little quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very cream and essence was, that this old man and grandchild (who have sunk underground I think) should be, while he and his precious friend believed them rich, in reality as poor as frozen rats?’

‘I quite understood that, sir,’ rejoined Brass. ‘Thoroughly.’

‘Well, Sir,’ retorted Quilp, ‘and do you understand now, that they’re not poor—that they can’t be, if they have such men as your lodger searching for them, and scouring the country far and wide?’

‘Of course I do, Sir,’ said Sampson.

‘Of course you do,’ retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his words. ‘Of course do you understand then, that it’s no matter what comes of this fellow? of course do you understand that for any other purpose he’s no man for me, nor for you?’

‘I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,’ returned Brass, ‘that he was of no use at all in the business. You can’t put any confidence in him, sir. If you’ll believe me I’ve found that fellow, in the commonest little matters of the office that have been trusted to him, blurting out the truth, though expressly cautioned. The aggravation of that chap sir, has exceeded anything you can imagine, it has indeed. Nothing but the respect and obligation I owe to you, sir—’

As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue, unless he received a timely interruption, Mr Quilp politely tapped him on the crown of his head with the little saucepan, and requested that he would be so obliging as to hold his peace.

‘Practical, sir, practical,’ said Brass, rubbing the place and smiling; ‘but still extremely pleasant—immensely so!’

‘Hearken to me, will you?’ returned Quilp, ‘or I’ll be a little more pleasant, presently. There’s no chance of his comrade and friend returning. The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn, for some knavery, and has found his way abroad. Let him rot there.’

‘Certainly, sir. Quite proper.—Forcible!’ cried Brass, glancing at the admiral again, as if he made a third in company. ‘Extremely forcible!’

‘I hate him,’ said Quilp between his teeth, ‘and have always hated him, for family reasons. Besides, he was an intractable ruffian; otherwise he would have been of use. This fellow is pigeon-hearted and light-headed. I don’t want him any longer. Let him hang or drown—starve—go to the devil.’

‘By all means, sir,’ returned Brass. ‘When would you wish him, sir, to—ha, ha!—to make that little excursion?’

‘When this trial’s over,’ said Quilp. ‘As soon as that’s ended, send him about his business.’

‘It shall be done, sir,’ returned Brass; ‘by all means. It will be rather a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under control. Ah, Mr Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased Providence to bring you and Sarah together, in earlier life, what blessed results would have flowed from such a union! You never saw our dear father, sir?—A charming gentleman. Sarah was his pride and joy, sir. He would have closed his eyes in bliss, would Foxey, Mr Quilp, if he could have found her such a partner. You esteem her, sir?’

‘I love her,’ croaked the dwarf.

‘You’re very good, Sir,’ returned Brass, ‘I am sure. Is there any other order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little matter of Mr Richard?’

‘None,’ replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan. ‘Let us drink the lovely Sarah.’

‘If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn’t quite boiling,’ suggested Brass humbly, ‘perhaps it would be better. I think it will be more agreeable to Sarah’s feelings, when she comes to hear from me of the honour you have done her, if she learns it was in liquor rather cooler than the last, Sir.’

But to these remonstrances, Mr Quilp turned a deaf ear. Sampson Brass, who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled to take further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that, instead of at all contributing to his recovery, they had the novel effect of making the counting-house spin round and round with extreme velocity, and causing the floor and ceiling to heave in a very distressing manner. After a brief stupor, he awoke to a consciousness of being partly under the table and partly under the grate. This position not being the most comfortable one he could have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger to his feet, and, holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host.

Mr Brass’s first impression was, that his host was gone and had left him there alone—perhaps locked him in for the night. A strong smell of tobacco, however, suggested a new train of ideas, he looked upward, and saw that the dwarf was smoking in his hammock.

‘Good bye, Sir,’ cried Brass faintly. ‘Good bye, Sir.’

‘Won’t you stop all night?’ said the dwarf, peeping out. ‘Do stop all night!’

‘I couldn’t indeed, Sir,’ replied Brass, who was almost dead from nausea and the closeness of the room. ‘If you’d have the goodness to show me a light, so that I may see my way across the yard, sir—’

Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head first, or his arms first, but bodily—altogether.

‘To be sure,’ he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only light in the place. ‘Be careful how you go, my dear friend. Be sure to pick your way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are upwards. There’s a dog in the lane. He bit a man last night, and a woman the night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child—but that was in play. Don’t go too near him.’

‘Which side of the road is he, sir?’ asked Brass, in great dismay.

‘He lives on the right hand,’ said Quilp, ‘but sometimes he hides on the left, ready for a spring. He’s uncertain in that respect. Mind you take care of yourself. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t. There’s the light out—never mind—you know the way—straight on!’ Quilp had slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast, and now stood chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture of delight, as he heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now and then falling heavily down. At length, however, he got quit of the place, and was out of hearing.

The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his hammock.

CHAPTER 63

The professional gentleman who had given Kit the consolatory piece of information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business at the Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon disposed of, turned out to be quite correct in his prognostications. In eight days’ time, the sessions commenced. In one day afterwards, the Grand Jury found a True Bill against Christopher Nubbles for felony; and in two days from that finding, the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called upon to plead Guilty or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the said Christopher did feloniously abstract and steal from the dwelling-house and office of one Sampson Brass, gentleman, one Bank Note for Five Pounds issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England; in contravention of the Statutes in that case made and provided, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity.

To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trembling voice, pleaded Not Guilty; and here, let those who are in the habit of forming hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had Christopher, if innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe, that confinement and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and that to one who has been close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing but stone walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a great hall filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling circumstance. To this, it must be added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair; and if, in addition to these considerations, there be taken into account Kit’s natural emotion on seeing the two Mr Garlands and the little Notary looking on with pale and anxious faces, it will perhaps seem matter of no very great wonder that he should have been rather out of sorts, and unable to make himself quite at home.

Although he had never seen either of the Mr Garlands, or Mr Witherden, since the time of his arrest, he had been given to understand that they had employed counsel for him. Therefore, when one of the gentlemen in wigs got up and said ‘I am for the prisoner, my Lord,’ Kit made him a bow; and when another gentleman in a wig got up and said ‘And I’m against him, my Lord,’ Kit trembled very much, and bowed to him too. And didn’t he hope in his own heart that his gentleman was a match for the other gentleman, and would make him ashamed of himself in no time!

The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury that if they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly undergo if they convicted that prisoner. And when he had told them all about the case, and that he had never known a worse case, he stopped a little while, like a man who had something terrible to tell them, and then said that he understood an attempt would be made by his learned friend (and here he looked sideways at Kit’s gentleman) to impeach the testimony of those immaculate witnesses whom he should call before them; but he did hope and trust that his learned friend would have a greater respect and veneration for the character of the prosecutor; than whom, as he well knew, there did not exist, and never had existed, a more honourable member of that most honourable profession to which he was attached. And then he said, did the jury know Bevis Marks? And if they did know Bevis Marks (as he trusted for their own character, they did) did they know the historical and elevating associations connected with that most remarkable spot? Did they believe that a man like Brass could reside in a place like Bevis Marks, and not be a virtuous and most upright character? And when he had said a great deal to them on this point, he remembered that it was an insult to their understandings to make any remarks on what they must have felt so strongly without him, and therefore called Sampson Brass into the witness-box, straightway.

Then up comes Mr Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to the judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him before, and who hopes he has been pretty well since their last meeting, folds his arms, and looks at his gentleman as much as to say ‘Here I am—full of evidence—Tap me!’ And the gentleman does tap him presently, and with great discretion too; drawing off the evidence by little and little, and making it run quite clear and bright in the eyes of all present. Then, Kit’s gentleman takes him in hand, but can make nothing of him; and after a great many very long questions and very short answers, Mr Sampson Brass goes down in glory.

To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by Mr Brass’s gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit’s. In short, Kit’s gentleman can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she has said before (only a little stronger this time, as against his client), and therefore lets her go, in some confusion. Then, Mr Brass’s gentleman calls Richard Swiveller, and Richard Swiveller appears accordingly.

Now, Mr Brass’s gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this witness is disposed to be friendly to the prisoner—which, to say the truth, he is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered to lie in what is familiarly termed badgering. Wherefore, he begins by requesting the officer to be quite sure that this witness kisses the book, then goes to work at him, tooth and nail.

‘Mr Swiveller,’ says this gentleman to Dick, when he had told his tale with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it: ‘Pray sir, where did you dine yesterday?’—‘Where did I dine yesterday?’—‘Aye, sir, where did you dine yesterday—was it near here, sir?’—‘Oh to be sure—yes—just over the way.’—‘To be sure. Yes. Just over the way,’ repeats Mr Brass’s gentleman, with a glance at the court.—‘Alone, sir?’—‘I beg your pardon,’ says Mr Swiveller, who has not caught the question—‘Alone, sir?’ repeats Mr Brass’s gentleman in a voice of thunder, ‘did you dine alone? Did you treat anybody, sir? Come!’—‘Oh yes, to be sure—yes, I did,’ says Mr Swiveller with a smile.—‘Have the goodness to banish a levity, sir, which is very ill-suited to the place in which you stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful that it’s only that place),’ says Mr Brass’s gentleman, with a nod of the head, insinuating that the dock is Mr Swiveller’s legitimate sphere of action; ‘and attend to me. You were waiting about here, yesterday, in expectation that this trial was coming on. You dined over the way. You treated somebody. Now, was that somebody brother to the prisoner at the bar?’—Mr Swiveller is proceeding to explain—‘Yes or No, sir,’ cries Mr Brass’s gentleman—‘But will you allow me—’—‘Yes or No, sir’—‘Yes it was, but—’—‘Yes it was,’ cries the gentleman, taking him up short. ‘And a very pretty witness YOU are!’

Down sits Mr Brass’s gentleman. Kit’s gentleman, not knowing how the matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject. Richard Swiveller retires abashed. Judge, jury and spectators have visions of his lounging about, with an ill-looking, large-whiskered, dissolute young fellow of six feet high. The reality is, little Jacob, with the calves of his legs exposed to the open air, and himself tied up in a shawl. Nobody knows the truth; everybody believes a falsehood; and all because of the ingenuity of Mr Brass’s gentleman.

Then come the witnesses to character, and here Mr Brass’s gentleman shines again. It turns out that Mr Garland has had no character with Kit, no recommendation of him but from his own mother, and that he was suddenly dismissed by his former master for unknown reasons. ‘Really Mr Garland,’ says Mr Brass’s gentleman, ‘for a person who has arrived at your time of life, you are, to say the least of it, singularly indiscreet, I think.’ The jury think so too, and find Kit guilty. He is taken off, humbly protesting his innocence. The spectators settle themselves in their places with renewed attention, for there are several female witnesses to be examined in the next case, and it has been rumoured that Mr Brass’s gentleman will make great fun in cross-examining them for the prisoner.

Kit’s mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs, accompanied by Barbara’s mother (who, honest soul! never does anything but cry, and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues. The newspaper-reading turnkey has told them all. He don’t think it will be transportation for life, because there’s time to prove the good character yet, and that is sure to serve him. He wonders what he did it for. ‘He never did it!’ cries Kit’s mother. ‘Well,’ says the turnkey, ‘I won’t contradict you. It’s all one, now, whether he did it or not.’

Kit’s mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it— God, and those to whom he has given such tenderness, only know in how much agony. Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under pretence of having the children lifted up to kiss him, prays Barbara’s mother in a whisper to take her home.

‘Some friend will rise up for us, mother,’ cried Kit, ‘I am sure. If not now, before long. My innocence will come out, mother, and I shall be brought back again; I feel confidence in that. You must teach little Jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they thought I had ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to understand, it would break my heart to know it, if I was thousands of miles away.—Oh! is there no good gentleman here, who will take care of her!’

The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon the earth, insensible. Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows the bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in one arm after the manner of theatrical ravishers, and, nodding to Kit, and commanding Barbara’s mother to follow, for he has a coach waiting, bears her swiftly off.

Well; Richard took her home. And what astonishing absurdities in the way of quotation from song and poem he perpetrated on the road, no man knows. He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered; and, having no money to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis Marks, bidding the driver (for it was Saturday night) wait at the door while he went in for ‘change.’

‘Mr Richard, sir,’ said Brass cheerfully, ‘Good evening!’

Monstrous as Kit’s tale had appeared, at first, Mr Richard did, that night, half suspect his affable employer of some deep villany. Perhaps it was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his careless nature this impulse; but, be that as it may, it was very strong upon him, and he said in as few words as possible, what he wanted.

‘Money?’ cried Brass, taking out his purse. ‘Ha ha! To be sure, Mr Richard, to be sure, sir. All men must live. You haven’t change for a five-pound note, have you sir?’

‘No,’ returned Dick, shortly.

‘Oh!’ said Brass, ‘here’s the very sum. That saves trouble. You’re very welcome I’m sure.—Mr Richard, sir—’

Dick, who had by this time reached the door, turned round.

‘You needn’t,’ said Brass, ‘trouble yourself to come back any more, Sir.’

‘Eh?’

‘You see, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, thrusting his hands in his pockets, and rocking himself to and fro on his stool, ‘the fact is, that a man of your abilities is lost, Sir, quite lost, in our dry and mouldy line. It’s terrible drudgery—shocking. I should say, now, that the stage, or the—or the army, Mr Richard—or something very superior in the licensed victualling way—was the kind of thing that would call out the genius of such a man as you. I hope you’ll look in to see us now and then. Sally, Sir, will be delighted I’m sure. She’s extremely sorry to lose you, Mr Richard, but a sense of her duty to society reconciles her. An amazing creature that, sir! You’ll find the money quite correct, I think. There’s a cracked window sir, but I’ve not made any deduction on that account. Whenever we part with friends, Mr Richard, let us part liberally. A delightful sentiment, sir!’

To all these rambling observations, Mr Swiveller answered not one word, but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight round ball: looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some intention of bowling him down with it. He only took it under his arm, however, and marched out of the office in profound silence. When he had closed the door, he re-opened it, stared in again for a few moments with the same portentous gravity, and nodding his head once, in a slow and ghost-like manner, vanished.

He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with great designs for the comforting of Kit’s mother and the aid of Kit himself.

But the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard Swiveller, are extremely precarious. The spiritual excitement of the last fortnight, working upon a system affected in no slight degree by the spirituous excitement of some years, proved a little too much for him. That very night, Mr Richard was seized with an alarming illness, and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a raging fever.

CHAPTER 64

Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce thirst which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change of posture, a moment’s peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through deserts of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or sound suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull eternal weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his miserable body, and the weary wandering of his mind, constant still to one ever-present anxiety—to a sense of something left undone, of some fearful obstacle to be surmounted, of some carking care that would not be driven away, and which haunted the distempered brain, now in this form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but recognisable for the same phantom in every shape it took: darkening every vision like an evil conscience, and making slumber horrible—in these slow tortures of his dread disease, the unfortunate Richard lay wasting and consuming inch by inch, until, at last, when he seemed to fight and struggle to rise up, and to be held down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and dreamed no more.

He awoke. With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than sleep itself, he began gradually to remember something of these sufferings, and to think what a long night it had been, and whether he had not been delirious twice or thrice. Happening, in the midst of these cogitations, to raise his hand, he was astonished to find how heavy it seemed, and yet how thin and light it really was. Still, he felt indifferent and happy; and having no curiosity to pursue the subject, remained in the same waking slumber until his attention was attracted by a cough. This made him doubt whether he had locked his door last night, and feel a little surprised at having a companion in the room. Still, he lacked energy to follow up this train of thought; and unconsciously fell, in a luxury of repose, to staring at some green stripes on the bed-furniture, and associating them strangely with patches of fresh turf, while the yellow ground between made gravel-walks, and so helped out a long perspective of trim gardens.

He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite lost himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more. The walks shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising himself a little in the bed, and holding the curtain open with one hand, he looked out.

The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but with what unbounded astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins, and articles of linen airing by the fire, and such-like furniture of a sick chamber—all very clean and neat, but all quite different from anything he had left there, when he went to bed! The atmosphere, too, filled with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar; the floor newly sprinkled; the—the what? The Marchioness?

Yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table. There she sat, intent upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as if she feared to disturb him—shuffling the cards, cutting, dealing, playing, counting, pegging—going through all the mysteries of cribbage as if she had been in full practice from her cradle! Mr Swiveller contemplated these things for a short time, and suffering the curtain to fall into its former position, laid his head on the pillow again.

‘I’m dreaming,’ thought Richard, ‘that’s clear. When I went to bed, my hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see through ‘em. If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake, in an Arabian Night, instead of a London one. But I have no doubt I’m asleep. Not the least.’

Here the small servant had another cough.

‘Very remarkable!’ thought Mr Swiveller. ‘I never dreamt such a real cough as that before. I don’t know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either a cough or a sneeze. Perhaps it’s part of the philosophy of dreams that one never does. There’s another—and another—I say!—I’m dreaming rather fast!’

For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr Swiveller, after some reflection, pinched himself in the arm.

‘Queerer still!’ he thought. ‘I came to bed rather plump than otherwise, and now there’s nothing to lay hold of. I’ll take another survey.’

The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr Swiveller that the objects by which he was surrounded were real, and that he saw them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes.

‘It’s an Arabian Night; that’s what it is,’ said Richard. ‘I’m in Damascus or Grand Cairo. The Marchioness is a Genie, and having had a wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young man alive, and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of China, has brought me away, room and all, to compare us together. Perhaps,’ said Mr Swiveller, turning languidly round on his pillow, and looking on that side of his bed which was next the wall, ‘the Princess may be still—No, she’s gone.’

Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking it to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and doubt, Mr Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take the first favourable opportunity of addressing his companion. An occasion presented itself. The Marchioness dealt, turned up a knave, and omitted to take the usual advantage; upon which Mr Swiveller called out as loud as he could—‘Two for his heels!’

The Marchioness jumped up quickly and clapped her hands. ‘Arabian Night, certainly,’ thought Mr Swiveller; ‘they always clap their hands instead of ringing the bell. Now for the two thousand black slaves, with jars of jewels on their heads!’

It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy; for directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry; declaring, not in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was ‘so glad, she didn’t know what to do.’

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully, ‘be pleased to draw nearer. First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me where I shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my flesh?’

The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again; whereupon Mr Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected likewise.

‘I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appearances, Marchioness,’ said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a trembling lip, ‘that I have been ill.’

‘You just have!’ replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. ‘And haven’t you been a talking nonsense!’

‘Oh!’ said Dick. ‘Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?’

‘Dead, all but,’ replied the small servant. ‘I never thought you’d get better. Thank Heaven you have!’

Mr Swiveller was silent for a long while. By and bye, he began to talk again, inquiring how long he had been there.

‘Three weeks to-morrow,’ replied the servant.

‘Three what?’ said Dick.

‘Weeks,’ returned the Marchioness emphatically; ‘three long, slow weeks.’

The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard to fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his full length. The Marchioness, having arranged the bed-clothes more comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool—a discovery that filled her with delight—cried a little more, and then applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast.

While she was thus engaged, Mr Swiveller looked on with a grateful heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally Brass, whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough. When the Marchioness had finished her toasting, she spread a clean cloth on a tray, and brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak tea, with which (she said) the doctor had left word he might refresh himself when he awoke. She propped him up with pillows, if not as skilfully as if she had been a professional nurse all her life, at least as tenderly; and looked on with unutterable satisfaction while the patient—stopping every now and then to shake her by the hand—took his poor meal with an appetite and relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under any other circumstances, would have failed to provoke. Having cleared away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down at the table to take her own tea.

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘how’s Sally?’

The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.

‘What, haven’t you seen her lately?’ said Dick.

‘Seen her!’ cried the small servant. ‘Bless you, I’ve run away!’

Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so remained for about five minutes. By slow degrees he resumed his sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:

‘And where do you live, Marchioness?’

‘Live!’ cried the small servant. ‘Here!’

‘Oh!’ said Mr Swiveller.

And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been shot. Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had finished her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth; when he motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and, being propped up again, opened a farther conversation.

‘And so,’ said Dick, ‘you have run away?’

‘Yes,’ said the Marchioness, ‘and they’ve been a tizing of me.’

‘Been—I beg your pardon,’ said Dick—‘what have they been doing?’

‘Been a tizing of me—tizing you know—in the newspapers,’ rejoined the Marchioness.

‘Aye, aye,’ said Dick, ‘advertising?’

The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were so red with waking and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater consistency. And so Dick felt.

‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘how it was that you thought of coming here.’

‘Why, you see,’ returned the Marchioness, ‘when you was gone, I hadn’t any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn’t know where either him or you was to be found, you know. But one morning, when I was—’

‘Was near a keyhole?’ suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she faltered.

‘Well then,’ said the small servant, nodding; ‘when I was near the office keyhole—as you see me through, you know—I heard somebody saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at, and that you was took very bad, and wouldn’t nobody come and take care of you. Mr Brass, he says, “It’s no business of mine,” he says; and Miss Sally, she says, “He’s a funny chap, but it’s no business of mine;” and the lady went away, and slammed the door to, when she went out, I can tell you. So I run away that night, and come here, and told ‘em you was my brother, and they believed me, and I’ve been here ever since.’

‘This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death!’ cried Dick.

‘No I haven’t,’ she returned, ‘not a bit of it. Don’t you mind about me. I like sitting up, and I’ve often had a sleep, bless you, in one of them chairs. But if you could have seen how you tried to jump out o’ winder, and if you could have heard how you used to keep on singing and making speeches, you wouldn’t have believed it—I’m so glad you’re better, Mr Liverer.’

‘Liverer indeed!’ said Dick thoughtfully. ‘It’s well I am a liverer. I strongly suspect I should have died, Marchioness, but for you.’

At this point, Mr Swiveller took the small servant’s hand in his again, and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling to express his thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that she quickly changed the theme by making him lie down, and urging him to keep very quiet.

‘The doctor,’ she told him, ‘said you was to be kept quite still, and there was to be no noise nor nothing. Now, take a rest, and then we’ll talk again. I’ll sit by you, you know. If you shut your eyes, perhaps you’ll go to sleep. You’ll be all the better for it, if you do.’

The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to the bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the concoction of some cooling drink, with the address of a score of chemists. Richard Swiveller being indeed fatigued, fell into a slumber, and waking in about half an hour, inquired what time it was.

‘Just gone half after six,’ replied his small friend, helping him to sit up again.

‘Marchioness,’ said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead and turning suddenly round, as though the subject but that moment flashed upon him, ‘what has become of Kit?’

He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she said.

‘Has he gone?’ asked Dick—‘his mother—how is she,—what has become of her?’

His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about them. ‘But, if I thought,’ said she, very slowly, ‘that you’d keep quiet, and not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you—but I won’t now.’

‘Yes, do,’ said Dick. ‘It will amuse me.’

‘Oh! would it though!’ rejoined the small servant, with a horrified look. ‘I know better than that. Wait till you’re better and then I’ll tell you.’

Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes, being large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so much, that she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think any more about it. What had already fallen from her, however, had not only piqued his curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore he urged her to tell him the worst at once.

‘Oh there’s no worst in it,’ said the small servant. ‘It hasn’t anything to do with you.’

‘Has it anything to do with—is it anything you heard through chinks or keyholes—and that you were not intended to hear?’ asked Dick, in a breathless state.

‘Yes,’ replied the small servant.

‘In—in Bevis Marks?’ pursued Dick hastily. ‘Conversations between Brass and Sally?’

‘Yes,’ cried the small servant again.

Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her by the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being wholly unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation. She, seeing that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of postponing her revelation might be much more injurious than any that were likely to ensue from its being made at once, promised compliance, on condition that the patient kept himself perfectly quiet, and abstained from starting up or tossing about.

‘But if you begin to do that,’ said the small servant, ‘I’ll leave off. And so I tell you.’

‘You can’t leave off, till you have gone on,’ said Dick. ‘And do go on, there’s a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say. Oh tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you!’

Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:

‘Well! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen—where we played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the candle and rake out the fire. When she had done that, she left me to go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in her pocket again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the morning—very early I can tell you—and let me out. I was terrible afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought they might forget me and only take care of themselves you know. So, whenever I see an old rusty key anywhere, I picked it up and tried if it would fit the door, and at last I found in the dust cellar a key that did fit it.’

Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But the small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to proceed.

‘They kept me very short,’ said the small servant. ‘Oh! you can’t think how short they kept me! So I used to come out at night after they’d gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or sangwitches that you’d left in the office, or even pieces of orange peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine. Did you ever taste orange peel and water?’

Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative.

‘If you make believe very much, it’s quite nice,’ said the small servant, ‘but if you don’t, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come out after they’d gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or two nights before there was all that precious noise in the office—when the young man was took, I mean—I come upstairs while Mr Brass and Miss Sally was a-sittin’ at the office fire; and I tell you the truth, that I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.’

Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the utmost concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up her finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not.

‘There was him and her,’ said the small servant, ‘a-sittin’ by the fire, and talking softly together. Mr Brass says to Miss Sally, “Upon my word,” he says “it’s a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a world of trouble, and I don’t half like it.” She says—you know her way—she says, “You’re the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I ever see, and I think,” she says, “that I ought to have been the brother, and you the sister. Isn’t Quilp,” she says, “our principal support?” “He certainly is,” says Mr Brass, “And an’t we,” she says, “constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?” “We certainly are,” says Mr Brass. “Then does it signify,” she says, “about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires it?” “It certainly does not signify,” says Mr Brass. Then they whispered and laughed for a long time about there being no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass pulls out his pocket-book, and says, “Well,” he says, “here it is—Quilp’s own five-pound note. We’ll agree that way, then,” he says. “Kit’s coming to-morrow morning, I know. While he’s up-stairs, you’ll get out of the way, and I’ll clear off Mr Richard. Having Kit alone, I’ll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat. I’ll manage so, besides,” he says, “that Mr Richard shall find it there, and be the evidence. And if that don’t get Christopher out of Mr Quilp’s way, and satisfy Mr Quilp’s grudges,” he says, “the Devil’s in it.” Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went down-stairs again.—There!’

The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to anybody.

‘How could it be?’ replied his nurse. ‘I was almost afraid to think about it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I heard ‘em say they had found him guilty of what he didn’t do, you was gone, and so was the lodger—though I think I should have been frightened to tell him, even if he’d been there. Ever since I come here, you’ve been out of your senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then?’

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and flinging it to the other end of the room; ‘if you’ll do me the favour to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I’ll get up.’

‘You mustn’t think of such a thing,’ cried his nurse.

‘I must indeed,’ said the patient, looking round the room. ‘Whereabouts are my clothes?’

‘Oh, I’m so glad—you haven’t got any,’ replied the Marchioness.

‘Ma’am!’ said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.

‘I’ve been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was ordered for you. But don’t take on about that,’ urged the Marchioness, as Dick fell back upon his pillow. ‘You’re too weak to stand, indeed.’

‘I am afraid,’ said Richard dolefully, ‘that you’re right. What ought I to do! what is to be done!’

It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the first step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr Garlands instantly. It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet left the office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of father and son, which would enable her to recognise either, without difficulty; and a special caution to be shy of Mr Chuckster, in consequence of that gentleman’s known antipathy to Kit. Armed with these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either old Mr Garland or Mr Abel, bodily, to that apartment.

‘I suppose,’ said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, ‘I suppose there’s nothing left—not so much as a waistcoat even?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘It’s embarrassing,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘in case of fire—even an umbrella would be something—but you did quite right, dear Marchioness. I should have died without you!’

CHAPTER 65

It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme authority over her person. Not unmindful of the risk she ran, however, the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she dived into the first dark by-way that presented itself, and, without any present reference to the point to which her journey tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.

When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course for the notary’s office, to which—shrewdly inquiring of apple-women and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice—she easily procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was bound.

She had no bonnet—nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses was, as we have seen, peculiar—and her speed was rather retarded than assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing, squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out and exhausted, and could not refrain from tears.

But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as there were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore some hope that she was not too late. So the Marchioness dried her eyes with the backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the steps, peeped in through the glass door.

Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down his wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck more gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers by the aid of a little triangular bit of looking glass. Before the ashes of the fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly judged to be the notary, and the other (who was buttoning his great-coat and was evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel Garland.

Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out, as there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr Chuckster, and less difficulty in delivering her message. With this purpose she slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down upon a door-step just opposite.

She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns, a pony. This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in it; but neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the least, as he reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or stood still again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the smallest reference to them—just as the fancy seized him, and as if he were the freest animal in creation. When they came to the notary’s door, the man called out in a very respectful manner, ‘Woa then’—intimating that if he might venture to express a wish, it would be that they stopped there. The pony made a moment’s pause; but, as if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required might be to establish an inconvenient and dangerous precedent, he immediately started off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street corner, wheeled round, came back, and then stopped of his own accord.

‘Oh! you’re a precious creatur!’ said the man—who didn’t venture by the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the pavement. ‘I wish I had the rewarding of you—I do.’

‘What has he been doing?’ said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his neck as he came down the steps.

‘He’s enough to fret a man’s heart out,’ replied the hostler. ‘He is the most wicious rascal—Woa then, will you?’

‘He’ll never stand still, if you call him names,’ said Mr Abel, getting in, and taking the reins. ‘He’s a very good fellow if you know how to manage him. This is the first time he has been out, this long while, for he has lost his old driver and wouldn’t stir for anybody else, till this morning. The lamps are right, are they? That’s well. Be here to take him to-morrow, if you please. Good night!’

And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention, the pony yielded to Mr Abel’s mildness, and trotted gently off.

All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the small servant had been afraid to approach. She had nothing for it now, therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel to stop. Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was unable to make him hear. The case was desperate; for the pony was quickening his pace. The Marchioness hung on behind for a few moments, and, feeling that she could go no farther, and must soon yield, clambered by a vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in so doing lost one of the shoes for ever.

Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite enough to do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without looking round: little dreaming of the strange figure that was close behind him, until the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered her breath, and the loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her position, uttered close into his ear, the words—‘I say, Sir’—

He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony, cried, with some trepidation, ‘God bless me, what is this!’

‘Don’t be frightened, Sir,’ replied the still panting messenger. ‘Oh I’ve run such a way after you!’

‘What do you want with me?’ said Mr Abel. ‘How did you come here?’

‘I got in behind,’ replied the Marchioness. ‘Oh please drive on, sir—don’t stop—and go towards the City, will you? And oh do please make haste, because it’s of consequence. There’s somebody wants to see you there. He sent me to say would you come directly, and that he knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove his innocence.’

‘What do you tell me, child?’

‘The truth, upon my word and honour I do. But please to drive on— quick, please! I’ve been such a time gone, he’ll think I’m lost.’

Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward. The pony, impelled by some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great pace, and neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric performances, until they arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller’s lodging, where, marvellous to relate, he consented to stop when Mr Abel checked him.

‘See! It’s the room up there,’ said the Marchioness, pointing to one where there was a faint light. ‘Come!’

Mr Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated; for he had heard of people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and murdered, under circumstances very like the present, and, for anything he knew to the contrary, by guides very like the Marchioness. His regard for Kit, however, overcame every other consideration. So, entrusting Whisker to the charge of a man who was lingering hard by in expectation of the job, he suffered his companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the dark and narrow stairs.

He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in bed.

‘An’t it nice to see him lying there so quiet?’ said his guide, in an earnest whisper. ‘Oh! you’d say it was, if you had only seen him two or three days ago.’

Mr Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from the bed and very near the door. His guide, who appeared to understand his reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her hand, approached the bed. As she did so, the sleeper started up, and he recognised in the wasted face the features of Richard Swiveller.

‘Why, how is this?’ said Mr Abel kindly, as he hurried towards him. ‘You have been ill?’

‘Very,’ replied Dick. ‘Nearly dead. You might have chanced to hear of your Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to fetch you. Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please. Sit down, Sir.’

Mr Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his guide, and took a chair by the bedside.

‘I have sent for you, Sir,’ said Dick—‘but she told you on what account?’

‘She did. I am quite bewildered by all this. I really don’t know what to say or think,’ replied Mr Abel.

‘You’ll say that presently,’ retorted Dick. ‘Marchioness, take a seat on the bed, will you? Now, tell this gentleman all that you told me; and be particular. Don’t you speak another word, Sir.’

The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as before, without any deviation or omission. Richard Swiveller kept his eyes fixed on his visitor during its narration, and directly it was concluded, took the word again.

‘You have heard it all, and you’ll not forget it. I’m too giddy and too queer to suggest anything; but you and your friends will know what to do. After this long delay, every minute is an age. If ever you went home fast in your life, go home fast to-night. Don’t stop to say one word to me, but go. She will be found here, whenever she’s wanted; and as to me, you’re pretty sure to find me at home, for a week or two. There are more reasons than one for that. Marchioness, a light! If you lose another minute in looking at me, sir, I’ll never forgive you!’

Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion. He was gone in an instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him down-stairs, reported that the pony, without any preliminary objection whatever, had dashed away at full gallop.

‘That’s right!’ said Dick; ‘and hearty of him; and I honour him from this time. But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am sure you must be tired. Do have a mug of beer. It will do me as much good to see you take it as if I might drink it myself.’

Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small nurse to indulge in such a luxury. Having eaten and drunk to Mr Swiveller’s extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put everything in neat order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug before the fire.

Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, ‘Strew then, oh strew, a bed of rushes. Here will we stay, till morning blushes. Good night, Marchioness!’

CHAPTER 66

On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by slow degrees, of whispering voices in his room. Looking out between the curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary, and the single gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and talking to her with great earnestness but in very subdued tones—fearing, no doubt, to disturb him. He lost no time in letting them know that this precaution was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen directly approached his bedside. Old Mr Garland was the first to stretch out his hand, and inquire how he felt.

Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as weak as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside and pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their interference, set his breakfast before him, and insisted on his taking it before he underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being spoken to. Mr Swiveller, who was perfectly ravenous, and had had, all night, amazingly distinct and consistent dreams of mutton chops, double stout, and similar delicacies, felt even the weak tea and dry toast such irresistible temptations, that he consented to eat and drink on one condition.

‘And that is,’ said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland’s hand, ‘that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit or drop. Is it too late?’

‘For completing the work you began so well last night?’ returned the old gentleman. ‘No. Set your mind at rest on that point. It is not, I assure you.’

Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his food with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest in the eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat. The manner of this meal was this:—Mr Swiveller, holding the slice of toast or cup of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or drink, as the case might be, constantly kept, in his right, one palm of the Marchioness tight locked; and to shake, or even to kiss this imprisoned hand, he would stop every now and then, in the very act of swallowing, with perfect seriousness of intention, and the utmost gravity. As often as he put anything into his mouth, whether for eating or drinking, the face of the Marchioness lighted up beyond all description; but whenever he gave her one or other of these tokens of recognition, her countenance became overshadowed, and she began to sob. Now, whether she was in her laughing joy, or in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help turning to the visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say, ‘You see this fellow—can I help this?’—and they, being thus made, as it were, parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look, ‘No. Certainly not.’ This dumb-show, taking place during the whole time of the invalid’s breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was spoken from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in themselves so slight and unimportant.

At length—and to say the truth before very long—Mr Swiveller had despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his recovery it was discreet to let him have. But the cares of the Marchioness did not stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and presently returning with a basin of fair water, she laved his face and hands, brushed his hair, and in short made him as spruce and smart as anybody under such circumstances could be made; and all this, in as brisk and business-like a manner, as if he were a very little boy, and she his grown-up nurse. To these various attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in a kind of grateful astonishment beyond the reach of language. When they were at last brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn into a distant corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by that time), he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook hands heartily with the air.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and turning round again, ‘you’ll excuse me. Men who have been brought so low as I have been, are easily fatigued. I am fresh again now, and fit for talking. We’re short of chairs here, among other trifles, but if you’ll do me the favour to sit upon the bed—’

‘What can we do for you?’ said Mr Garland, kindly.

‘If you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real, sober earnest,’ returned Dick, ‘I’d thank you to get it done off-hand. But as you can’t, and as the question is not what you will do for me, but what you will do for somebody else who has a better claim upon you, pray sir let me know what you intend doing.’

‘It’s chiefly on that account that we have come just now,’ said the single gentleman, ‘for you will have another visitor presently. We feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what steps we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we stirred in the matter.’

‘Gentlemen,’ returned Dick, ‘I thank you. Anybody in the helpless state that you see me in, is naturally anxious. Don’t let me interrupt you, sir.’

‘Then, you see, my good fellow,’ said the single gentleman, ‘that while we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure, which has so providentially come to light—’

‘Meaning hers?’ said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.

‘—Meaning hers, of course. While we have no doubt of that, or that a proper use of it would procure the poor lad’s immediate pardon and liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany. I should tell you that this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in this short space of time, to take upon the subject. You’ll agree with us, that to give him even the most distant chance of escape, if we could help it, would be monstrous. You say with us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.’

‘Yes,’ returned Dick, ‘certainly. That is if somebody must—but upon my word, I’m unwilling that anybody should. Since laws were made for every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me—and so forth you know—doesn’t it strike you in that light?’

The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller had put the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem in the first instance; and that their design was to endeavour to extort a confession from the gentle Sarah.

‘When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,’ he said, ‘and that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without strong hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the other two effectually. If we could do that, she might go scot-free for aught I cared.’

Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner, representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing, that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to manage than Quilp himself—that, for any tampering, terrifying, or cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject—that she was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape—in short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally defeated. But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other course. The single gentleman has been described as explaining their joint intentions, but it should have been written that they all spoke together; that if any one of them by chance held his peace for a moment, he stood gasping and panting for an opportunity to strike in again: in a word, that they had reached that pitch of impatience and anxiety where men can neither be persuaded nor reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to turn the most impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to reconsider their determination. So, after telling Mr Swiveller how they had not lost sight of Kit’s mother and the children; how they had never once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they had been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his guilt, and their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller, might keep his mind at rest, for everything should be happily adjusted between that time and night;—after telling him all this, and adding a great many kind and cordial expressions, personal to himself, which it is unnecessary to recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single gentleman, took their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard Swiveller must assuredly have been driven into another fever, whereof the results might have been fatal.

Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and coffee, and wine, and rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls ready trussed for boiling, and calves’-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and sago, and other delicate restoratives, that the small servant, who had never thought it possible that such things could be, except in shops, stood rooted to the spot in her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power of speech quite gone. But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man who emptied the hamper, big as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the nice old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about on tiptoe and without noise—now here, now there, now everywhere at once—began to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to cut them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses of wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat could be prepared for her refreshment. The whole of which appearances were so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller, when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the strong man walk off with the empty basket, plainly leaving all that abundance for his use and benefit, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer inability to entertain such wonders in his mind.

Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland, repaired to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and sent a letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious and brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to consult her, with her company there, as speedily as possible. The communication performed its errand so well, that within ten minutes of the messenger’s return and report of its delivery, Miss Brass herself was announced.

‘Pray ma’am,’ said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the room, ‘take a chair.’

Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and seemed—as indeed she was—not a little astonished to find that the lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person.

‘You did not expect to see me?’ said the single gentleman.

‘I didn’t think much about it,’ returned the beauty. ‘I supposed it was business of some kind or other. If it’s about the apartments, of course you’ll give my brother regular notice, you know—or money. That’s very easily settled. You’re a responsible party, and in such a case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty much the same.’

‘I am obliged to you for your good opinion,’ retorted the single gentleman, ‘and quite concur in these sentiments. But that is not the subject on which I wish to speak with you.’

‘Oh!’ said Sally. ‘Then just state the particulars, will you? I suppose it’s professional business?’

‘Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.’

‘Very well,’ returned Miss Brass. ‘My brother and I are just the same. I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.’

‘As there are other parties interested besides myself,’ said the single gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, ‘we had better confer together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.’

Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and, drawing up two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into a corner. Her brother Sampson under such circumstances would certainly have evinced some confusion or anxiety, but she—all composure—pulled out the tin box, and calmly took a pinch of snuff.

‘Miss Brass,’ said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, ‘we professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can say what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a runaway servant, the other day?’

‘Well,’ returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her features, ‘what of that?’

‘She is found, ma’am,’ said the Notary, pulling out his pocket-handkerchief with a flourish. ‘She is found.’

‘Who found her?’ demanded Sarah hastily.

‘We did, ma’am—we three. Only last night, or you would have heard from us before.’

‘And now I have heard from you,’ said Miss Brass, folding her arms as though she were about to deny something to the death, ‘what have you got to say? Something you have got into your heads about her, of course. Prove it, will you—that’s all. Prove it. You have found her, you say. I can tell you (if you don’t know it) that you have found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was ever born.—Have you got her here?’ she added, looking sharply round.

‘No, she is not here at present,’ returned the Notary. ‘But she is quite safe.’

‘Ha!’ cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the small servant’s nose; ‘she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant you.’

‘I hope so,’ replied the Notary. ‘Did it occur to you for the first time, when you found she had run away, that there were two keys to your kitchen door?’

Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side, looked at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but with a cunning aspect of immense expression.

‘Two keys,’ repeated the Notary; ‘one of which gave her the opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you supposed her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential consultations—among others, that particular conference, to be described to-day before a justice, which you will have an opportunity of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and innocent young man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of which I will only say that it may be characterised by the epithets which you have applied to this wretched little witness, and by a few stronger ones besides.’

Sally took another pinch. Although her face was wonderfully composed, it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise, and that what she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with her small servant, was something very different from this.

‘Come, come, Miss Brass,’ said the Notary, ‘you have great command of feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never entered your imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of its plotters must be brought to justice. Now, you know the pains and penalties you are liable to, and so I need not dilate upon them, but I have a proposal to make to you. You have the honour of being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I may venture to say so to a lady, you are in every respect quite worthy of him. But connected with you two is a third party, a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either. For his sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history of this affair. Let me remind you that your doing so, at our instance, will place you in a safe and comfortable position—your present one is not desirable—and cannot injure your brother; for against him and you we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear) already. I will not say to you that we suggest this course in mercy (for, to tell you the truth, we do not entertain any regard for you), but it is a necessity to which we are reduced, and I recommend it to you as a matter of the very best policy. Time,’ said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, ‘in a business like this, is exceedingly precious. Favour us with your decision as speedily as possible, ma’am.’

With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by turns, Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and having by this time very little left, travelled round and round the box with her forefinger and thumb, scraping up another. Having disposed of this likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket, she said,—

‘I am to accept or reject at once, am I?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Witherden.

The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust into the room.

‘Excuse me,’ said the gentleman hastily. ‘Wait a bit!’

So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.

‘Sarah,’ said Brass, ‘hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak. Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to see three such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of sentiment, I think you would hardly believe me. But though I am unfortunate—nay, gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh expressions in a company like this—still, I have my feelings like other men. I have heard of a poet, who remarked that feelings were the common lot of all. If he could have been a pig, gentlemen, and have uttered that sentiment, he would still have been immortal.’

‘If you’re not an idiot,’ said Miss Brass harshly, ‘hold your peace.’

‘Sarah, my dear,’ returned her brother, ‘thank you. But I know what I am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing myself accordingly. Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is hanging out of your pocket—would you allow me to—,

As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk from him with an air of disgust. Brass, who over and above his usual prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade over one eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and looked round with a pitiful smile.

‘He shuns me,’ said Sampson, ‘even when I would, as I may say, heap coals of fire upon his head. Well! Ah! But I am a falling house, and the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me! Gentlemen—regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see my sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going to, and being—may I venture to say?—naturally of a suspicious turn, followed her. Since then, I have been listening.’

‘If you’re not mad,’ interposed Miss Sally, ‘stop there, and say no more.’

‘Sarah, my dear,’ rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, ‘I thank you kindly, but will still proceed. Mr Witherden, sir, as we have the honour to be members of the same profession—to say nothing of that other gentleman having been my lodger, and having partaken, as one may say, of the hospitality of my roof—I think you might have given me the refusal of this offer in the first instance. I do indeed. Now, my dear Sir,’ cried Brass, seeing that the Notary was about to interrupt him, ‘suffer me to speak, I beg.’

Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.

‘If you will do me the favour,’ he said, holding up the green shade, and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, ‘to look at this, you will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get it. If you look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could have been the cause of all these scratches. And if from them to my hat, how it came into the state in which you see it. Gentlemen,’ said Brass, striking the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, ‘to all these questions I answer—Quilp!’

The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.

‘I say,’ pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he were talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling malignity, in violent contrast to his usual smoothness, ‘that I answer to all these questions,—Quilp—Quilp, who deludes me into his infernal den, and takes a delight in looking on and chuckling while I scorch, and burn, and bruise, and maim myself—Quilp, who never once, no never once, in all our communications together, has treated me otherwise than as a dog—Quilp, whom I have always hated with my whole heart, but never so much as lately. He gives me the cold shoulder on this very matter as if he had had nothing to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it. I can’t trust him. In one of his howling, raving, blazing humours, I believe he’d let it out, if it was murder, and never think of himself so long as he could terrify me. Now,’ said Brass, picking up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually crouching down, in the excess of his servility, ‘what does all this lead to?—what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?—could you guess at all near the mark?’

Nobody spoke. Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he had propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:

‘To be short with you, then, it leads me to this. If the truth has come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there’s no standing up against—and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen, in its way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as thunder-storms and that, we’re not always over and above glad to see it—I had better turn upon this man than let this man turn upon me. It’s clear to me that I am done for. Therefore, if anybody is to split, I had better be the person and have the advantage of it. Sarah, my dear, comparatively speaking you’re safe. I relate these circumstances for my own profit.’

With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story; bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though subject—he acknowledged—to human weaknesses. He concluded thus:

‘Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves. Being in for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound. You must do with me what you please, and take me where you please. If you wish to have this in writing, we’ll reduce it into manuscript immediately. You will be tender with me, I am sure. I am quite confident you will be tender with me. You are men of honour, and have feeling hearts. I yielded from necessity to Quilp, for though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers. I yield to you from necessity too; from policy besides; and because of feelings that have been a pretty long time working within me. Punish Quilp, gentlemen. Weigh heavily upon him. Grind him down. Tread him under foot. He has done as much by me, for many and many a day.’

Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson checked the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and smiled as only parasites and cowards can.

‘And this,’ said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to foot with a bitter sneer, ‘this is my brother, is it! This is my brother, that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have had something of the man in him!’

‘Sarah, my dear,’ returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; ‘you disturb our friends. Besides you—you’re disappointed, Sarah, and, not knowing what you say, expose yourself.’

‘Yes, you pitiful dastard,’ retorted the lovely damsel, ‘I understand you. You feared that I should be beforehand with you. But do you think that I would have been enticed to say a word! I’d have scorned it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty years.’

‘He he!’ simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark of manliness he might have possessed. ‘You think so, Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good fellow. You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey—our revered father, gentlemen—“Always suspect everybody.” That’s the maxim to go through life with! If you were not actually about to purchase your own safety when I showed myself, I suspect you’d have done it by this time. And therefore I’ve done it myself, and spared you the trouble as well as the shame. The shame, gentlemen,’ added Brass, allowing himself to be slightly overcome, ‘if there is any, is mine. It’s better that a female should be spared it.’

With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more particularly to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted, with humility, whether the elevating principle laid down by the latter gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is always a prudent one, or attended in practice with the desired results. This is, beyond question, a bold and presumptuous doubt, inasmuch as many distinguished characters, called men of the world, long-headed customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands at business, and the like, have made, and do daily make, this axiom their polar star and compass. Still, the doubt may be gently insinuated. And in illustration it may be observed, that if Mr Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without prying and listening, left his sister to manage the conference on their joint behalf, or prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much better off in the end. Thus, it will always happen that these men of the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from quite as much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and absurdity of mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of wearing a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions.

The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments. At the end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary pointed to the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr Brass that if he wished to make any statement in writing, he had the opportunity of doing so. At the same time he felt bound to tell him that they would require his attendance, presently, before a justice of the peace, and that in what he did or said, he was guided entirely by his own discretion.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in spirit upon the ground before them, ‘I will justify the tenderness with which I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness, I should, now that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst position of the three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean breast. Mr Witherden, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits—if you would do me the favour to ring the bell and order up a glass of something warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what has passed, have a melancholy pleasure in drinking your good health. I had hoped,’ said Brass, looking round with a mournful smile, ‘to have seen you three gentlemen, one day or another, with your legs under the mahogany in my humble parlour in the Marks. But hopes are fleeting. Dear me!’

Mr Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that he could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived. Having partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state, he sat down to write.

The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands clasped behind her, paced the room with manly strides while her brother was thus employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her snuff-box and bite the lid. She continued to pace up and down until she was quite tired, and then fell asleep on a chair near the door.

It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was a sham or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the dusk of the afternoon. Whether this was an intentional and waking departure, or a somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her sleep, may remain a subject of contention; but, on one point (and indeed the main one) all parties are agreed. In whatever state she walked away, she certainly did not walk back again.

Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be inferred that Mr Brass’s task occupied some time in the completion. It was not finished until evening; but, being done at last, that worthy person and the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to the private office of a justice, who, giving Mr Brass a warm reception and detaining him in a secure place that he might insure to himself the pleasure of seeing him on the morrow, dismissed the others with the cheering assurance that a warrant could not fail to be granted next day for the apprehension of Mr Quilp, and that a proper application and statement of all the circumstances to the secretary of state (who was fortunately in town), would no doubt procure Kit’s free pardon and liberation without delay.

And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp’s malignant career was drawing to a close, and that retribution, which often travels slowly—especially when heaviest—had tracked his footsteps with a sure and certain scent and was gaining on him fast. Unmindful of her stealthy tread, her victim holds his course in fancied triumph. Still at his heels she comes, and once afoot, is never turned aside!

Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the lodgings of Mr Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favourably in his recovery as to have been able to sit up for half an hour, and to have conversed with cheerfulness. Mrs Garland had gone home some time since, but Mr Abel was still sitting with him. After telling him all they had done, the two Mr Garlands and the single gentleman, as if by some previous understanding, took their leaves for the night, leaving the invalid alone with the Notary and the small servant.

‘As you are so much better,’ said Mr Witherden, sitting down at the bedside, ‘I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which has come to me professionally.’

The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman connected with legal matters, appeared to afford Richard any-thing but a pleasing anticipation. Perhaps he connected it in his own mind with one or two outstanding accounts, in reference to which he had already received divers threatening letters. His countenance fell as he replied,

‘Certainly, sir. I hope it’s not anything of a very disagreeable nature, though?’

‘If I thought it so, I should choose some better time for communicating it,’ replied the Notary. ‘Let me tell you, first, that my friends who have been here to-day, know nothing of it, and that their kindness to you has been quite spontaneous and with no hope of return. It may do a thoughtless, careless man, good, to know that.’

Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would.

‘I have been making some inquiries about you,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘little thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as those which have brought us together. You are the nephew of Rebecca Swiveller, spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire.’

‘Deceased!’ cried Dick.

‘Deceased. If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have come into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to doubt it) of five-and-twenty thousand pounds. As it is, you have fallen into an annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but I think I may congratulate you even upon that.’

‘Sir,’ said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, ‘you may. For, please God, we’ll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet! And she shall walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I never rise from this bed again!’

CHAPTER 67

Unconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last chapter, and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung beneath him (for, to the end that he should have no warning of the business a-foot, the profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole transaction), Mr Quilp remained shut up in his hermitage, undisturbed by any suspicion, and extremely well satisfied with the result of his machinations. Being engaged in the adjustment of some accounts—an occupation to which the silence and solitude of his retreat were very favourable—he had not strayed from his den for two whole days. The third day of his devotion to this pursuit found him still hard at work, and little disposed to stir abroad.

It was the day next after Mr Brass’s confession, and consequently, that which threatened the restriction of Mr Quilp’s liberty, and the abrupt communication to him of some very unpleasant and unwelcome facts. Having no intuitive perception of the cloud which lowered upon his house, the dwarf was in his ordinary state of cheerfulness; and, when he found he was becoming too much engrossed by business with a due regard to his health and spirits, he varied its monotonous routine with a little screeching, or howling, or some other innocent relaxation of that nature.

He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the fire after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his master’s back was turned, imitating his grimaces with a fearful exactness. The figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained in its old place. The face, horribly seared by the frequent application of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the insertion, in the tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled blandly in its less lacerated parts, and seemed, like a sturdy martyr, to provoke its tormentor to the commission of new outrages and insults.

The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of the town, was damp, dark, cold and gloomy. In that low and marshy spot, the fog filled every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud. Every object was obscure at one or two yards’ distance. The warning lights and fires upon the river were powerless beneath this pall, and, but for a raw and piercing chillness in the air, and now and then the cry of some bewildered boatman as he rested on his oars and tried to make out where he was, the river itself might have been miles away.

The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly searching kind. No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out. It seemed to penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking wayfarers, and to rack them with cold and pains. Everything was wet and clammy to the touch. The warm blaze alone defied it, and leaped and sparkled merrily. It was a day to be at home, crowding about the fire, telling stories of travellers who had lost their way in such weather on heaths and moors; and to love a warm hearth more than ever.

The dwarf’s humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself; and when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone. By no means insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he ordered Tom Scott to pile the little stove with coals, and, dismissing his work for that day, determined to be jovial.

To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on the fire; and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself in somewhat of a savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great bowl of hot punch, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the evening.

At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his attention. When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly opened the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who was there.

‘Only me, Quilp,’ replied a woman’s voice.

‘Only you!’ cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better view of his visitor. ‘And what brings you here, you jade? How dare you approach the ogre’s castle, eh?’

‘I have come with some news,’ rejoined his spouse. ‘Don’t be angry with me.’

‘Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap his fingers?’ said the dwarf. ‘Is the dear old lady dead?’

‘I don’t know what news it is, or whether it’s good or bad,’ rejoined his wife.

‘Then she’s alive,’ said Quilp, ‘and there’s nothing the matter with her. Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home!’

‘I have brought a letter,’ cried the meek little woman.

‘Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,’ said Quilp, interrupting her, ‘or I’ll come out and scratch you.’

‘No, but please, Quilp—do hear me speak,’ urged his submissive wife, in tears. ‘Please do!’

‘Speak then,’ growled the dwarf with a malicious grin. ‘Be quick and short about it. Speak, will you?’

‘It was left at our house this afternoon,’ said Mrs Quilp, trembling, ‘by a boy who said he didn’t know from whom it came, but that it was given to him to leave, and that he was told to say it must be brought on to you directly, for it was of the very greatest consequence.—But please,’ she added, as her husband stretched out his hand for it, ‘please let me in. You don’t know how wet and cold I am, or how many times I have lost my way in coming here through this thick fog. Let me dry myself at the fire for five minutes. I’ll go away directly you tell me to, Quilp. Upon my word I will.’

Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments; but, bethinking himself that the letter might require some answer, of which she could be the bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade her enter. Mrs Quilp obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down before the fire to warm her hands, delivered into his a little packet.

‘I’m glad you’re wet,’ said Quilp, snatching it, and squinting at her. ‘I’m glad you’re cold. I’m glad you lost your way. I’m glad your eyes are red with crying. It does my heart good to see your little nose so pinched and frosty.’

‘Oh Quilp!’ sobbed his wife. ‘How cruel it is of you!’

‘Did she think I was dead?’ said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a most extraordinary series of grimaces. ‘Did she think she was going to have all the money, and to marry somebody she liked? Ha ha ha! Did she?’

These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who remained on her knees, warming her hands, and sobbing, to Mr Quilp’s great delight. But, just as he was contemplating her, and chuckling excessively, he happened to observe that Tom Scott was delighted too; wherefore, that he might have no presumptuous partner in his glee, the dwarf instantly collared him, dragged him to the door, and after a short scuffle, kicked him into the yard. In return for this mark of attention, Tom immediately walked upon his hands to the window, and—if the expression be allowable—looked in with his shoes: besides rattling his feet upon the glass like a Banshee upside down. As a matter of course, Mr Quilp lost no time in resorting to the infallible poker, with which, after some dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his young friend one or two such unequivocal compliments that he vanished precipitately, and left him in quiet possession of the field.

‘So! That little job being disposed of,’ said the dwarf, coolly, ‘I’ll read my letter. Humph!’ he muttered, looking at the direction. ‘I ought to know this writing. Beautiful Sally!’

Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows:

‘Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence. It has all come out. You had better not be in the way, for strangers are going to call upon you. They have been very quiet as yet, because they mean to surprise you. Don’t lose time. I didn’t. I am not to be found anywhere. If I was you, I wouldn’t either. S. B., late of B. M.’

To describe the changes that passed over Quilp’s face, as he read this letter half-a-dozen times, would require some new language: such, for power of expression, as was never written, read, or spoken. For a long time he did not utter one word; but, after a considerable interval, during which Mrs Quilp was almost paralysed with the alarm his looks engendered, he contrived to gasp out,

‘If I had him here. If I only had him here—’

‘Oh Quilp!’ said his wife, ‘what’s the matter? Who are you angry with?’

‘—I should drown him,’ said the dwarf, not heeding her. ‘Too easy a death, too short, too quick—but the river runs close at hand. Oh! if I had him here! just to take him to the brink coaxingly and pleasantly,—holding him by the button-hole—joking with him,—and, with a sudden push, to send him splashing down! Drowning men come to the surface three times they say. Ah! To see him those three times, and mock him as his face came bobbing up,—oh, what a rich treat that would be!’

‘Quilp!’ stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch him on the shoulder: ‘what has gone wrong?’

She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this pleasure to himself that she could scarcely make herself intelligible.

‘Such a bloodless cur!’ said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly, and pressing them tight together. ‘I thought his cowardice and servility were the best guarantee for his keeping silence. Oh Brass, Brass—my dear, good, affectionate, faithful, complimentary, charming friend—if I only had you here!’

His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak, when he hurried to the door, and called Tom Scott, who, remembering his late gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear immediately.

‘There!’ said the dwarf, pulling him in. ‘Take her home. Don’t come here to-morrow, for this place will be shut up. Come back no more till you hear from me or see me. Do you mind?’

Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs Quilp to lead the way.

‘As for you,’ said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, ‘ask no questions about me, make no search for me, say nothing concerning me. I shall not be dead, mistress, and that’ll comfort you. He’ll take care of you.’

‘But, Quilp? What is the matter? Where are you going? Do say something more?’

‘I’ll say that,’ said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, ‘and do that too, which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you go directly.’

‘Has anything happened?’ cried his wife. ‘Oh! Do tell me that?’

‘Yes,’ snarled the dwarf. ‘No. What matter which? I have told you what to do. Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me by a hair’s breadth. Will you go!’

‘I am going, I’ll go directly; but,’ faltered his wife, ‘answer me one question first. Has this letter any connexion with dear little Nell? I must ask you that—I must indeed, Quilp. You cannot think what days and nights of sorrow I have had through having once deceived that child. I don’t know what harm I may have brought about, but, great or little, I did it for you, Quilp. My conscience misgave me when I did it. Do answer me this question, if you please?’

The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and caught up his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott dragged his charge away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could. It was well he did so, for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage, pursued them to the neighbouring lane, and might have prolonged the chase but for the dense mist which obscured them from his view and appeared to thicken every moment.

‘It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,’ he said, as he returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run. ‘Stay. We may look better here. This is too hospitable and free.’

By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam. That done, he shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried them.—Strong and fast.

‘The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,’ said the dwarf, when he had taken these precautions. ‘There’s a back lane, too, from there. That shall be my way out. A man need know his road well, to find it in this lovely place to-night. I need fear no unwelcome visitors while this lasts, I think.’

Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands (it had grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he returned to his lair; and, after musing for some time over the fire, busied himself in preparations for a speedy departure.

While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into his pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low voice, or unclenched his teeth, which he had ground together on finishing Miss Brass’s note.

‘Oh Sampson!’ he muttered, ‘good worthy creature—if I could but hug you! If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your ribs, as I COULD squeeze them if I once had you tight—what a meeting there would be between us! If we ever do cross each other again, Sampson, we’ll have a greeting not easily to be forgotten, trust me. This time, Sampson, this moment when all had gone on so well, was so nicely chosen! It was so thoughtful of you, so penitent, so good. Oh, if we were face to face in this room again, my white-livered man of law, how well contented one of us would be!’

There he stopped; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank a long deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his parched mouth. Setting it down abruptly, and resuming his preparations, he went on with his soliloquy.

‘There’s Sally,’ he said, with flashing eyes; ‘the woman has spirit, determination, purpose—was she asleep, or petrified? She could have stabbed him—poisoned him safely. She might have seen this coming on. Why does she give me notice when it’s too late? When he sat there,—yonder there, over there,—with his white face, and red head, and sickly smile, why didn’t I know what was passing in his heart? It should have stopped beating, that night, if I had been in his secret, or there are no drugs to lull a man to sleep, or no fire to burn him!’

Another draught from the bowl; and, cowering over the fire with a ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again.

‘And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child—two wretched feeble wanderers! I’ll be their evil genius yet. And you, sweet Kit, honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to yourself. Where I hate, I bite. I hate you, my darling fellow, with good cause, and proud as you are to-night, I’ll have my turn.----What’s that?’

A knocking at the gate he had closed. A loud and violent knocking. Then, a pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen. Then, the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before.

‘So soon!’ said the dwarf. ‘And so eager! I am afraid I shall disappoint you. It’s well I’m quite prepared. Sally, I thank you!’

As he spoke, he extinguished the candle. In his impetuous attempts to subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which came tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning embers it had shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy darkness. The noise at the gate still continuing, he felt his way to the door, and stepped into the open air.

At that moment the knocking ceased. It was about eight o’clock; but the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in comparison with the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth, and shrouded everything from view. He darted forward for a few paces, as if into the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern; then, thinking he had gone wrong, changed the direction of his steps; then stood still, not knowing where to turn.

‘If they would knock again,’ said Quilp, trying to peer into the gloom by which he was surrounded, ‘the sound might guide me! Come! Batter the gate once more!’

He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed. Nothing was to be heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals, the distant barkings of dogs. The sound was far away—now in one quarter, now answered in another—nor was it any guide, for it often came from shipboard, as he knew.

‘If I could find a wall or fence,’ said the dwarf, stretching out his arms, and walking slowly on, ‘I should know which way to turn. A good, black, devil’s night this, to have my dear friend here! If I had but that wish, it might, for anything I cared, never be day again.’

As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell—and next moment was fighting with the cold dark water!

For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the knocking at the gate again—could hear a shout that followed it—could recognise the voice. For all his struggling and plashing, he could understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered back to the point from which they started; that they were all but looking on, while he was drowned; that they were close at hand, but could not make an effort to save him; that he himself had shut and barred them out. He answered the shout—with a yell, which seemed to make the hundred fires that danced before his eyes tremble and flicker, as if a gust of wind had stirred them. It was of no avail. The strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on, upon its rapid current.

Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water with his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that showed him some black object he was drifting close upon. The hull of a ship! He could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand. One loud cry, now—but the resistless water bore him down before he could give it utterance, and, driving him under it, carried away a corpse.

It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp—a dismal place where pirates had swung in chains through many a wintry night—and left it there to bleach.

And there it lay alone. The sky was red with flame, and the water that bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it flowed along. The place the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was now a blazing ruin. There was something of the glare upon its face. The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of death—such a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted in when alive—about its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night wind.

CHAPTER 68

Lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad voices, words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of happiness—what a change is this! But it is to such delights that Kit is hastening. They are awaiting him, he knows. He fears he will die of joy, before he gets among them.

They have prepared him for this, all day. He is not to be carried off to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first. By degrees they let him know that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be made, and perhaps he may be pardoned after all. At last, the evening being come, they bring him to a room where some gentlemen are assembled. Foremost among them is his good old master, who comes and takes him by the hand. He hears that his innocence is established, and that he is pardoned. He cannot see the speaker, but he turns towards the voice, and in trying to answer, falls down insensible.

They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear this like a man. Somebody says he must think of his poor mother. It is because he does think of her so much, that the happy news had overpowered him. They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth has gone abroad, and that all the town and country ring with sympathy for his misfortunes. He has no ears for this. His thoughts, as yet, have no wider range than home. Does she know it? what did she say? who told her? He can speak of nothing else.

They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a while, until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them. He is free to go. Mr Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is time they went away. The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake hands with him. He feels very grateful to them for the interest they have in him, and for the kind promises they make; but the power of speech is gone again, and he has much ado to keep his feet, even though leaning on his master’s arm.

As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail who are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on his release. The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is not quite hearty—there is something of surliness in his compliments. He looks upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has obtained admission to that place on false pretences, who has enjoyed a privilege without being duly qualified. He may be a very good sort of young man, he thinks, but he has no business there, and the sooner he is gone, the better.

The last door shuts behind them. They have passed the outer wall, and stand in the open air—in the street he has so often pictured to himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been in all his dreams. It seems wider and more busy than it used to be. The night is bad, and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes! One of the gentlemen, in taking leave of him, pressed some money into his hand. He has not counted it; but when they have gone a few paces beyond the box for poor Prisoners, he hastily returns and drops it in.

Mr Garland has a coach waiting in a neighbouring street, and, taking Kit inside with him, bids the man drive home. At first, they can only travel at a foot pace, and then with torches going on before, because of the heavy fog. But, as they get farther from the river, and leave the closer portions of the town behind, they are able to dispense with this precaution and to proceed at a brisker rate. On the road, hard galloping would be too slow for Kit; but, when they are drawing near their journey’s end, he begs they may go more slowly, and, when the house appears in sight, that they may stop—only for a minute or two, to give him time to breathe.

But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly to him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the garden-gate. Next minute, they are at the door. There is a noise of tongues, and tread of feet, inside. It opens. Kit rushes in, and finds his mother clinging round his neck.

And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara’s mother, still holding the baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day when they little hoped to have such joy as this—there she is, Heaven bless her, crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman sobbed before; and there is little Barbara—poor little Barbara, so much thinner and so much paler, and yet so very pretty—trembling like a leaf and supporting herself against the wall; and there is Mrs Garland, neater and nicer than ever, fainting away stone dead with nobody to help her; and there is Mr Abel, violently blowing his nose, and wanting to embrace everybody; and there is the single gentleman hovering round them all, and constant to nothing for an instant; and there is that good, dear, thoughtful little Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on the bottom stair, with his hands on his knees like an old man, roaring fearfully without giving any trouble to anybody; and each and all of them are for the time clean out of their wits, and do jointly and severally commit all manner of follies.

And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves again, and can find words and smiles, Barbara—that soft-hearted, gentle, foolish little Barbara—is suddenly missed, and found to be in a swoon by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she falls into hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again, and is, indeed, so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar and cold water she is hardly a bit better at last than she was at first. Then, Kit’s mother comes in and says, will he come and speak to her; and Kit says ‘Yes,’ and goes; and he says in a kind voice ‘Barbara!’ and Barbara’s mother tells her that ‘it’s only Kit;’ and Barbara says (with her eyes closed all the time) ‘Oh! but is it him indeed?’ and Barbara’s mother says ‘To be sure it is, my dear; there’s nothing the matter now.’ And in further assurance that he’s safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again; and then Barbara goes off into another fit of laughter, and then into another fit of crying; and then Barbara’s mother and Kit’s mother nod to each other and pretend to scold her—but only to bring her to herself the faster, bless you!—and being experienced matrons, and acute at perceiving the first dawning symptoms of recovery, they comfort Kit with the assurance that ‘she’ll do now,’ and so dismiss him to the place from whence he came.

Well! In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters of wine, and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and his friends were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob, walking, as the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum-cake, at a most surprising pace, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges which are to follow, and making the best use of his time, you may believe. Kit no sooner comes in, than that single gentleman (never was such a busy gentleman) charges all the glasses—bumpers—and drinks his health, and tells him he shall never want a friend while he lives; and so does Mr Garland, and so does Mrs Garland, and so does Mr Abel. But even this honour and distinction is not all, for the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of his pocket a massive silver watch—going hard, and right to half a second—and upon the back of this watch is engraved Kit’s name, with flourishes all over; and in short it is Kit’s watch, bought expressly for him, and presented to him on the spot. You may rest assured that Mr and Mrs Garland can’t help hinting about their present, in store, and that Mr Abel tells outright that he has his; and that Kit is the happiest of the happy.

There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be conveniently introduced into the family circle, by reason of his being an iron-shod quadruped, Kit takes the first opportunity of 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 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.

‘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 best 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 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 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 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 wretches being wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell, in kissing hands to each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like tame and vulgar practices. For now the single gentleman and Mr Garland were in the carriage, and the post-boy was in the saddle, and Kit, well wrapped and muffled up, was in the rumble behind; and Mrs Garland was there, and Mr Abel was there, and Kit’s mother was there, and little Jacob was there, and Barbara’s mother was visible in remote perspective, nursing the ever-wakeful baby; and all were nodding, beckoning, curtseying, or crying out, ‘Good bye!’ with all the energy they could express. In another minute, the carriage was out of sight; and Mr Chuckster remained alone on the spot where it had lately been, with a vision of Kit standing up in the rumble waving his hand to Barbara, and of Barbara in the full light and lustre of his eyes—his eyes—Chuckster’s—Chuckster the successful—on whom ladies of quality had looked with favour from phaetons in the parks on Sundays—waving hers to Kit!

How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some time rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was the Prince of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul of Snobs, and how he clearly traced this revolting circumstance back to that old villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose; which is to track the rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their cold, bleak journey.

It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust. But little cared Kit for weather. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome. As it swept on with its cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and withered leaves, and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though some general sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry, like themselves. The harder the gusts, the better progress they appeared to make. It was a good thing to go struggling and fighting forward, vanquishing them one by one; to watch them driving up, gathering strength and fury as they came along; to bend for a moment, as they whistled past; and then to look back and see them speed away, their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering down before them.

All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and starlit, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing. Sometimes—towards the end of a long stage—Kit could not help wishing it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses, and he had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying the old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and smarted in his fingers’ ends—then, he felt as if to have it one degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the journey: and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople in their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road.

Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to sleep, beguiled the time with conversation. As both were anxious and expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and fears they entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of the latter few—none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation.

In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night had worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly:

‘Are you a good listener?’

‘Like most other men, I suppose,’ returned Mr Garland, smiling. ‘I can be, if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still try to appear so. Why do you ask?’

‘I have a short narrative on my lips,’ rejoined his friend, ‘and will try you with it. It is very brief.’

Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman’s sleeve, and proceeded thus:

‘There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly. There was a disparity in their ages—some twelve years. I am not sure but they may insensibly have loved each other the better for that reason. Wide as the interval between them was, however, they became rivals too soon. The deepest and strongest affection of both their hearts settled upon one object.

‘The youngest—there were reasons for his being sensitive and watchful—was the first to find this out. I will not tell you what misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his mental struggle was. He had been a sickly child. His brother, patient and considerate in the midst of his own high health and strength, had many and many a day denied himself the sports he loved, to sit beside his couch, telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up with an unwonted glow; to carry him in his arms to some green spot, where he could tend the poor pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer day, and saw all nature healthy but himself; to be, in any way, his fond and faithful nurse. I may not dwell on all he did, to make the poor, weak creature love him, or my tale would have no end. But when the time of trial came, the younger brother’s heart was full of those old days. Heaven strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of inconsiderate youth by one of thoughtful manhood. He left his brother to be happy. The truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the country, hoping to die abroad.

‘The elder brother married her. She was in Heaven before long, and left him with an infant daughter.

‘If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will remember how the same face and figure—often the fairest and slightest of them all—come upon you in different generations; and how you trace the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits—never growing old or changing—the Good Angel of the race—abiding by them in all reverses—redeeming all their sins—

‘In this daughter the mother lived again. You may judge with what devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this girl, her breathing image. She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart to one who could not know its worth. Well! Her fond father could not see her pine and droop. He might be more deserving than he thought him. He surely might become so, with a wife like her. He joined their hands, and they were married.

‘Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the cold neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he brought upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, in the deep devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can. Her means and substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her husband’s hand, and the hourly witness (for they lived now under one roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,—she never, but for him, bewailed her fate. Patient, and upheld by strong affection to the last, she died a widow of some three weeks’ date, leaving to her father’s care two orphans; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the other a girl—such another infant child—the same in helplessness, in age, in form, in feature—as she had been herself when her young mother died.

‘The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the heavy hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to trade—in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and precarious subsistence.

‘The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his daughter were a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste. The old man and the child dwelt alone together.

‘It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature; when her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of the too early change he had seen in such another—of all the sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone; when the young man’s profligate and hardened course drained him of money as his father’s had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary privation and distress; it was then that there began to beset him, and to be ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want. He had no thought for himself in this. His fear was for the child. It was a spectre in his house, and haunted him night and day.

‘The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and had made his pilgrimage through life alone. His voluntary banishment had been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and slight for doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful shadow on his path. Apart from this, communication between him and the elder was difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not so wholly broken off but that he learnt—with long blanks and gaps between each interval of information—all that I have told you now.

‘Then, dreams of their young, happy life—happy to him though laden with pain and early care—visited his pillow yet oftener than before; and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother’s side. With the utmost speed he could exert, he settled his affairs; converted into money all the goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore him on, with emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one evening at his brother’s door!’

The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.

‘The rest,’ said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, ‘I know.’

‘Yes,’ rejoined his friend, ‘we may spare ourselves the sequel. You know the poor result of all my search. Even when by dint of such inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen—and in time discovered the men themselves—and in time, the actual place of their retreat; even then, we were too late. Pray God, we are not too late again!’

‘We cannot be,’ said Mr Garland. ‘This time we must succeed.’

‘I have believed and hoped so,’ returned the other. ‘I try to believe and hope so still. But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to neither hope nor reason.’

‘That does not surprise me,’ said Mr Garland; ‘it is a natural consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time and place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night. A dismal night, indeed! Hark! how the wind is howling!’

CHAPTER 70

Day broke, and found them still upon their way. Since leaving home, they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for fresh horses. They had made no other stoppages, but the weather continued rough, and the roads were often steep and heavy. It would be night again before they reached their place of destination.

Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and, having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for thinking of discomforts. Though his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers, rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours did not stand still. The short daylight of winter soon faded away, and it was dark again when they had yet many miles to travel.

As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low and mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling covertly among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some great phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled as it stalked along. By degrees it lulled and died away, and then it came on to snow.

The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some inches deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness. The rolling wheels were noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the horses’ hoofs, became a dull, muffled tramp. The life of their progress seemed to be slowly hushed, and something death-like to usurp its place.

Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to some not distant town. He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly. Now, a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps. Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, or meeting them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them, turned to shadows too. A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise up in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be the road itself. Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of water, appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful and uncertain; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these things, like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim illusions.

He descended slowly from his seat—for his limbs were numbed—when they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far they had to go to reach their journey’s end. It was a late hour in such by-places, and the people were abed; but a voice answered from an upper window, Ten miles. The ten minutes that ensued appeared an hour; but at the end of that time, a shivering figure led out the horses they required, and after another brief delay they were again in motion.

It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four miles, of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow, were so many pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to keep a footpace. As it was next to impossible for men so much agitated as they were by this time, to sit still and move so slowly, all three got out and plodded on behind the carriage. The distance seemed interminable, and the walk was most laborious. As each was thinking within himself that the driver must have lost his way, a church bell, close at hand, struck the hour of midnight, and the carriage stopped. It had moved softly enough, but when it ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as startling as if some great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness.

‘This is the place, gentlemen,’ said the driver, dismounting from his horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn. ‘Halloa! Past twelve o’clock is the dead of night here.’

The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy inmates. All continued dark and silent as before. They fell back a little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black patches in the whitened house front. No light appeared. The house might have been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life it had about it.

They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers; unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now raised.

‘Let us go on,’ said the younger brother, ‘and leave this good fellow to wake them, if he can. I cannot rest until I know that we are not too late. Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!’

They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as the house afforded, and to renew his knocking. Kit accompanied them with a little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home, and had not forgotten since—the bird in his old cage—just as she had left him. She would be glad to see her bird, he knew.

The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village clustering round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence until they returned.

The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A venerable building—grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. An ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace the melancholy night.

A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take, they came to a stand again.

The village street—if street that could be called which was an irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the path—was close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way.

His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that unseasonable hour, wanting him.

‘’Tis hard weather this,’ he grumbled, ‘and not a night to call me up in. My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this season. What do you want?’

‘I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,’ said Kit.

‘Old!’ repeated the other peevishly. ‘How do you know I am old? Not so old as you think, friend, perhaps. As to being ill, you will find many young people in worse case than I am. More’s the pity that it should be so—not that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I mean, but that they should be weak and tender. I ask your pardon though,’ said the old man, ‘if I spoke rather rough at first. My eyes are not good at night—that’s neither age nor illness; they never were—and I didn’t see you were a stranger.’

‘I am sorry to call you from your bed,’ said Kit, ‘but those gentlemen you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just arrived from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house. You can direct us?’

‘I should be able to,’ answered the old man, in a trembling voice, ‘for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years. The right hand path, friend, is the road.—There is no ill news for our good gentleman, I hope?’

Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child. Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window.

‘What is that?’ cried the child, earnestly. ‘Has my dream come true? Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.’

‘Poor boy!’ said the sexton, before Kit could answer, ‘how goes it, darling?’

‘Has my dream come true?’ exclaimed the child again, in a voice so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener. ‘But no, that can never be! How could it be—Oh! how could it!’

‘I guess his meaning,’ said the sexton. ‘To bed again, poor boy!’

‘Ay!’ cried the child, in a burst of despair. ‘I knew it could never be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked! But, all to-night, and last night too, it was the same. I never fall asleep, but that cruel dream comes back.’

‘Try to sleep again,’ said the old man, soothingly. ‘It will go in time.’

‘No no, I would rather that it staid—cruel as it is, I would rather that it staid,’ rejoined the child. ‘I am not afraid to have it in my sleep, but I am so sad—so very, very sad.’

The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit was again alone.

He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child’s manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from him. They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived before the parsonage wall. Turning round to look about them when they had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance, one single solitary light.

It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like a star. Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads, lonely and motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with the eternal lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them.

‘What light is that!’ said the younger brother.

‘It is surely,’ said Mr Garland, ‘in the ruin where they live. I see no other ruin hereabouts.’

‘They cannot,’ returned the brother hastily, ‘be waking at this late hour—’

Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and waited at the gate, they would let him make his way to where this light was shining, and try to ascertain if any people were about. Obtaining the permission he desired, he darted off with breathless eagerness, and, still carrying the birdcage in his hand, made straight towards the spot.

It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another time he might have gone more slowly, or round by the path. Unmindful of all obstacles, however, he pressed forward without slackening his speed, and soon arrived within a few yards of the window. He approached as softly as he could, and advancing so near the wall as to brush the whitened ivy with his dress, listened. There was no sound inside. The church itself was not more quiet. Touching the glass with his cheek, he listened again. No. And yet there was such a silence all around, that he felt sure he could have heard even the breathing of a sleeper, if there had been one there.

A strange circumstance, a light in such a place at that time of night, with no one near it.

A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he could not see into the room. But there was no shadow thrown upon it from within. To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to look in from above, would have been attended with some danger—certainly with some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child, if that really were her habitation. Again and again he listened; again and again the same wearisome blank.

Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the ruin for a few paces, he came at length to a door. He knocked. No answer. But there was a curious noise inside. It was difficult to determine what it was. It bore a resemblance to the low moaning of one in pain, but it was not that, being far too regular and constant. Now it seemed a kind of song, now a wail—seemed, that is, to his changing fancy, for the sound itself was never changed or checked. It was unlike anything he had ever heard; and in its tone there was something fearful, chilling, and unearthly.

The listener’s blood ran colder now than ever it had done in frost and snow, but he knocked again. There was no answer, and the sound went on without any interruption. He laid his hand softly upon the latch, and put his knee against the door. It was secured on the inside, but yielded to the pressure, and turned upon its hinges. He saw the glimmering of a fire upon the old walls, and entered.

CHAPTER 71

The dull, red glow of a wood fire—for no lamp or candle burnt within the room—showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with its back towards him, bending over the fitful light. The attitude was that of one who sought the heat. It was, and yet was not. The stooping posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands were stretched out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver compared its luxury with the piercing cold outside. With limbs huddled together, head bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast, and fingers tightly clenched, it rocked to and fro upon its seat without a moment’s pause, accompanying the action with the mournful sound he had heard.

The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash that made him start. The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look, nor gave in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the noise. The form was that of an old man, his white head akin in colour to the mouldering embers upon which he gazed. He, and the failing light and dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellowship. Ashes, and dust, and ruin!

Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they were he scarcely knew. Still the same terrible low cry went on—still the same rocking in the chair—the same stricken figure was there, unchanged and heedless of his presence.

He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form—distinctly seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed up—arrested it. He returned to where he had stood before—advanced a pace—another—another still. Another, and he saw the face. Yes! Changed as it was, he knew it well.

‘Master!’ he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand. ‘Dear master. Speak to me!’

The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow voice,

‘This is another!—How many of these spirits there have been to-night!’

‘No spirit, master. No one but your old servant. You know me now, I am sure? Miss Nell—where is she—where is she?’

‘They all say that!’ cried the old man. ‘They all ask the same question. A spirit!’

‘Where is she?’ demanded Kit. ‘Oh tell me but that,—but that, dear master!’

‘She is asleep—yonder—in there.’

‘Thank God!’

‘Aye! Thank God!’ returned the old man. ‘I have prayed to Him, many, and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been asleep, He knows. Hark! Did she call?’

‘I heard no voice.’

‘You did. You hear her now. Do you tell me that you don’t hear THAT?’

He started up, and listened again.

‘Nor that?’ he cried, with a triumphant smile, ‘Can any body know that voice so well as I? Hush! Hush!’

Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber. After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in a softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp.

‘She is still asleep,’ he whispered. ‘You were right. She did not call—unless she did so in her slumber. She has called to me in her sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen her lips move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that she spoke of me. I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I brought it here.’

He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put the lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some momentary recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face. Then, as if forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned away and put it down again.

‘She is sleeping soundly,’ he said; ‘but no wonder. Angel hands have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. She used to feed them, Sir. Though never so cold and hungry, the timid things would fly from us. They never flew from her!’

Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to smooth and brush them with his hand.

‘Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,’ he murmured, ‘when there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them! Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping to the door, crying “where is Nell—sweet Nell?”—and sob, and weep, because they do not see thee. She was always gentle with children. The wildest would do her bidding—she had a tender way with them, indeed she had!’

Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears.

‘Her little homely dress,—her favourite!’ cried the old man, pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand. ‘She will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall have it—she shall have it. I would not vex my darling, for the wide world’s riches. See here—these shoes—how worn they are—she kept them to remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little feet went bare upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the stones had cut and bruised them. She never told me that. No, no, God bless her! and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might not see how lame she was—but yet she had my hand in hers, and seemed to lead me still.’

He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back again, went on communing with himself—looking wistfully from time to time towards the chamber he had lately visited.

‘She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then. We must have patience. When she is well again, she will rise early, as she used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time. I often tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no print upon the dewy ground, to guide me. Who is that? Shut the door. Quick!—Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble cold, and keep her warm!’

The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his friend, accompanied by two other persons. These were the schoolmaster, and the bachelor. The former held a light in his hand. He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish the exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit came up and found the old man alone.

He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside the angry manner—if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can be applied—in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed his former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old action, and the old, dull, wandering sound.

Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever. He had seen them, but appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The younger brother stood apart. The bachelor drew a chair towards the old man, and sat down close beside him. After a long silence, he ventured to speak.

‘Another night, and not in bed!’ he said softly; ‘I hoped you would be more mindful of your promise to me. Why do you not take some rest?’

‘Sleep has left me,’ returned the old man. ‘It is all with her!’

‘It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,’ said the bachelor. ‘You would not give her pain?’

‘I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her. She has slept so very long. And yet I am rash to say so. It is a good and happy sleep—eh?’

‘Indeed it is,’ returned the bachelor. ‘Indeed, indeed, it is!’

‘That’s well!—and the waking—’ faltered the old man.

‘Happy too. Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man conceive.’

They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other chamber where the lamp had been replaced. They listened as he spoke again within its silent walls. They looked into the faces of each other, and no man’s cheek was free from tears. He came back, whispering that she was still asleep, but that he thought she had moved. It was her hand, he said—a little—a very, very little—but he was pretty sure she had moved it—perhaps in seeking his. He had known her do that, before now, though in the deepest sleep the while. And when he had said this, he dropped into his chair again, and clasping his hands above his head, uttered a cry never to be forgotten.

The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come on the other side, and speak to him. They gently unlocked his fingers, which he had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in their own.

‘He will hear me,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘I am sure. He will hear either me or you if we beseech him. She would, at all times.’

‘I will hear any voice she liked to hear,’ cried the old man. ‘I love all she loved!’

‘I know you do,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘I am certain of it. Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have shared together; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures, you have jointly known.’

‘I do. I do. I think of nothing else.’

‘I would have you think of nothing else to-night—of nothing but those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it to old affections and old times. It is so that she would speak to you herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.’

‘You do well to speak softly,’ said the old man. ‘We will not wake her. I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile. There is a smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and changeless. I would have it come and go. That shall be in Heaven’s good time. We will not wake her.’

‘Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when you were journeying together, far away—as she was at home, in the old house from which you fled together—as she was, in the old cheerful time,’ said the schoolmaster.

‘She was always cheerful—very cheerful,’ cried the old man, looking steadfastly at him. ‘There was ever something mild and quiet about her, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy nature.’

‘We have heard you say,’ pursued the schoolmaster, ‘that in this and in all goodness, she was like her mother. You can think of, and remember her?’

He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer.

‘Or even one before her,’ said the bachelor. ‘It is many years ago, and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not forgotten her whose death contributed to make this child so dear to you, even before you knew her worth or could read her heart? Say, that you could carry back your thoughts to very distant days—to the time of your early life—when, unlike this fair flower, you did not pass your youth alone. Say, that you could remember, long ago, another child who loved you dearly, you being but a child yourself. Say, that you had a brother, long forgotten, long unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, in your utmost need came back to comfort and console you—’

‘To be to you what you were once to him,’ cried the younger, falling on his knee before him; ‘to repay your old affection, brother dear, by constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at your right hand, what he has never ceased to be when oceans rolled between us; to call to witness his unchanging truth and mindfulness of bygone days, whole years of desolation. Give me but one word of recognition, brother—and never—no never, in the brightest moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly boys, we thought to pass our lives together—have we been half as dear and precious to each other as we shall be from this time hence!’

The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no sound came from them in reply.

‘If we were knit together then,’ pursued the younger brother, ‘what will be the bond between us now! Our love and fellowship began in childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we have proved it, and are but children at the last. As many restless spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the world, retire in their decline to where they first drew breath, vainly seeking to be children once again before they die, so we, less fortunate than they in early life, but happier in its closing scenes, will set up our rest again among our boyish haunts, and going home with no hope realised, that had its growth in manhood—carrying back nothing that we brought away, but our old yearnings to each other—saving no fragment from the wreck of life, but that which first endeared it—may be, indeed, but children as at first. And even,’ he added in an altered voice, ‘even if what I dread to name has come to pass—even if that be so, or is to be (which Heaven forbid and spare us!)—still, dear brother, we are not apart, and have that comfort in our great affliction.’

By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner chamber, while these words were spoken. He pointed there, as he replied, with trembling lips.

‘You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You never will do that—never while I have life. I have no relative or friend but her—I never had—I never will have. She is all in all to me. It is too late to part us now.’

Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he stole into the room. They who were left behind, drew close together, and after a few whispered words—not unbroken by emotion, or easily uttered—followed him. They moved so gently, that their footsteps made no noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief and mourning.

For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel now.

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death.

Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour. ‘When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.’ Those were her words.

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird—a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed—was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child mistress was mute and motionless for ever.

Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.

And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same mild lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty, after death.

The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile—the hand that had led him on, through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.

She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast—the garden she had tended—the eyes she had gladdened—the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour—the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday—could know her never more.

‘It is not,’ said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, ‘it is not on earth that Heaven’s justice ends. Think what earth is, compared with the World to which her young spirit has winged its early flight; and say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!’

CHAPTER 72

When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of their grief, they heard how her life had closed.

She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said ‘God bless you!’ with great fervour. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have been.

Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face—such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget—and clung with both her arms about his neck. They did not know that she was dead, at first.

She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were like dear friends to her. She wished they could be told how much she thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked together, by the river side at night. She would like to see poor Kit, she had often said of late. She wished there was somebody to take her love to Kit. And, even then, she never thought or spoke about him, but with something of her old, clear, merry laugh.

For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered—save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them—faded like the light upon a summer’s evening.

The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon as it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged them to lay upon her breast. It was he who had come to the window overnight and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces of small feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which she lay, before he went to bed. He had a fancy, it seemed, that they had left her there alone; and could not bear the thought.

He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being restored to them, just as she used to be. He begged hard to see her, saying that he would be very quiet, and that they need not fear his being alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother all day long when he was dead, and had felt glad to be so near him. They let him have his wish; and indeed he kept his word, and was, in his childish way, a lesson to them all.

Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once—except to her—or stirred from the bedside. But, when he saw her little favourite, he was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as though he would have him come nearer. Then, pointing to the bed, he burst into tears for the first time, and they who stood by, knowing that the sight of this child had done him good, left them alone together.

Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuaded him to take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him. And when the day came on, which must remove her in her earthly shape from earthly eyes for ever, he led him away, that he might not know when she was taken from him.

They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed. It was Sunday—a bright, clear, wintry afternoon—and as they traversed the village street, those who were walking in their path drew back to make way for them, and gave them a softened greeting. Some shook the old man kindly by the hand, some stood uncovered while he tottered by, and many cried ‘God help him!’ as he passed along.

‘Neighbour!’ said the old man, stopping at the cottage where his young guide’s mother dwelt, ‘how is it that the folks are nearly all in black to-day? I have seen a mourning ribbon or a piece of crape on almost every one.’

She could not tell, the woman said.

‘Why, you yourself—you wear the colour too?’ he said. ‘Windows are closed that never used to be by day. What does this mean?’

Again the woman said she could not tell.

‘We must go back,’ said the old man, hurriedly. ‘We must see what this is.’

‘No, no,’ cried the child, detaining him. ‘Remember what you promised. Our way is to the old green lane, where she and I so often were, and where you found us, more than once, making those garlands for her garden. Do not turn back!’

‘Where is she now?’ said the old man. ‘Tell me that.’

‘Do you not know?’ returned the child. ‘Did we not leave her, but just now?’

‘True. True. It was her we left—was it?’

He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the sexton’s house. He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the fire. Both rose up, on seeing who it was.

The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand. It was the action of an instant, but that, and the old man’s look, were quite enough.

‘Do you—do you bury any one to-day?’ he said, eagerly.

‘No, no! Who should we bury, Sir?’ returned the sexton.

‘Aye, who indeed! I say with you, who indeed!’

‘It is a holiday with us, good Sir,’ returned the sexton mildly. ‘We have no work to do to-day.’

‘Why then, I’ll go where you will,’ said the old man, turning to the child. ‘You’re sure of what you tell me? You would not deceive me? I am changed, even in the little time since you last saw me.’

‘Go thy ways with him, Sir,’ cried the sexton, ‘and Heaven be with ye both!’

‘I am quite ready,’ said the old man, meekly. ‘Come, boy, come—’ and so submitted to be led away.

And now the bell—the bell she had so often heard, by night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice—rung its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life—to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing—grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl and creep above it!

Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen snow that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting. Under the porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its quiet shade.

They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light streamed on it through the coloured window—a window, where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light, would fall upon her grave.

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! Many a young hand dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some—and they were not a few—knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in their sorrow.

The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be replaced. One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky. Another told, how he had wondered much that one so delicate as she, should be so bold; how she had never feared to enter the church alone at night, but had loved to linger there when all was quiet, and even to climb the tower stair, with no more light than that of the moon rays stealing through the loopholes in the thick old wall. A whisper went about among the oldest, that she had seen and talked with angels; and when they called to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her early death, some thought it might be so, indeed. Thus, coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the church was cleared in time, of all but the sexton and the mourning friends.

They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place—when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave—in that calm time, when outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them—then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God.

Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach, but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the Destroyer’s steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven.

It was late when the old man came home. The boy had led him to his own dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back; and, rendered drowsy by his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into a deep sleep by the fireside. He was perfectly exhausted, and they were careful not to rouse him. The slumber held him a long time, and when he at length awoke the moon was shining.

The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching at the door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with his little guide. He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging the old man to lean upon his arm, conducted him with slow and trembling steps towards the house.

He repaired to her chamber, straight. Not finding what he had left there, he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they were assembled. From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster’s cottage, calling her name. They followed close upon him, and when he had vainly searched it, brought him home.

With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest, they prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should tell him. Then endeavouring by every little artifice to prepare his mind for what must come, and dwelling with many fervent words upon the happy lot to which she had been removed, they told him, at last, the truth. The moment it had passed their lips, he fell down among them like a murdered man.

For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is strong, and he recovered.

If there be any who have never known the blank that follows death—the weary void—the sense of desolation that will come upon the strongest minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at every turn—the connection between inanimate and senseless things, and the object of recollection, when every household god becomes a monument and every room a grave—if there be any who have not known this, and proved it by their own experience, they can never faintly guess how, for many days, the old man pined and moped away the time, and wandered here and there as seeking something, and had no comfort.

Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up in her. He never understood, or seemed to care to understand, about his brother. To every endearment and attention he continued listless. If they spoke to him on this, or any other theme—save one—he would hear them patiently for awhile, then turn away, and go on seeking as before.

On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, it was impossible to touch. Dead! He could not hear or bear the word. The slightest hint of it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that he had had when it was first spoken. In what hope he lived, no man could tell; but that he had some hope of finding her again—some faint and shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him from day to day more sick and sore at heart—was plain to all.

They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last sorrow; of trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him. His brother sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful in such matters, and they came and saw him. Some of the number staid upon the spot, conversed with him when he would converse, and watched him as he wandered up and down, alone and silent. Move him where they might, they said, he would ever seek to get back there. His mind would run upon that spot. If they confined him closely, and kept a strict guard upon him, they might hold him prisoner, but if he could by any means escape, he would surely wander back to that place, or die upon the road.

The boy, to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any influence with him. At times he would suffer the child to walk by his side, or would even take such notice of his presence as giving him his hand, or would stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the head. At other times, he would entreat him—not unkindly—to be gone, and would not brook him near. But, whether alone, or with this pliant friend, or with those who would have given him, at any cost or sacrifice, some consolation or some peace of mind, if happily the means could have been devised; he was at all times the same—with no love or care for anything in life—a broken-hearted man.

At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with his knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and little basket full of such things as she had been used to carry, was gone. As they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a frightened schoolboy came who had seen him, but a moment before, sitting in the church—upon her grave, he said.

They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in the attitude of one who waited patiently. They did not disturb him then, but kept a watch upon him all that day. When it grew quite dark, he rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to himself, ‘She will come to-morrow!’

Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and still at night he laid him down to rest, and murmured, ‘She will come to-morrow!’

And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her grave, for her. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden—how many tones of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind—how many visions of what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be—rose up before him, in the old, dull, silent church! He never told them what he thought, or where he went. He would sit with them at night, pondering with a secret satisfaction, they could see, upon the flight that he and she would take before night came again; and still they would hear him whisper in his prayers, ‘Lord! Let her come to-morrow!’

The last time was on a genial day in spring. He did not return at the usual hour, and they went to seek him. He was lying dead upon the stone.

They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in the church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together.

CHAPTER 73

The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler thus far, now slackens in its pace, and stops. It lies before the goal; the pursuit is at an end.

It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey.

Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm, claim our polite attention.

Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to protract his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under his protection for a considerable time, during which the great attention of his entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he was quite lost to society, and never even went abroad for exercise saving into a small paved yard. So well, indeed, was his modest and retiring temper understood by those with whom he had to deal, and so jealous were they of his absence, that they required a kind of friendly bond to be entered into by two substantial housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds a-piece, before they would suffer him to quit their hospitable roof—doubting, it appeared, that he would return, if once let loose, on any other terms. Mr Brass, struck with the humour of this jest, and carrying out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his wide connection a pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some halfpence short of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail—for that was the merry word agreed upon both sides. These gentlemen being rejected after twenty-four hours’ pleasantry, Mr Brass consented to remain, and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand jury (who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve other wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty with a most facetious joy,—nay, the very populace entered into the whim, and when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the building where these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs and carcases of kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into shreds, which greatly increased the comicality of the thing, and made him relish it the more, no doubt.

To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his counsel, moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to criminate himself, by assurances of safety and promises of pardon, and claimed the leniency which the law extends to such confiding natures as are thus deluded. After solemn argument, this point (with others of a technical nature, whose humorous extravagance it would be difficult to exaggerate) was referred to the judges for their decision, Sampson being meantime removed to his former quarters. Finally, some of the points were given in Sampson’s favour, and some against him; and the upshot was, that, instead of being desired to travel for a time in foreign parts, he was permitted to grace the mother country under certain insignificant restrictions.

These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a spacious mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and boarded at the public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of grey turned up with yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and chiefly lived on gruel and light soup. It was also required of him that he should partake of their exercise of constantly ascending an endless flight of stairs; and, lest his legs, unused to such exertion, should be weakened by it, that he should wear upon one ankle an amulet or charm of iron. These conditions being arranged, he was removed one evening to his new abode, and enjoyed, in common with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the privilege of being taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty’s own carriages.

Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and blotted out from the roll of attorneys; which erasure has been always held in these latter times to be a great degradation and reproach, and to imply the commission of some amazing villany—as indeed it would seem to be the case, when so many worthless names remain among its better records, unmolested.

Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumours went abroad. Some said with confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and had become a female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had enlisted as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and had been seen in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her musket and looking out of a sentry-box in St James’s Park, one evening. There were many such whispers as these in circulation; but the truth appears to be that, after the lapse of some five years (during which there is no direct evidence of her having been seen at all), two wretched people were more than once observed to crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of St Giles’s, and to take their way along the streets, with shuffling steps and cowering shivering forms, looking into the roads and kennels as they went in search of refuse food or disregarded offal. These forms were never beheld but in those nights of cold and gloom, when the terrible spectres, who lie at all other times in the obscene hiding-places of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars, venture to creep into the streets; the embodied spirits of Disease, and Vice, and Famine. It was whispered by those who should have known, that these were Sampson and his sister Sally; and to this day, it is said, they sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome guise, close at the elbow of the shrinking passenger.

The body of Quilp being found—though not until some days had elapsed—an inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been washed ashore. The general supposition was that he had committed suicide, and, this appearing to be favoured by all the circumstances of his death, the verdict was to that effect. He was left to be buried with a stake through his heart in the centre of four lonely roads.

It was rumoured afterwards that this horrible and barbarous ceremony had been dispensed with, and that the remains had been secretly given up to Tom Scott. But even here, opinion was divided; for some said Tom dug them up at midnight, and carried them to a place indicated to him by the widow. It is probable that both these stories may have had their origin in the simple fact of Tom’s shedding tears upon the inquest—which he certainly did, extraordinary as it may appear. He manifested, besides, a strong desire to assault the jury; and being restrained and conducted out of court, darkened its only window by standing on his head upon the sill, until he was dexterously tilted upon his feet again by a cautious beadle.

Being cast upon the world by his master’s death, he determined to go through it upon his head and hands, and accordingly began to tumble for his bread. Finding, however, his English birth an insurmountable obstacle to his advancement in this pursuit (notwithstanding that his art was in high repute and favour), he assumed the name of an Italian image lad, with whom he had become acquainted; and afterwards tumbled with extraordinary success, and to overflowing audiences.

Little Mrs Quilp never quite forgave herself the one deceit that lay so heavy on her conscience, and never spoke or thought of it but with bitter tears. Her husband had no relations, and she was rich. He had made no will, or she would probably have been poor. Having married the first time at her mother’s instigation, she consulted in her second choice nobody but herself. It fell upon a smart young fellow enough; and as he made it a preliminary condition that Mrs Jiniwin should be thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together after marriage with no more than the average amount of quarrelling, and led a merry life upon the dead dwarf’s money.

Mr and Mrs Garland, and Mr Abel, went out as usual (except that there was a change in their household, as will be seen presently), and in due time the latter went into partnership with his friend the notary, on which occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and great extent of dissipation. Unto this ball there happened to be invited the most bashful young lady that was ever seen, with whom Mr Abel happened to fall in love. HOW it happened, or how they found it out, or which of them first communicated the discovery to the other, nobody knows. But certain it is that in course of time they were married; and equally certain it is that they were the happiest of the happy; and no less certain it is that they deserved to be so. And it is pleasant to write down that they reared a family; because any propagation of goodness and benevolence is no small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no small subject of rejoicing for mankind at large.

The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr Garland’s and his son’s, and, as the old people and the young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising dignity. He condescended to play with the children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such small freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted any one among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were points between them far too serious for trifling.

He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for when the good bachelor came to live with Mr Garland upon the clergyman’s decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least resistance. He did no work for two or three years before he died, but lived in clover; and his last act (like a choleric old gentleman) was to kick his doctor.

Mr Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Marchioness a handsome stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in redemption of the vow he had made upon his fevered bed. After casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of her, he decided in favour of Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious and genteel, and furthermore indicative of mystery. Under this title the Marchioness repaired, in tears, to the school of his selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she was removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher grade. It is but bare justice to Mr Swiveller to say, that, although the expenses of her education kept him in straitened circumstances for half a dozen years, he never slackened in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the accounts he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement, on his monthly visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in quotation.

In a word, Mr Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age— good-looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider seriously what was to be done next. On one of his periodical visits, while he was revolving this question in his mind, the Marchioness came down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more fresh than ever. Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first time, that if she would marry him, how comfortable they might be! So Richard asked her; whatever she said, it wasn’t No; and they were married in good earnest that day week. Which gave Mr Swiveller frequent occasion to remark at divers subsequent periods that there had been a young lady saving up for him after all.

A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden a smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to become its tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon its occupation. To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly every Sunday to spend the day—usually beginning with breakfast—and here he was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable intelligence. For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit, protesting that he had a better opinion of him when he was supposed to have stolen the five-pound note, than when he was shown to be perfectly free of the crime; inasmuch as his guilt would have had in it something daring and bold, whereas his innocence was but another proof of a sneaking and crafty disposition. By slow degrees, however, he was reconciled to him in the end; and even went so far as to honour him with his patronage, as one who had in some measure reformed, and was therefore to be forgiven. But he never forgot or pardoned that circumstance of the shilling; holding that if he had come back to get another he would have done well enough, but that his returning to work out the former gift was a stain upon his moral character which no penitence or contrition could ever wash away.

Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic and reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his own mind the mysterious question of Sophronia’s parentage. Sophronia herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller, putting various slight circumstances together, often thought Miss Brass must know better than that; and, having heard from his wife of her strange interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings whether that person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able to solve the riddle, had he chosen. These speculations, however, gave him no uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful, affectionate, and provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for an occasional outbreak with Mr Chuckster, which she had the good sense rather to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and domesticated husband. And they played many hundred thousand games of cribbage together. And let it be added, to Dick’s honour, that, though we have called her Sophronia, he called her the Marchioness from first to last; and that upon every anniversary of the day on which he found her in his sick room, Mr Chuckster came to dinner, and there was great glorification.

The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr James Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with varying success, until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the way of their profession, dispersed them in various directions, and caused their career to receive a sudden check from the long and strong arm of the law. This defeat had its origin in the untoward detection of a new associate—young Frederick Trent—who thus became the unconscious instrument of their punishment and his own.

For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by his wits—which means by the abuse of every faculty that worthily employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far below them. It was not long before his body was recognised by a stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital in Paris where the drowned are laid out to be owned; despite the bruises and disfigurements which were said to have been occasioned by some previous scuffle. But the stranger kept his own counsel until he returned home, and it was never claimed or cared for.

The younger brother, or the single gentleman, for that designation is more familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his lone retreat, and made him his companion and friend. But the humble village teacher was timid of venturing into the noisy world, and had become fond of his dwelling in the old churchyard. Calmly happy in his school, and in the spot, and in the attachment of Her little mourner, he pursued his quiet course in peace; and was, through the righteous gratitude of his friend—let this brief mention suffice for that—a POOR school-master no more.

That friend—single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will—had at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no misanthropy or monastic gloom. He went forth into the world, a lover of his kind. For a long, long time, it was his chief delight to travel in the steps of the old man and the child (so far as he could trace them from her last narrative), to halt where they had halted, sympathise where they had suffered, and rejoice where they had been made glad. Those who had been kind to them, did not escape his search. The sisters at the school—they who were her friends, because themselves so friendless—Mrs Jarley of the wax-work, Codlin, Short—he found them all; and trust me, the man who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten.

Kit’s story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and many offers of provision for his future life. He had no idea at first of ever quitting Mr Garland’s service; but, after serious remonstrance and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate the possibility of such a change being brought about in time. A good post was procured for him, with a rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the offence laid to his charge, and who had acted upon that belief. Through the same kind agency, his mother was secured from want, and made quite happy. Thus, as Kit often said, his great misfortune turned out to be the source of all his subsequent prosperity.

Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry? Of course he married, and who should be his wife but Barbara? And the best of it was, he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle, before the calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history, had ever been encased in broadcloth pantaloons,—though that was not quite the best either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle too. The delight of Kit’s mother and of Barbara’s mother upon the great occasion is past all telling; finding they agreed so well on that, and on all other subjects, they took up their abode together, and were a most harmonious pair of friends from that time forth. And hadn’t Astley’s cause to bless itself for their all going together once a quarter—to the pit—and didn’t Kit’s mother always say, when they painted the outside, that Kit’s last treat had helped to that, and wonder what the manager would feel if he but knew it as they passed his house!

When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara among them, and a pretty Barbara she was. Nor was there wanting an exact facsimile and copy of little Jacob, as he appeared in those remote times when they taught him what oysters meant. Of course there was an Abel, own godson to the Mr Garland of that name; and there was a Dick, whom Mr Swiveller did especially favour. The little group would often gather round him of a night and beg him to tell again that story of good Miss Nell who died. This, Kit would do; and when they cried to hear it, wishing it longer too, he would teach them how she had gone to Heaven, as all good people did; and how, if they were good, like her, they might hope to be there too, one day, and to see and know her as he had done when he was quite a boy. Then, he would relate to them how needy he used to be, and how she had taught him what he was otherwise too poor to learn, and how the old man had been used to say ‘she always laughs at Kit;’ at which they would brush away their tears, and laugh themselves to think that she had done so, and be again quite merry.

He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived; but new improvements had altered it so much, it was not like the same. The old house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its place. At first he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground to show them where it used to stand. But he soon became uncertain of the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he thought, and these alterations were confusing.

Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things pass away, like a tale that is told!

CHAPTER 1

Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave home early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day, or even escape for days or weeks together; but, saving in the country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven be thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the earth, as much as any creature living.

I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is kinder in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built castle at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse.

That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy—is it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear it! Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin’s Court, listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect the child’s step from the man’s, the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker—think of the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come.

Then, the crowds forever passing and repassing on the bridges (on those which are free of toll at least), where many stop on fine evenings looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague idea that by and by it runs between green banks which grow wider and wider until at last it joins the broad vast sea—where some halt to rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away one’s life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness unalloyed—and where some, and a very different class, pause with heavier loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all means of suicide the easiest and best.

Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when the fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the unwholesome streams of last night’s debauchery, and driving the dusky thrush, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night long, half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all akin to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the hot hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already, while others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they shall be watered and freshened up to please more sober company, and make old clerks who pass them on their road to business, wonder what has filled their breasts with visions of the country.

But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story I am about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals, arose out of one of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of them by way of preface.

One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in my usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was arrested by an inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but which seemed to be addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft sweet voice that struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round and found at my elbow a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed to a certain street at a considerable distance, and indeed in quite another quarter of the town.

‘It is a very long way from here,’ said I, ‘my child.’

‘I know that, sir,’ she replied timidly. ‘I am afraid it is a very long way, for I came from there to-night.’

‘Alone?’ said I, in some surprise.

‘Oh, yes, I don’t mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I had lost my road.’

‘And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?’

‘I am sure you will not do that,’ said the little creature,’ you are such a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.’

I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the energy with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child’s clear eye, and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into my face.

‘Come,’ said I, ‘I’ll take you there.’

She put her hand in mine as confidingly as if she had known me from her cradle, and we trudged away together; the little creature accommodating her pace to mine, and rather seeming to lead and take care of me than I to be protecting her. I observed that every now and then she stole a curious look at my face, as if to make quite sure that I was not deceiving her, and that these glances (very sharp and keen they were too) seemed to increase her confidence at every repetition.

For my part, my curiosity and interest were at least equal to the child’s, for child she certainly was, although I thought it probably from what I could make out, that her very small and delicate frame imparted a peculiar youthfulness to her appearance. Though more scantily attired than she might have been she was dressed with perfect neatness, and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect.

CAPITOLO 1

Anche se sono un vecchio, la notte è generalmente il mio tempo per passeggiare. In estate spesso lascio casa all’alba e vago per campi e stradine tutto il giorno, o addirittura mi assento per giorni o settimane di seguito; ma, salvo che in campagna, raramente esco dopo il tramonto, anche se, grazie al cielo, amo la sua luce e ne sento la gioia che diffonde sulla terra, tanto quanto qualsiasi creatura vivente.

Sono caduto senza accorgermene in questa abitudine, sia perché favorisce la mia debolezza che perché mi offre maggiori opportunità di riflettere sui caratteri e sulle occupazioni di coloro che affollano le strade. Lo splendore e l’affanno del pieno mezzogiorno non sono adatti a passatempi oziosi come i miei; uno sguardo fugace ai volti che passano, catturato dalla luce di un lampione o della vetrina di un negozio, è spesso più utile al mio scopo della loro piena rivelazione alla luce del giorno; e, se devo aggiungere la verità, la notte è in questo senso più gentile del giorno, che troppo spesso distrugge un castello di aria nel momento del suo completamento, senza il minimo cerimoniale o rimorso.

Quel continuo camminare avanti e indietro, quella irrequieta incessante, quel passo che consuma le pietre ruvide fino a renderle lisce e lucide: non è strano che gli abitanti di quei vicoli ristretti riescano a sopportarne il rumore? Pensate a un uomo malato in un luogo come Saint Martin’s Court, costretto ad ascoltare i passi, e nel mezzo del dolore e della stanchezza obbligato, suo malgrado (come se fosse un compito che deve assolvere) a distinguere il passo di un bambino da quello di un uomo, lo straccione in pantofole dal damerino con gli stivali, chi si aggira senza meta da chi ha fretta, il tallone pesante del fuorilegge che gironzola da quello veloce di chi cerca piaceri: pensate al brusio e al rumore sempre presenti ai suoi sensi, e alla corrente della vita che non si ferma mai, che scorre avanti, avanti, avanti attraverso tutti i suoi inquieti sogni, come se fosse condannato a giacere morto ma cosciente in un cimitero rumoroso e non avesse alcuna speranza di riposo per i prossimi secoli.

Poi le folle che passano e ripassano per sempre sui ponti (almeno su quelli esenti da pedaggio), dove molti si fermano nelle belle serate a guardare con aria svogliata l’acqua sotto di loro, con la vaga idea che presto scorra tra rive verdi sempre più ampie fino a unirsi infine al vasto e immenso mare; dove alcuni si fermano per riposarsi dai pesanti carichi e pensano mentre guardano oltre il parapetto che fumare e trascorrere la vita in ozio, dormendo al sole su una calda tela cerata, in un battello lento, pigro e indolente, debba essere pura felicità; e dove alcuni, di classe ben diversa, si fermano con carichi più pesanti dei loro, ricordando di aver sentito o letto nei vecchi tempi che l’annegamento non era una morte dolorosa, ma il mezzo di suicidio più facile e migliore.

Il mercato di Covent Garden all’alba anche in primavera o estate, quando il profumo dei dolci fiori è nell’aria, soverchiando persino i flussi malsani della sbronza di ieri sera, e facendo impazzire di gioia l’usignolo scuro, la cui gabbia è appesa fuori da una finestra del solaio tutta la notte lunga! Povero uccello! L’unica cosa vicina che abbia qualcosa in comune con gli altri piccoli prigionieri, alcuni dei quali, ritraendosi dalle mani calde degli acquirenti ubriachi, giacciono già appassiti sul sentiero, mentre altri, intrisi dal contatto ravvicinato, attendono il momento in cui saranno innaffiati e rinfrescati per compiacere compagnie più sobrie, e far meravigliare i vecchi impiegati che li superano sulla loro strada verso gli affari, chiedendosi cosa abbia riempito il loro petto di visioni della campagna.

Ma il mio scopo attuale non è di dilungarmi sulle mie passeggiate. La storia che sto per raccontare e a cui tornerò di tanto in tanto, nacque da una di queste escursioni; ed ecco perché sono stato indotto a parlarne come preambolo.

Una notte ero vagabondato fino alla Città, e stavo camminando lentamente come al solito, riflettendo su molte cose, quando fui fermato da una domanda, il cui significato non mi giunse chiaro, ma che sembrava rivolta a me e fu pronunciata con una voce dolce e melodiosa che mi colpì molto piacevolmente. Mi voltai in fretta e scoprii al mio fianco una graziosa bambina, la quale chiedeva indicazioni per raggiungere una certa strada a notevole distanza, e anzi in un’altra zona della città.

«È un viaggio molto lungo da qui», dissi io, «mio piccolo.»

«Lo so, signore», rispose timorosamente. «Temo che sia un viaggio molto lungo, perché sono venuta da lì questa notte».

«Solo?», dissi io, con un certo stupore.

«Oh, sì, non mi preoccupo di questo, ma ora ho un po’ paura perché avevo perso la mia strada.»

“E cosa ti ha spinto a chiedermelo? E se ti dicessi una bugia?”

«Sono sicura che non lo farete», disse la piccola creatura «siete un signore così anziano e camminate con tanta lentezza.»

Non posso descrivere quanto fossi colpito da questo appello e dalla energia con cui fu fatto, che portò una lacrima nell’occhio limpido del bambino, e fece tremare la sua esile figura mentre alzava lo sguardo verso il mio viso.

‘Vieni,’ dissi io, ‘ti accompagno lì.’

Lei mi mise la mano nella mia con fiducia come se mi avesse conosciuto dalla sua culla e ci allontanammo insieme; la piccola creatura adattava il suo passo al mio, sembrando piuttosto lei a guidarmi e prendersi cura di me che io a proteggerla. Notai che ogni tanto mi lanciava un’occhiata curiosa sul viso, come se volesse assicurarsi che non la stessi ingannando, e che queste occhiate (erano molto acute e penetranti) sembravano aumentare la sua fiducia ad ogni ripetizione.

Per quanto mi riguarda, la mia curiosità e il mio interesse erano almeno pari a quelli del bambino, perché tale era certamente lei, anche se pensavo che probabilmente, da quello che potevo capire, il suo fisico molto piccolo e delicato le conferiva un aspetto particolarmente giovanile. Sebbene fosse vestita più modestamente di quanto avrebbe potuto essere, era comunque abbigliata con perfetta cura e non mostrava segni di povertà o trascuratezza.

‘Who has sent you so far by yourself?’ said I.

‘Someone who is very kind to me, sir.’

‘And what have you been doing?’

‘That, I must not tell,’ said the child firmly.

There was something in the manner of this reply which caused me to look at the little creature with an involuntary expression of surprise; for I wondered what kind of errand it might be that occasioned her to be prepared for questioning. Her quick eye seemed to read my thoughts, for as it met mine she added that there was no harm in what she had been doing, but it was a great secret—a secret which she did not even know herself.

This was said with no appearance of cunning or deceit, but with an unsuspicious frankness that bore the impress of truth. She walked on as before, growing more familiar with me as we proceeded and talking cheerfully by the way, but she said no more about her home, beyond remarking that we were going quite a new road and asking if it were a short one.

While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my mind a hundred different explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I really felt ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful feeling of the child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her confidence I determined to deserve it, and to do credit to the nature which had prompted her to repose it in me.

There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the person who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by night and alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found herself near home she might take farewell of me and deprive me of the opportunity, I avoided the most frequented ways and took the most intricate, and thus it was not until we arrived in the street itself that she knew where we were. Clapping her hands with pleasure and running on before me for a short distance, my little acquaintance stopped at a door and remaining on the step till I came up knocked at it when I joined her.

A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I did not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and I was anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our summons. When she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise as if some person were moving inside, and at length a faint light appeared through the glass which, as it approached very slowly, the bearer having to make his way through a great many scattered articles, enabled me to see both what kind of person it was who advanced and what kind of place it was through which he came.

It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he held the light above his head and looked before him as he approached, I could plainly see. Though much altered by age, I fancied I could recognize in his spare and slender form something of that delicate mould which I had noticed in the child. Their bright blue eyes were certainly alike, but his face was so deeply furrowed and so very full of care, that here all resemblance ceased.

The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures in china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture that might have been designed in dreams. The haggard aspect of the little old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have groped among old churches and tombs and deserted houses and gathered all the spoils with his own hands. There was nothing in the whole collection but was in keeping with himself nothing that looked older or more worn than he.

As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed me with some astonishment which was not diminished when he looked from me to my companion. The door being opened, the child addressed him as grandfather, and told him the little story of our companionship.

‘Why, bless thee, child,’ said the old man, patting her on the head, ‘how couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!’

‘I would have found my way back to YOU, grandfather,’ said the child boldly; ‘never fear.’

The old man kissed her, then turning to me and begging me to walk in, I did so. The door was closed and locked. Preceding me with the light, he led me through the place I had already seen from without, into a small sitting-room behind, in which was another door opening into a kind of closet, where I saw a little bed that a fairy might have slept in, it looked so very small and was so prettily arranged. The child took a candle and tripped into this little room, leaving the old man and me together.

‘You must be tired, sir,’ said he as he placed a chair near the fire, ‘how can I thank you?’

‘By taking more care of your grandchild another time, my good friend,’ I replied.

‘More care!’ said the old man in a shrill voice, ‘more care of Nelly! Why, who ever loved a child as I love Nell?’

He said this with such evident surprise that I was perplexed what answer to make, and the more so because coupled with something feeble and wandering in his manner, there were in his face marks of deep and anxious thought which convinced me that he could not be, as I had been at first inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or imbecility.

‘I don’t think you consider—’ I began.

‘I don’t consider!’ cried the old man interrupting me, ‘I don’t consider her! Ah, how little you know of the truth! Little Nelly, little Nelly!’

«Chi vi ha mandato così lontano da solo?» dissi io.

‘Qualcuno che è molto gentile con me, signore.’

E cosa hai fatto?

«Questo non devo dirlo», disse il bambino con fermezza.

C’era qualcosa nel modo di questa risposta che mi fece guardare la piccola creatura con un’espressione involontaria di sorpresa; perché mi chiedevo quale genere di missione potesse averla portata a prepararsi per essere interrogata. Il suo sguardo rapido sembrava leggere i miei pensieri, perché quando incontrò il mio aggiunse che non c’era niente di male in quello che aveva fatto, ma era un grande segreto—un segreto che lei stessa non conosceva.

Questo fu detto senza alcun’apparenza di astuzia o inganno, ma con una franchezza spontanea che portava l’impronta della verità. Camminò come prima, diventando più familiare con me man mano che procedevamo e parlando allegramente lungo il cammino, ma non disse altro riguardo alla sua casa, se non osservando che stavamo percorrendo una strada completamente nuova e chiedendo se fosse breve.

Mentre eravamo così impegnati, ho vagliato nella mia mente cento diverse spiegazioni dell’enigma e le ho scartate tutte. Mi sentivo davvero in colpa a sfruttare l’ingenuità o il senso di gratitudine del bambino per soddisfare la mia curiosità. Amo questi piccoli; e non è cosa da poco quando loro, che sono così freschi da Dio, ci amano. Poiché mi ero sentito lusingato inizialmente dalla sua fiducia ho deciso di meritarmela, e di onorare la natura che le aveva suggerito di riporre in me tale fiducia.

Non c’era tuttavia motivo per cui dovessi astenermi dal vedere la persona che l’aveva inviata in modo sconsiderato a una così grande distanza di notte e sola, e poiché non era improbabile che, se si fosse trovata vicino a casa, avrebbe potuto salutarmi e privarmi dell’opportunità, evitai le vie più frequentate e ne scelsi delle più intricate; così fu solo quando arrivammo nella strada stessa che lei seppe dove ci trovavamo. Battendo le mani per la gioia e correndo davanti a me per una breve distanza, la mia piccola conoscente si fermò davanti a una porta e rimase sul gradino fino al mio arrivo; quando mi unii a lei, bussò alla porta.

Una parte di questa porta era in vetro non protetto da nessuna persiana, cosa che non notai subito perché all’interno tutto era molto buio e silenzioso, ed ero ansioso (come lo era anche il bambino) di ricevere una risposta al nostro richiamo. Quando ebbe bussato due o tre volte si udì un rumore come se qualcuno stesse muovendosi all’interno e infine apparve una luce fioca attraverso il vetro che, avvicinandosi molto lentamente perché chi la portava doveva farsi strada tra molti oggetti sparsi, mi permise di vedere sia che tipo di persona si avvicinasse sia che tipo di luogo fosse quello in cui si trovava.

Era un vecchio con lunghi capelli grigi; potevo vedere chiaramente il suo volto e la sua figura mentre teneva la luce sopra la testa e guardava davanti a sé avvicinandosi. Anche se molto cambiato dall’età, mi sembrò di riconoscere nella sua forma magra e snella qualcosa di quella delicata struttura che avevo notato nel bambino. I loro luminosi occhi blu erano certamente simili, ma il suo volto era così profondamente segnato e così pieno di preoccupazioni che qui ogni somiglianza cessava.

Il luogo attraverso il quale si fece strada con calma era uno di quei receptacoli per cose vecchie e curiose che sembrano accovacciarsi in angoli strani di questa città e nascondere i loro tesori muffosi dall’occhio pubblico in gelosia e sfiducia. C’erano armature che stavano lì come fantasmi in armatura qua e là, intagli fantastici portati da chiostri monastici, armi arrugginite di vario genere, figure distorte in ceramica e legno e ferro e avorio: arazzi e mobili strani che avrebbero potuto essere stati progettati in sogni. L’aspetto emaciato del piccolo vecchietto si adattava meravigliosamente al luogo; avrebbe potuto aver frugato tra vecchie chiese e tombe e case deserte e raccolto tutti i bottini con le sue stesse mani. Non c’era nulla in tutta la collezione che non fosse in armonia con lui, niente che sembrasse più vecchio o più consumato di lui.

Mentre girava la chiave nella serratura, mi osservò con un certo stupore, che non diminuì quando passò lo sguardo da me al mio compagno. Aperta la porta, il bambino lo chiamò nonno e gli raccontò la breve storia della nostra compagnia.

«Ma benedetta te, bambina», disse il vecchio accarezzandole la testa, «come hai potuto perdere la strada? E se ti avessi persa io, Nell!»

«Sarei riuscito a tornare da VOI, nonno», disse il bambino con coraggio; «non avete mai motivo di temere.»

Il vecchio la baciò e poi si rivolse a me pregandomi di entrare; lo feci. La porta fu chiusa e sbarrata. Precedendomi con la luce, mi condusse attraverso il luogo che avevo già visto dall’esterno fino ad una piccola sala da soggiorno sul retro, in cui si apriva un’altra porta su di una specie di ripostiglio dove vidi un lettino così minuscolo e graziosamente apparecchiato che avrebbe potuto ospitare una fata. La bambina prese una candela ed entrò in questa piccola stanza, lasciando il vecchio e me soli insieme.

«Dovete essere stanco, signore», disse mentre metteva una sedia vicino al fuoco, «come posso ringraziarvi?»

«Prendendosi più cura di suo nipote un’altra volta, mio buon amico», replicai.

«Più attenzione!» disse il vecchio con voce stridula «più attenzione per Nellie! Chi mai ha amato un bambino come io amo Nell?»

Lo disse con tale evidente sorpresa che rimasi perplesso su quale risposta dare, e ancor più perché accoppiato a qualcosa di debole e vagante nel suo comportamento, c’erano sul suo volto i segni di un pensiero profondo e ansioso, il che mi convinse che non poteva essere, come inizialmente avevo supposto, in uno stato di demenza o imbecillità.

«Non credo che tu consideri —» cominciai.

«Non la considero!» gridò il vecchio interrompendomi «non la considero! Ah, quanto poco conosci la verità! Povera piccola Nell, povera piccola Nell!»

It would be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of speech might be, to express more affection than the dealer in curiosities did, in these four words. I waited for him to speak again, but he rested his chin upon his hand and shaking his head twice or thrice fixed his eyes upon the fire.

While we were sitting thus in silence, the door of the closet opened, and the child returned, her light brown hair hanging loose about her neck, and her face flushed with the haste she had made to rejoin us. She busied herself immediately in preparing supper, and while she was thus engaged I remarked that the old man took an opportunity of observing me more closely than he had done yet. I was surprised to see that all this time everything was done by the child, and that there appeared to be no other persons but ourselves in the house. I took advantage of a moment when she was absent to venture a hint on this point, to which the old man replied that there were few grown persons as trustworthy or as careful as she.

‘It always grieves me,’ I observed, roused by what I took to be his selfishness, ‘it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity—two of the best qualities that Heaven gives them—and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.’

‘It will never check hers,’ said the old man looking steadily at me, ‘the springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought and paid for.’

‘But—forgive me for saying this—you are surely not so very poor’—said I.

‘She is not my child, sir,’ returned the old man. ‘Her mother was, and she was poor. I save nothing—not a penny—though I live as you see, but’—he laid his hand upon my arm and leant forward to whisper—‘she shall be rich one of these days, and a fine lady. Don’t you think ill of me because I use her help. She gives it cheerfully as you see, and it would break her heart if she knew that I suffered anybody else to do for me what her little hands could undertake. I don’t consider!’—he cried with sudden querulousness, ‘why, God knows that this one child is the thought and object of my life, and yet he never prospers me—no, never!’

At this juncture, the subject of our conversation again returned, and the old man motioning to me to approach the table, broke off, and said no more.

We had scarcely begun our repast when there was a knock at the door by which I had entered, and Nell bursting into a hearty laugh, which I was rejoiced to hear, for it was childlike and full of hilarity, said it was no doubt dear old Kit coming back at last.

‘Foolish Nell!’ said the old man fondling with her hair. ‘She always laughs at poor Kit.’

The child laughed again more heartily than before, and I could not help smiling from pure sympathy. The little old man took up a candle and went to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels.

Kit was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad with an uncommonly wide mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the most comical expression of face I ever saw. He stopped short at the door on seeing a stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly round old hat without any vestige of a brim, and resting himself now on one leg and now on the other and changing them constantly, stood in the doorway, looking into the parlour with the most extraordinary leer I ever beheld. I entertained a grateful feeling towards the boy from that minute, for I felt that he was the comedy of the child’s life.

‘A long way, wasn’t it, Kit?’ said the little old man.

‘Why, then, it was a goodish stretch, master,’ returned Kit.

‘Of course you have come back hungry?’

‘Why, then, I do consider myself rather so, master,’ was the answer.

The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways as he spoke, and thrusting his head forward over his shoulder, as if he could not get at his voice without that accompanying action. I think he would have amused one anywhere, but the child’s exquisite enjoyment of his oddity, and the relief it was to find that there was something she associated with merriment in a place that appeared so unsuited to her, were quite irresistible. It was a great point too that Kit himself was flattered by the sensation he created, and after several efforts to preserve his gravity, burst into a loud roar, and so stood with his mouth wide open and his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently.

The old man had again relapsed into his former abstraction and took no notice of what passed, but I remarked that when her laugh was over, the child’s bright eyes were dimmed with tears, called forth by the fullness of heart with which she welcomed her uncouth favourite after the little anxiety of the night. As for Kit himself (whose laugh had been all the time one of that sort which very little would change into a cry) he carried a large slice of bread and meat and a mug of beer into a corner, and applied himself to disposing of them with great voracity.

‘Ah!’ said the old man turning to me with a sigh, as if I had spoken to him but that moment, ‘you don’t know what you say when you tell me that I don’t consider her.’

‘You must not attach too great weight to a remark founded on first appearances, my friend,’ said I.

‘No,’ returned the old man thoughtfully, ‘no. Come hither, Nell.’

The little girl hastened from her seat, and put her arm about his neck.

‘Do I love thee, Nell?’ said he. ‘Say—do I love thee, Nell, or no?’

The child only answered by her caresses, and laid her head upon his breast.

‘Why dost thou sob?’ said the grandfather, pressing her closer to him and glancing towards me. ‘Is it because thou know’st I love thee, and dost not like that I should seem to doubt it by my question? Well, well—then let us say I love thee dearly.’

Sarebbe impossibile per un uomo, non importa quale fosse il suo modo di parlare, esprimere più affetto di quanto abbia fatto il commerciante di curiosità in queste quattro parole. Aspettai che riparlasse, ma si appoggiò il mento sulla mano e scuotendo la testa due o tre volte fissò gli occhi sul fuoco.

Mentre stavamo seduti così in silenzio, la porta dell’armadio si aprì, e la bambina tornò, con i suoi capelli castano chiari che le cadevano sciolti sul collo e il viso arrossato per l’affanno di essersi affrettata a raggiungerci. Si mise subito all’opera per preparare la cena, e mentre era così impegnata notai che il vecchio approfittava dell’occasione per osservarmi più da vicino di quanto avesse fatto finora. Fui sorpreso nel vedere che in tutto questo tempo tutto veniva fatto dalla bambina, e che non sembravano esserci altre persone oltre a noi nella casa. Approfittai di un momento in cui era assente per fare una timida osservazione su questo punto, alla quale il vecchio rispose che pochi adulti erano affidabili o attenti quanto lei.

«Mi addolora sempre», osservai, spinto da quello che consideravo il suo egoismo, «mi addolora sempre vedere i bambini iniziati ai modi della vita quando sono appena più che infanti. Questo reprime la loro fiducia e semplicità - due delle migliori qualità che Dio gli dona - e pretende che condividano le nostre pene prima di essere capaci di partecipare alle nostre gioie».

«Non riuscirà mai a frenare la sua», disse il vecchio guardandomi fisso negli occhi, «le molla sono troppo profonde. Inoltre, i figli dei poveri conoscono solo poche gioie. Anche le modeste delizie dell’infanzia devono essere acquistate e pagate».

«Ma, perdoni se glielo dico, lei non è certamente così povero» — dissi io.

«Non è mia figlia, signore», rispose il vecchio. «Lo era sua madre, e lei era povera. Non metto da parte nulla — neanche un centesimo — anche se vivo come vedete, ma» — mi posò la mano sul braccio e si chinò in avanti per sussurrarmi — «un giorno sarà ricca e una gran dama. Non pensate male di me perché accetto il suo aiuto. Lo offre con gioia, come vedete, e le spezzerebbe il cuore sapere che lascio fare a qualcun altro quello che le sue piccole mani possono fare. Io non ci penso!» — esclamò con improvvisa querulosità — «perché, Dio sa che questa figlia è l’oggetto e il pensiero della mia vita, eppure lui non mi fa mai prosperare — no, mai!»

In quel momento il soggetto della nostra conversazione tornò di nuovo in ballo e l’anziano signore, facendomi cenno di avvicinarmi al tavolo, si interruppe e non disse altro.

Avevamo appena iniziato il nostro pasto quando qualcuno bussò alla porta da cui ero entrato e Nell scoppiò in una risata sincera, che mi fece piacere sentire perché era infantile e piena di allegria, dicendo che non c’erano dubbi: il caro vecchio Kit stava finalmente tornando.

‘Povera Nell!’ disse il vecchio accarezzandole i capelli. ‘Ride sempre di povero Kit.’

Il bambino rise di nuovo più cordialmente che prima e io non potei fare a meno di sorridere per pura simpatia. Il vecchietto prese una candela e andò ad aprire la porta. Quando tornò, Kit era alle sue calcagna.

Kit era un ragazzo con i capelli arruffati, goffo e maldestro, con una bocca straordinariamente larga, le guance molto rosse, il naso all’insù e certamente l’espressione facciale più comica che io abbia mai visto. Si fermò di colpo sulla porta alla vista di uno sconosciuto, fece girare in mano un vecchio cappello perfettamente rotondo senza alcun segno di tesa, e appoggiandosi ora su una gamba e ora sull’altra, cambiandole costantemente, rimase sulla soglia, guardando nel salotto con il ghigno più straordinario che io abbia mai visto. Da quel momento provai un sentimento di gratitudine verso quel ragazzo, perché sentivo che lui era la commedia della vita del bambino.

«Una lunga strada, non è vero, Kit?» disse il vecchietto.

«Ebbene, allora era un bel tratto, padrone», rispose Kit.

‘Naturalmente siete tornati affamati?’

«Allora, sì, mi ritengo piuttosto tale, signore», fu la risposta.

Il ragazzo aveva un modo straordinario di stare in piedi di lato mentre parlava, sporgendo la testa oltre la spalla, come se non potesse trovare la sua voce senza quell’azione accompagnatoria. Penso che avrebbe divertito chiunque ovunque, ma il bambino’s squisita gioia per la sua stranezza, e il sollievo di scoprire che c’era qualcosa con cui associava la allegria in un luogo che sembrava così inadatto a lei, erano davvero irresistibili. Fu anche molto importante che Kit stesso fosse lusingato dalla sensazione che creava, e dopo diversi tentativi di mantenere la sua gravità, scoppiò in una forte risata, e così rimase con la bocca spalancata e gli occhi quasi chiusi, ridendo violentemente.

Il vecchio era di nuovo caduto nella sua precedente astrazione e non si accorgeva di ciò che succedeva intorno a lui, ma notai che quando la risata della bambina finì i suoi occhi luminosi erano offuscati da lacrime, provocate dalla pienezza del cuore con cui aveva accolto il suo strano preferito dopo l’ansia della notte. Quanto a Kit (la cui risata era stata tutto quel tempo di un tipo che ben poco mancava dal trasformarsi in pianto) portò una grande fetta di pane e carne e una boccale di birra in un angolo, e si dedicò a consumarli con grande voracità.

«Ah!», disse il vecchio rivolgendosi a me con un sospiro, come se gli avessi appena parlato in quel momento, «non sai cosa dici quando mi fai presente che non la considero.»

«Non dovete attribuire troppo peso ad un’osservazione basata sulle prime impressioni, mio caro amico», dissi io.

‘No,’ rispose l’uomo anziano pensieroso, ‘no. Vieni qui, Nell.’

La bambina si affrettò ad alzarsi dal suo posto e gli mise un braccio intorno al collo.

«Ti amo, Nell?» disse lui. «Dimmi: ti amo, Nell, o no?»

La bambina rispose solo con le sue carezze e posò la testa sul suo petto.

«Perché piangi?» disse il nonno, stringendola più vicino a sé e guardandomi. «È perché sai che ti amo e non vuoi che io sembri dubitare di questo con la mia domanda? Bene, bene—allora diciamo che ti amo teneramente.»

‘Indeed, indeed you do,’ replied the child with great earnestness, ‘Kit knows you do.’

Kit, who in despatching his bread and meat had been swallowing two-thirds of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a juggler, stopped short in his operations on being thus appealed to, and bawled ‘Nobody isn’t such a fool as to say he doosn’t,’ after which he incapacitated himself for further conversation by taking a most prodigious sandwich at one bite.

‘She is poor now’—said the old man, patting the child’s cheek, ‘but I say again that the time is coming when she shall be rich. It has been a long time coming, but it must come at last; a very long time, but it surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing but waste and riot. When WILL it come to me!’

‘I am very happy as I am, grandfather,’ said the child.

‘Tush, tush!’ returned the old man, ‘thou dost not know—how should’st thou!’ then he muttered again between his teeth, ‘The time must come, I am very sure it must. It will be all the better for coming late’; and then he sighed and fell into his former musing state, and still holding the child between his knees appeared to be insensible to everything around him. By this time it wanted but a few minutes of midnight and I rose to go, which recalled him to himself.

‘One moment, sir,’ he said, ‘Now, Kit—near midnight, boy, and you still here! Get home, get home, and be true to your time in the morning, for there’s work to do. Good night! There, bid him good night, Nell, and let him be gone!’

‘Good night, Kit,’ said the child, her eyes lighting up with merriment and kindness.

‘Good night, Miss Nell,’ returned the boy.

‘And thank this gentleman,’ interposed the old man, ‘but for whose care I might have lost my little girl to-night.’

‘No, no, master,’ said Kit, ‘that won’t do, that won’t.’

‘What do you mean?’ cried the old man.

‘I’d have found her, master,’ said Kit, ‘I’d have found her. I’ll bet that I’d find her if she was above ground, I would, as quick as anybody, master. Ha, ha, ha!’

Once more opening his mouth and shutting his eyes, and laughing like a stentor, Kit gradually backed to the door, and roared himself out.

Free of the room, the boy was not slow in taking his departure; when he had gone, and the child was occupied in clearing the table, the old man said:

‘I haven’t seemed to thank you, sir, for what you have done to-night, but I do thank you humbly and heartily, and so does she, and her thanks are better worth than mine. I should be sorry that you went away, and thought I was unmindful of your goodness, or careless of her—I am not indeed.’

I was sure of that, I said, from what I had seen. ‘But,’ I added, ‘may I ask you a question?’

‘Ay, sir,’ replied the old man, ‘What is it?’

‘This delicate child,’ said I, ‘with so much beauty and intelligence—has she nobody to care for her but you? Has she no other companion or advisor?’

‘No,’ he returned, looking anxiously in my face, ‘no, and she wants no other.’

‘But are you not fearful,’ said I, ‘that you may misunderstand a charge so tender? I am sure you mean well, but are you quite certain that you know how to execute such a trust as this? I am an old man, like you, and I am actuated by an old man’s concern in all that is young and promising. Do you not think that what I have seen of you and this little creature to-night must have an interest not wholly free from pain?’

‘Sir,’ rejoined the old man after a moment’s silence. ‘I have no right to feel hurt at what you say. It is true that in many respects I am the child, and she the grown person—that you have seen already. But waking or sleeping, by night or day, in sickness or health, she is the one object of my care, and if you knew of how much care, you would look on me with different eyes, you would indeed. Ah! It’s a weary life for an old man—a weary, weary life—but there is a great end to gain and that I keep before me.’

Seeing that he was in a state of excitement and impatience, I turned to put on an outer coat which I had thrown off on entering the room, purposing to say no more. I was surprised to see the child standing patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, and in her hand a hat, and stick.

‘Those are not mine, my dear,’ said I.

‘No,’ returned the child, ‘they are grandfather’s.’

‘But he is not going out to-night.’

‘Oh, yes, he is,’ said the child, with a smile.

‘And what becomes of you, my pretty one?’

‘Me! I stay here of course. I always do.’

I looked in astonishment towards the old man, but he was, or feigned to be, busied in the arrangement of his dress. From him I looked back to the slight gentle figure of the child. Alone! In that gloomy place all the long, dreary night.

She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, but cheerfully helped the old man with his cloak, and when he was ready took a candle to light us out. Finding that we did not follow as she expected, she looked back with a smile and waited for us. The old man showed by his face that he plainly understood the cause of my hesitation, but he merely signed to me with an inclination of the head to pass out of the room before him, and remained silent. I had no resource but to comply.

When we reached the door, the child setting down the candle, turned to say good night and raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the old man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.

‘Sleep soundly, Nell,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and angels guard thy bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.’

‘No, indeed,’ answered the child fervently, ‘they make me feel so happy!’

‘That’s well; I know they do; they should,’ said the old man. ‘Bless thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.’

«Sì, sì che lo fate», rispose il bambino con grande serietà, «Kit sa che lo fate.»

Kit, che nel consumare il suo pane e carne aveva inghiottito due terzi del coltello ad ogni boccone con la freddezza di un giocoliere, si fermò bruscamente nelle sue operazioni quando fu così interpellato e gridò: «Nessuno non è così stupido da dire che non lo fa», dopo di che si rese incapace di ulteriori conversazioni prendendo un panino enorme in un solo morso.

«È povera adesso» — disse il vecchio, accarezzando la guancia del bambino, «ma ripeto che sta arrivando il momento in cui sarà ricca. È un momento che tarda da molto tempo a venire, ma alla fine deve pur arrivare; un momento davvero lungo, ma sicuramente arriverà. È arrivato ad altri uomini che non fanno altro che sprecare e vivere nel lusso. Quando ARRIVERÀ per me!»

«Sono molto felice così com’è, nonno», disse il bambino.

«Bah, bah!» rispose il vecchio «tu non sai, come potresti saperlo?», poi borbottò tra i denti: «Il momento deve arrivare, ne sono sicuro. Sarà ancora meglio se arriverà tardi»; e quindi sospirò e ricadde nel suo precedente stato di meditazione, continuando a tenere il bambino tra le ginocchia senza sembrare accorgersi di nulla intorno. A quell’ora mancavano solo pochi minuti alla mezzanotte e io mi alzai per andarmene, il che lo riportò in sé.

«Un momento, signore», disse, «Ora, Kit, quasi mezzanotte, ragazzo, e tu ancora qui! Vai a casa, vai a casa e rispetta il tuo orario domattina, perché c’è del lavoro da fare. Buona notte! Ecco, salutalo con un buon anotte, Nell, e lascia che se ne vada!»

«Buona notte, Kit», disse la bambina, con gli occhi che si illuminavano di allegria e gentilezza.

«Buona notte, signorina Nell», rispose il ragazzo.

«E ringraziate questo signore», intervenne il vecchio, «se non fosse stato per la sua premura, avrei potuto perdere mia figlia questa sera.»

‘No, no, padrone’, disse Kit, ‘questo non va bene, questo no’.

«Cosa intendete dire?» gridò il vecchio.

«L’avrei trovata, padrone», disse Kit, «l’avrei trovata. Scommetto che la troverei se fosse in giro per il mondo, sì, più in fretta di chiunque altro, padrone. Ha, ha, ha!»

Aprì di nuovo la bocca e strizzò gli occhi, ridendo come un Stentore, e Kit si ritirò lentamente verso la porta, urlando fino a uscire.

Uscito dalla stanza, il ragazzo non si fece pregare per andarsene; quando se ne fu andato e la bambina era intenta a sparecchiare, l’anziano disse:

«Non sembra che io le abbia ringraziato, signore, per quello che ha fatto questa sera, ma glielo ringrazio umilmente e con tutto il cuore, e lo fa anche lei, e i suoi ringraziamenti valgono più dei miei. Mi dispiacerebbe se andasse via pensando che io non abbia apprezzato la sua gentilezza, o che sia indifferente nei suoi confronti — in realtà non lo sono».

Ne ero sicuro, dissi, per quello che avevo visto. «Ma», aggiunsi, «posso farle una domanda?»

«Sì, signore», rispose il vecchio, «Cosa c’è?»

«Questa delicata bambina,» dissi io, «con tanta bellezza e intelligenza — non ha nessuno che si prenda cura di lei se non voi? Non ha altri compagni o consiglieri?»

‘No’, rispose lui, guardandomi ansiosamente in faccia, ‘no, e lei non ne vuole altri’.

«Ma non temete», dissi, «di fraintendere un incarico così delicato? Sono certo che avete bene intenzioni, ma siete proprio sicuro di sapere come portare a termine una responsabilità del genere? Anch’io sono un vecchio, come voi, e mi muove la preoccupazione di un vecchio per tutto ciò che è giovane e promettente. Non pensate che quanto ho visto tra voi e questa piccola creatura stasera debba suscitare un interesse non del tutto privo di dolore?»

«Signore», riprese il vecchio dopo un momento di silenzio. «Non ho diritto di offendermi per quello che dice. È vero che in molti aspetti io sono il bambino e lei la persona adulta, come ha già visto. Ma sveglio o addormentato, di notte o giorno, in salute o in malattia, è l’unico oggetto della mia cura, e se sapessi quanto mi preoccupo per lei, mi guarderebbe con occhi diversi, davvero. Ah! È una vita stancante per un vecchio, una vita stancante, ma c’è un grande scopo da raggiungere e lo tengo sempre presente».

Vedendo che era in uno stato di agitazione e impazienza, mi voltai per indossare un soprabito che avevo tolto entrando nella stanza, deciso a non dire altro. Fui sorpreso nel vedere la bambina che stava pazientemente lì accanto con uno scialle sul braccio e in mano un cappello e un bastone.

«Quelle non sono mie, mia cara», dissi io.

«No», rispose il bambino, «sono del nonno».

«Ma lui non esce stasera stasera.»

«Oh, sì, lo è», disse il bambino, con un sorriso.

‘E cosa ne sarà di te, mia bella?’

‘Noi! Certo che ci restiamo. Lo facciamo sempre.’

Guardai con stupore verso il vecchio, ma lui era, o fingeva di essere, impegnato nell’aggiustare i suoi vestiti. Da lui guardai indietro alla snella e gentile figura del bambino. Solo! In quel luogo tetro per tutta la lunga, monotona notte.

Non diede segno di accorgersi della mia sorpresa, ma allegra aiutò il vecchio con la sua giacca e quando fu pronto prese una candela per illuminarci la strada. Vedendo che non la seguivamo come si aspettava, si voltò sorridente ad attenderci. Il vecchio mostrò in volto di aver capito benissimo il motivo della mia esitazione, ma mi fece solo cenno con un inchino del capo di uscire dalla stanza prima di lui e rimase in silenzio. Non avevo altra scelta che obbedire.

Quando raggiungemmo la porta, il bambino posò la candela e si voltò per augurarmi una buona notte, alzando il viso per darmi un bacio. Poi corse dal vecchio che l’abbracciò forte e chiese a Dio di benedirla.

«Dormi tranquilla, Nell», disse con voce bassa, «e che gli angeli veglino sul tuo letto! Non dimenticare le tue preghiere, mia dolce.»

«No, davvero», rispose il bambino con fervore, «mi fanno sentire così felice!»

«È bene; so che lo fanno; dovrebbero», disse il vecchio. «Ti benedico cento volte! Domattina presto sarò a casa.»

‘You’ll not ring twice,’ returned the child. ‘The bell wakes me, even in the middle of a dream.’

With this, they separated. The child opened the door (now guarded by a shutter which I had heard the boy put up before he left the house) and with another farewell whose clear and tender note I have recalled a thousand times, held it until we had passed out. The old man paused a moment while it was gently closed and fastened on the inside, and satisfied that this was done, walked on at a slow pace. At the street-corner he stopped, and regarding me with a troubled countenance said that our ways were widely different and that he must take his leave. I would have spoken, but summoning up more alacrity than might have been expected in one of his appearance, he hurried away. I could see that twice or thrice he looked back as if to ascertain if I were still watching him, or perhaps to assure himself that I was not following at a distance. The obscurity of the night favoured his disappearance, and his figure was soon beyond my sight.

I remained standing on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to depart, and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked wistfully into the street we had lately quitted, and after a time directed my steps that way. I passed and repassed the house, and stopped and listened at the door; all was dark, and silent as the grave.

Yet I lingered about, and could not tear myself away, thinking of all possible harm that might happen to the child—of fires and robberies and even murder—and feeling as if some evil must ensue if I turned my back upon the place. The closing of a door or window in the street brought me before the curiosity-dealer’s once more; I crossed the road and looked up at the house to assure myself that the noise had not come from there. No, it was black, cold, and lifeless as before.

There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and pretty well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by, and now and then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he reeled homewards, but these interruptions were not frequent and soon ceased. The clocks struck one. Still I paced up and down, promising myself that every time should be the last, and breaking faith with myself on some new plea as often as I did so.

The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks and bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I had a strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good purpose. I had only come to know the fact through the innocence of the child, and though the old man was by at the time, and saw my undisguised surprise, he had preserved a strange mystery upon the subject and offered no word of explanation. These reflections naturally recalled again more strongly than before his haggard face, his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks. His affection for the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the worst kind; even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary contradiction, or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not admit the thought, remembering what had passed between us, and the tone of voice in which he had called her by her name.

‘Stay here of course,’ the child had said in answer to my question, ‘I always do!’ What could take him from home by night, and every night! I called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and secret deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a long series of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not find one adapted to this mystery, which only became the more impenetrable, in proportion as I sought to solve it.

Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all tending to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long hours; at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered by fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first, I engaged the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me with its old familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and cheering, and in happy contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted.

But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever before me the old dark murky rooms—the gaunt suits of mail with their ghostly silent air—the faces all awry, grinning from wood and stone—the dust and rust and worm that lives in wood—and alone in the midst of all this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful child in her gentle slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams.

«Non suonerai due volte», rispose il bambino. «La campana mi sveglia anche nel bel mezzo di un sogno.»

Con ciò si separarono. Il bambino aprì la porta (ora protetta da una serranda che avevo sentito il ragazzo abbassare prima di lasciare la casa) e, dopo un altro saluto le cui note chiare e tenere ho ricordato mille volte, la tenne aperta finché non fummo usciti. Il vecchio si fermò un momento mentre veniva chiusa dolcemente e assicurata dall’interno, e una volta soddisfatto che ciò fosse stato fatto, proseguì a passo lento. All’angolo della strada si fermò e, guardandomi con aria turbata, disse che le nostre strade erano molto diverse e che doveva prender commiato. Avrei voluto parlare, ma raccogliendo più alacrità di quanta se ne sarebbe potuta aspettare da uno del suo aspetto, si affrettò ad andarsene. Potevo vedere che due o tre volte guardava indietro come per accertarsi se lo stessi ancora osservando, o forse per assicurarsi che non lo seguissi a distanza. L’oscurità della notte favorì la sua scomparsa e ben presto la sua figura fu oltre il mio sguardo.

Rimasi in piedi nel punto dove mi aveva lasciato, riluttante ad andarmene, eppure senza sapere perché dovessi indugiare lì. Guardai con malinconia nella strada che avevamo appena abbandonato e dopo un po’ di tempo mi incamminai in quella direzione. Passai più volte davanti alla casa, e mi fermai ad ascoltare alla porta; tutto era buio, silenzioso come una tomba.

Eppure continuavo a girare intorno e non riuscivo ad allontanarmi, pensando a tutti i possibili danni che potevano accadere al bambino — incendi, rapine e persino omicidi — e sentendomi come se qualcosa di male dovesse succedere se avessi voltato le spalle al posto. Il rumore della chiusura di una porta o di un finestra in strada mi riportava davanti alla bottega del rigattiere; attraversai la strada e guardai verso l’casa per assicurarmi che il rumore non venisse da lì. No, era buia, fredda e senza vita come prima.

C’erano pochi passeggeri in giro; la strada era triste e squallida, e per lo più bene mia. Qualche ritardatario dei teatri passò di corsa, e di tanto in tanto mi scansavo per evitare qualche ubriaco rumoroso mentre vacillava verso casa, ma queste interruzioni non erano frequenti e presto cessarono. Gli orologi suonarono l’una. Continuai a camminare avanti e indietro, promettendomi che ogni volta sarebbe stata l’ultima, e tradendo la fiducia in me stesso con qualche nuova scusa ogni volta che lo facevo.

Più pensavo a ciò che il vecchio aveva detto e al suo aspetto e comportamento, meno riuscivo a spiegarmi ciò che avevo visto e sentito. Nutrivo un forte sospetto che le sue assenze notturne non avessero uno scopo buono. Avevo appreso il fatto solo grazie all’innocenza del bambino, e sebbene il vecchio fosse presente in quel momento e avesse visto la mia sorpresa evidente, aveva mantenuto un misterioso silenzio sull’argomento senza offrire alcuna spiegazione. Queste riflessioni mi richiamarono naturalmente alla mente il suo volto emaciato, i suoi modi vaganti e lo sguardo inquieto e ansioso più fortemente che mai prima d’allora. Il suo affetto per la bambina non poteva essere incompatibile con una malvagità del peggiore genere; anche quell’affetto stesso era di per sé una straordinaria contraddizione, o come avrebbe potuto lasciarla così? Disposto com’ero a pensare male di lui, non ho mai dubitato che il suo amore per lei fosse reale. Non potevo accettare quel pensiero, ricordando ciò che era passato tra noi e il tono della voce con cui l’aveva chiamata col suo nome.

«Resta qui naturalmente», aveva detto il bambino in risposta alla mia domanda, «lo faccio sempre!» Che cosa poteva portarlo lontano da casa di notte, e ogni notte! Richiamai tutti i racconti strani che avevo mai sentito di fatti oscuri e segreti commessi nelle grandi città ed evitando di essere scoperti per una lunga serie di anni; anche se molti di questi racconti erano assurdi, non riuscivo a trovarne uno adatto a questo mistero, che diventava solo più insondabile, tanto più quanto cercavo di risolverlo.

Immerso in questi pensieri e in molti altri che tendevano tutti verso lo stesso punto, continuai a camminare per la strada per due lunghe ore; alla fine cominciò a piovere forte, e allora, sopraffatto dalla stanchezza ma non meno interessato di quanto fossi stato all’inizio, presi la carrozza più vicina e così tornai a casa. Un allegro fuoco ardeva nel caminetto, la lampada brillava luminosa, il mio orologio mi accolse con il suo vecchio benvenuto familiare; tutto era tranquillo, caldo e confortante, in felice contrasto con l’oscurità e le tenebre che avevo appena lasciato.

Ma per tutta quella notte, sveglio o nel mio sonno, gli stessi pensieri tornavano e le stesse immagini conservavano il possesso del mio cervello. Avevo sempre davanti a me le vecchie stanze buie e torbide, i magri corazzi con la loro aria silenziosa e spettrale, i volti tutti distorti che sogghignavano dal legno e dalla pietra, la polvere e la ruggine e il verme che vive nel legno. E sola in mezzo a tutto questo accumulo di roba vecchia e a questa orribile decadenza, la bella bambina nel suo dolce sonno, sorrideva attraverso i suoi leggeri e soleggiati sogni.

CHAPTER 2

After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early in the morning.

I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious that the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered this irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer’s warehouse.

The old man and another person were together in the back part, and there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my entering, and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a tremulous tone that he was very glad I had come.

‘You interrupted us at a critical moment,’ said he, pointing to the man whom I had found in company with him; ‘this fellow will murder me one of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if he had dared.’

‘Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,’ returned the other, after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; ‘we all know that!’

‘I almost think I could,’ cried the old man, turning feebly upon him. ‘If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.’

‘I know it,’ returned the other. ‘I said so, didn’t I? But neither oaths, or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and mean to live.’

‘And his mother died!’ cried the old man, passionately clasping his hands and looking upward; ‘and this is Heaven’s justice!’

The other stood lounging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty or thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the expression of his face was far from prepossessing, having in common with his manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent air which repelled one.

‘Justice or no justice,’ said the young fellow, ‘here I am and here I shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for assistance to put me out—which you won’t do, I know. I tell you again that I want to see my sister.’

‘YOUR sister!’ said the old man bitterly.

‘Ah! You can’t change the relationship,’ returned the other. ‘If you could, you’d have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and add a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly count. I want to see her; and I will.’

‘Here’s a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here’s a generous spirit to scorn scraped-up shillings!’ cried the old man, turning from him to me. ‘A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only upon those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon society which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,’ he added, in a lower voice as he drew closer to me, ‘who knows how dear she is to me, and seeks to wound me even there, because there is a stranger nearby.’

‘Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,’ said the young fellow catching at the word, ‘nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mine. There’s a friend of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to wait some time, I’ll call him in, with your leave.’

Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street beckoned several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from the air of impatience with which these signals were accompanied, required a great quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At length there sauntered up, on the opposite side of the way—with a bad pretense of passing by accident—a figure conspicuous for its dirty smartness, which after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in resistance of the invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was brought into the shop.

‘There. It’s Dick Swiveller,’ said the young fellow, pushing him in. ‘Sit down, Swiveller.’

‘But is the old min agreeable?’ said Mr Swiveller in an undertone.

Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propitiatory smile, observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and this week was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst standing by the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with a straw in his mouth issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which appearance he augured that another fine week for the ducks was approaching, and that rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore took occasion to apologize for any negligence that might be perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last night he had had ‘the sun very strong in his eyes’; by which expression he was understood to convey to his hearers in the most delicate manner possible, the information that he had been extremely drunk.

‘But what,’ said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, ‘what is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the least happiest of our existence!’

‘You needn’t act the chairman here,’ said his friend, half aside.

‘Fred!’ cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, ‘a word to the wise is sufficient for them—we may be good and happy without riches, Fred. Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only one little whisper, Fred—is the old min friendly?’

CAPITOLO 2

Dopo aver combattuto per quasi una settimana contro il sentimento che mi spingeva a ritornare nel luogo da cui ero partito nelle circostanze già descritte, alla fine cedetti; e deciso di presentarmi questa volta alla luce del giorno, mi incamminai verso quel posto all’alba.

Passai davanti alla casa e feci diversi giri per la strada, con quella sorta di esitazione che è naturale a un uomo consapevole che la visita che sta per fare è inaspettata, e potrebbe non essere molto gradita. Tuttavia, dato che la porta del negozio era chiusa, e sembrava improbabile che mi riconoscessero all’interno se continuavo semplicemente a camminare avanti e indietro davanti ad essa, presto superai questa indecisione e mi ritrovai nel magazzino del commerciante di curiosità.

Il vecchio e un’altra persona erano insieme nella parte posteriore, e sembrava ci fossero state parole alte tra loro, perché le loro voci, che si erano alzate fino a raggiungere un tono molto alto, si interruppero improvvisamente quando entrai; il vecchio venne avanti di corsa verso di me e mi disse con voce tremante che era davvero felice che fossi arrivato.

«Avete interrotto un momento critico», disse lui indicando l’uomo che avevo trovato insieme a lui «questo tizio mi ucciderà prima o poi. L’avrebbe già fatto da tempo se avesse osato».

«Bah! Giurereste che la mia vita non vale nulla, se poteste», replicò l’altro, dopo avermi rivolto uno sguardo e una smorfia di disapprovazione; «lo sappiamo tutti!»

«Penso quasi di poterlo fare», esclamò il vecchio voltandosi debolmente verso di lui. «Se giuramenti o preghiere o parole potessero liberarmi da te, lo farebbero. Mi libererei di te e sarei sollevato se tu fossi morto».

«Lo so», rispose l’altro. «L’ho detto, no? Ma né giuramenti, né preghiere, né parole mi uccideranno, e quindi vivo e intendo vivere».

«E sua madre è morta!» gridò il vecchio, stringendo le mani con passione e guardando in alto: «e questa sarebbe la giustizia del Cielo?»

L’altro era appoggiato con nonchalance, il piede su una sedia, e lo guardava con un ghigno di disprezzo. Era un giovane di ventuno anni o giù di lì; ben fatto e certamente bello, anche se l’espressione del suo volto era tutt’altro che gradevole, avendo in comune con il suo modo di fare e persino con i suoi vestiti un’aria dissipata e insolente che respingeva.

«Giustizia o non giustizia», disse il giovane, «qui sono e qui rimarrò finché non deciderò di andarmene, a meno che tu non chiami aiuto per cacciarmi fuori - cosa che so bene non farai. Ti ripeto che voglio vedere mia sorella».

«VOSTRA sorella!» disse l’anziano amaramente.

«Ah! Non puoi cambiare la relazione», rispose l’altro. «Se potessi, lo avresti fatto da tempo. Voglio vedere mia sorella, che tieni rinchiusa qui, avvelenandole la mente con i tuoi astuti segreti e fingendo un affetto per lei che ti permette di lavorarla fino alla morte, e aggiungere qualche scellino racimolato ogni settimana ai soldi che a malapena riesci a contare. Voglio vederla; e lo farò».

«Ecco un moralista che parla di menti avvelenate! Ecco uno spirito generoso che disprezza i pochi scellini racimolati!» gridò il vecchio, voltandosi da lui verso di me. «Un dissoluto, signore, che ha perso ogni diritto non solo su coloro che hanno la sfortuna di essere del suo sangue, ma sulla società che conosce di lui solo i suoi misfatti. Un bugiardo anche», aggiunse a voce più bassa mentre si avvicinava a me, «che sa quanto lei mi sia cara e cerca di ferirmi proprio lì, perché c’è uno sconosciuto nelle vicinanze.»

«Gli sconosciuti non significano nulla per me, nonno», disse il giovane, afferrando la parola, «né io per loro, spero. Il massimo che possono fare è di badare ai fatti loro e lasciarmi in pace coi miei. Fuori c’è un amico mio ad aspettarmi, e dato che sembra che dovrò aspettare ancora per un po’ di tempo, lo chiamerò dentro, se mi permette».

Detto questo, si avvicinò alla porta e scrutando la strada fece più volte segno a qualcuno che non vedeva, il quale, a giudicare dall’aria di impazienza con cui quei gesti erano accompagnati, aveva bisogno di una grande quantità di persuasione per convincerlo ad avvicinarsi. Alla fine, sul lato opposto della strada, si affacciò - con la scusa poco credibile di passare casualmente da quelle parti - un individuo che spiccava per il suo aspetto trasandato ma appariscente; dopo aver aggrottato più volte le sopracciglia e scosso la testa in segno di rifiuto dell’invito, alla fine attraversò la strada ed entrò nel negozio.

«Ecco fatto. È Dick Swiveller», disse il giovane spingendolo dentro. «Siediti, Swiveller».

«Ma è simpatico il vecchio?» disse sottovoce il signor Swiveller.

Il signor Swiveller acconsentì e guardandosi intorno con un sorriso propiziatorio, osservò che la scorsa settimana era stata una bella settimana per le anatre, mentre questa era una bella settimana per la polvere; osservò inoltre che stando appoggiato al palo all’angolo della strada, aveva visto un maiale con uno stelo di paglia in bocca uscire dal tabaccaio, da cui dedusse che si avvicinava un’altra bella settimana per le anatre e che sarebbe sicuramente piovuto. Si scusò anche per qualsiasi negligenza fosse stata notata nel suo abbigliamento, sostenendo che la scorsa notte aveva avuto “il sole molto forte negli occhi”; con questa espressione fece capire ai suoi ascoltatori, nel modo più delicato possibile, di essere stato estremamente ubriaco.

«Ma che importa», disse il signor Swiveller con un sospiro, «che importa finché il fuoco del cuore è acceso dalla fiamma della convivialità e l’ala dell’amicizia non perde mai una piuma! Che importa finché lo spirito si dilata grazie al vino rosato e il momento presente è il meno felice della nostra esistenza!»

«Non c’è bisogno che tu faccia il presidente qui», disse l’amico a mezza voce.

«Fred!» esclamò il signor Swiveller, battendosi sul naso «una parola al saggio è sufficiente — possiamo essere buoni e felici senza ricchezze, Fred. Non dire un’altra sillaba. Conosco la mia parte; intelligente è la parola. Solo un piccolo sussurro, Fred: l’anziano signore è amichevole?»

‘Never you mind,’ replied his friend.

‘Right again, quite right,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘caution is the word, and caution is the act.’ with that, he winked as if in preservation of some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity.

It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had already passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the effects of the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if no such suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair, dull eyes, and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses against him. His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable for the nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front and only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his dirty wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously folded back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a ring on its little finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these personal advantages (to which may be added a strong savour of tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of appearance) Mr Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.

The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands, looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion, as if he were utterly powerless and had no resource but to leave them to do as they pleased. The young man reclined against a table at no great distance from his friend, in apparent indifference to everything that had passed; and I—who felt the difficulty of any interference, notwithstanding that the old man had appealed to me, both by words and looks—made the best feint I could of being occupied in examining some of the goods that were disposed for sale, and paying very little attention to a person before me.

The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after favouring us with several melodious assurances that his heart was in the Highlands, and that he wanted but his Arab steed as a preliminary to the achievement of great feats of valour and loyalty, removed his eyes from the ceiling and subsided into prose again.

‘Fred,’ said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before, ‘is the old min friendly?’

‘What does it matter?’ returned his friend peevishly.

‘No, but IS he?’ said Dick.

‘Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?’

Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our attention.

He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded to observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and that the young gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their heads possessing this remarkable property; when he concluded that if the Royal Society would turn their attention to the circumstance, and endeavour to find in the resources of science a means of preventing such untoward revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as benefactors to mankind. These opinions being equally incontrovertible with those he had already pronounced, he went on to inform us that Jamaica rum, though unquestionably an agreeable spirit of great richness and flavour, had the drawback of remaining constantly present to the taste next day; and nobody being venturous enough to argue this point either, he increased in confidence and became yet more companionable and communicative.

‘It’s a devil of a thing, gentlemen,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘when relations fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never moult a feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but be always expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and grandfather peg away at each other with mutual wiolence when all might be bliss and concord. Why not jine hands and forgit it?’

‘Hold your tongue,’ said his friend.

‘Sir,’ replied Mr Swiveller, ‘don’t you interrupt the chair. Gentlemen, how does the case stand, upon the present occasion? Here is a jolly old grandfather—I say it with the utmost respect—and here is a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the wild young grandson, “I have brought you up and educated you, Fred; I have put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted a little out of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never have another chance, nor the ghost of half a one.” The wild young grandson makes answer to this and says, “You’re as rich as rich can be; you have been at no uncommon expense on my account, you’re saving up piles of money for my little sister that lives with you in a secret, stealthy, hugger-muggering kind of way and with no manner of enjoyment—why can’t you stand a trifle for your grown-up relation?” The jolly old grandfather unto this, retorts, not only that he declines to fork out with that cheerful readiness which is always so agreeable and pleasant in a gentleman of his time of life, but that he will bow up, and call names, and make reflections whenever they meet. Then the plain question is, an’t it a pity that this state of things should continue, and how much better would it be for the gentleman to hand over a reasonable amount of tin, and make it all right and comfortable?’

Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes of the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into his mouth as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his speech by adding one other word.

‘Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!’ said the old man turning to his grandson. ‘Why do you bring your prolifigate companions here? How often am I to tell you that my life is one of care and self-denial, and that I am poor?’

‘How often am I to tell you,’ returned the other, looking coldly at him, ‘that I know better?’

‘You have chosen your own path,’ said the old man. ‘Follow it. Leave Nell and me to toil and work.’

‘Nell will be a woman soon,’ returned the other, ‘and, bred in your faith, she’ll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.’

‘Take care,’ said the old man with sparkling eyes, ‘that she does not forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that the day don’t come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she rides by in a gay carriage of her own.’

‘You mean when she has your money?’ retorted the other. ‘How like a poor man he talks!’

‘And yet,’ said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one who thinks aloud, ‘how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause is a young child’s guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes well with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!’

These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the young men. Mr Swiveller appeared to think that they implied some mental struggle consequent upon the powerful effect of his address, for he poked his friend with his cane and whispered his conviction that he had administered ‘a clincher,’ and that he expected a commission on the profits. Discovering his mistake after a while, he appeared to grow rather sleepy and discontented, and had more than once suggested the propriety of an immediate departure, when the door opened, and the child herself appeared.

«Non ti preoccupare», rispose il suo amico.

«Esatto di nuovo, proprio esatto», disse il signor Swiveller, «la cautela è la parola e la cautela è l’azione». Detto ciò, ammiccò come se volesse preservare un profondo segreto, incrociò le braccia e si appoggiò all’indietro sulla sedia, guardando il soffitto con profonda gravità.

Forse non era del tutto irragionevole sospettare, da quanto era già accaduto, che il signor Swiveller non fosse ancora completamente ristabilito dagli effetti della potente luce solare a cui aveva fatto cenno; ma se tale sospetto non fosse stato destato dalle sue parole, i suoi capelli rigidi, gli occhi spenti e il viso giallastro sarebbero comunque stati forti testimoni contro di lui. Il suo abbigliamento non era, come aveva lui stesso accennato, notevole per la cura nei dettagli, ma si trovava in uno stato di disordine che induceva fortemente all’idea che vi fosse andato a letto con indosso. Consisteva in un corpo-vestito marrone con molti bottoni di ottone davanti e solo uno dietro, una cravatta a quadri brillante, un gilet a quadri, pantaloni bianchi sporchi e un cappello molto stropicciato, indossato al contrario per nascondere un buco sul bordo. Il petto del suo vestito era ornato con una tasca esterna da cui spuntava l’estremità più pulita di un fazzoletto molto grande e poco attraente; i suoi polsini sporchi erano tirati il più possibile e ostentatamente ripiegati sopra i polsini della giacca; non indossava guanti, e portava con sé un bastone giallo che in cima aveva una mano di osso con l’apparenza di un anello sul mignolo e una palla nera nella sua presa. Con tutti questi vantaggi personali (ai quali si può aggiungere un forte odore di fumo di tabacco e una prevalente untuosità dell’aspetto) il signor Swiveller si appoggiò all’indietro sulla sedia con gli occhi fissi al soffitto, e occasionalmente modulando la voce alla chiave necessaria, intrattenne la compagnia con alcuni accordi di un’aria intensamente tetra, per poi, a metà di una nota, ricadere nel suo precedente silenzio.

Il vecchio si sedette su una sedia e con le mani giunte guardava ora il nipote e ora lo strano compagno di lui come se fosse del tutto impotente e non avesse altra risorsa che lasciarli fare quello che volevano. Il giovane era appoggiato a un tavolo, non molto lontano dal suo amico, in apparente indifferenza per tutto ciò che era accaduto; ed io - che sentivo la difficoltà di intervenire, nonostante il vecchio mi avesse fatto appello sia con le parole che con lo sguardo - feci del mio meglio per fingere di essere occupato a esaminare alcuni dei beni messi in vendita e prestai poca attenzione alla persona davanti a me.

Il silenzio non durò a lungo, perché il signor Swiveller, dopo averci concesso diverse assicurazioni melodiose che il suo cuore era nelle Highlands e che gli mancava solo il suo destriero arabo come preliminare per compiere grandi imprese di valore e lealtà, distolse lo sguardo dal soffitto e tornò alla prosa.

«Fred», disse il signor Swiveller fermandosi di colpo, come se l’idea gli fosse venuta all’improvviso e parlando con lo stesso sussurro udibile di prima, «è amichevole la vecchia min?»

«Che importa?» rispose il suo amico con irritazione.

«No, ma lo è?» disse Dick.

‘Sì, certo. Che m’importa se lo è o no?’

Incoraggiato da questa risposta ad avviare una conversazione più generale, il signor Swiveller si impegnò palesemente per catturare la nostra attenzione.

Cominciò osservando che l’acqua gassata, sebbene una cosa buona in astratto, aveva la tendenza a giacere fredda nello stomaco a meno di non essere arricchita con zenzero o un po’ di brandy, quest’ultimo da lui ritenuto preferibile in tutti i casi, salvo per l’unica considerazione del prezzo. Nessuno osando contestare tali posizioni, proseguì osservando che i capelli umani trattengono molto il fumo di tabacco e che i giovani gentiluomini di Westminster ed Eton, dopo aver mangiato enormi quantità di mele per nascondere ogni traccia di sigari ai loro amici ansiosi, venivano solitamente scoperti a causa della proprietà notevole dei loro capelli; e concluse che se la Royal Society avesse rivolto la sua attenzione al fenomeno e cercato nei mezzi della scienza un modo per prevenire tali spiacevoli rivelazioni, si sarebbero potuti considerare veri benefattori dell’umanità. Queste opinioni essendo altrettanto indiscutibili di quelle già espresse, continuò a informarci che il rum delle Giamaica, sebbene incontestabilmente un liquore piacevole e ricco di sapore, aveva lo svantaggio di rimanere costantemente presente al gusto il giorno dopo; e nessuno essendo abbastanza audace da contestare questo punto, egli aumentò in sicurezza e divenne ancora più amichevole e comunicativo.

«È una cosa del diavolo, signori», disse il signor Swiveller, «quando i parenti litigano e non vanno d’accordo. Se l’ala dell’amicizia non dovesse mai perdere una piuma, l’ala della parentela non dovrebbe mai essere tagliata, ma sempre spiegata e serena. Perché un nipote e un nonno dovrebbero attaccarsi a vicenda con violenza reciproca quando tutto potrebbe essere felicità e concordia? Perché non unire le mani e dimenticare tutto?»

«Tieni a freno la lingua», disse il suo amico.

«Signore», rispose il signor Swiveller, «non interrompete la sedia. Signori, come si presenta il caso in questa occasione? Ecco un allegra vecchio nonno — lo dico con il massimo rispetto — ed ecco un giovane nipote selvaggio. L’allegra vecchio nonno dice al giovane nipote selvaggio: «Ti ho cresciuto e istruito, Fred; ti ho messo sulla strada per avere successo nella vita; sei scappato un po’ di casa, come spesso fanno i giovani; e non avrai mai più un’altra possibilità, né l’ombra di mezza». Il giovane nipote selvaggio risponde a questo dicendo: «Sei ricco sfondato; non hai fatto spese straordinarie per il mio conto, stai mettendo da parte mucchi di soldi per mia sorella che vive con te in un modo segreto, furtivo e misterioso senza alcun tipo di godimento — perché non puoi spendere qualcosa per tuo nipote cresciuto?» L’allegra vecchio nonno a questo ribatte, non solo che rifiuta di sborsare con quella prontezza allegra che è sempre così piacevole e gradita in un gentiluomo della sua età, ma che si arrabbierà, insulterà e farà riflessioni ogni volta che si incontreranno. Allora la domanda chiara è: non è forse un peccato che questa situazione continui, e quanto sarebbe meglio per il gentiluomo consegnare una ragionevole quantità di soldi, e sistemare tutto in modo confortevole?»

Dopo aver pronunciato questo discorso con molti gesti e movimenti della mano, il signor Swiveller si infilò bruscamente la testa del bastone in bocca, come per impedirsi di compromettere l’effetto del suo discorso aggiungendo un’altra parola.

«Perché mi perseguiti e mi tormenti, Dio mi aiuti!» disse il vecchio, rivolgendosi al nipote. «Perché porti qui i tuoi compagni dissoluti? Quante volte devo dirti che la mia vita è fatta di cure e auto-negazione, e che sono povero?»

«Quante volte devo ripetervelo», rispose l’altro guardandolo con freddezza, «che lo so meglio io?»

«Avete scelto la vostra strada», disse il vecchio, «seguetela. Lasciate Nell e me a faticare e lavorare».

«Nell sarà presto una donna», rispose l’altro, «e, cresciuta nella tua fede, dimenticherà suo fratello a meno che lui non si faccia vedere di tanto in tanto.»

«Fate attenzione», disse il vecchio con gli occhi scintillanti, «che lei non vi dimentichi quando vorreste che la memoria fosse più vivida. Fate attenzione che non arrivi il giorno in cui camminerete scalzo per le strade e lei passerà accanto a voi su una carrozza allegra tutta sua».

“Vuoi dire quando avrà i tuoi soldi?” ribatté l’altro. “Parla proprio come un povero!”

«Eppure», disse il vecchio abbassando la voce e parlando come se pensasse ad alta voce, «come siamo poveri, e che vita è questa! La causa è un giovane bambino innocente di ogni danno o torto, ma nulla va bene per lui! Speranza e pazienza, speranza e pazienza!»

Queste parole furono pronunciate in un tono troppo basso per raggiungere le orecchie dei giovani. Il signor Swiveller sembrò pensare che implicassero una qualche lotta interiore conseguente all’effetto potente del suo discorso, perché spinse il suo amico con il bastone e gli sussurrò la sua convinzione di aver inflitto “un colpo decisivo” e che si aspettava una commissione sui profitti. Scoprendo il proprio errore dopo un po’, sembrò diventare piuttosto sonnolento e malcontento, e più di una volta aveva suggerito la convenienza di una partenza immediata, quando la porta si aprì e apparve la bambina stessa.

CHAPTER 3

The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably hard features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his mouth and chin, bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and his complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or wholesome. But what added most to the grotesque expression of his face was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of habit and to have no connection with any mirthful or complacent feeling, constantly revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet scattered in his mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. His dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair of capacious shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief sufficiently limp and crumpled to disclose the greater portion of his wiry throat. Such hair as he had was of a grizzled black, cut short and straight upon his temples, and hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands, which were of a rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his fingernails were crooked, long, and yellow.

There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some moments elapsed before any one broke silence. The child advanced timidly towards her brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we may call him so) glanced keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer, who plainly had not expected his uncouth visitor, seemed disconcerted and embarrassed.

‘Ah!’ said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes had been surveying the young man attentively, ‘that should be your grandson, neighbour!’

‘Say rather that he should not be,’ replied the old man. ‘But he is.’

‘And that?’ said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.

‘Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,’ said the old man.

‘And that?’ inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight at me.

‘A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night when she lost her way, coming from your house.’

The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and bent his head to listen.

‘Well, Nelly,’ said the young fellow aloud. ‘Do they teach you to hate me, eh?’

‘No, no. For shame. Oh, no!’ cried the child.

‘To love me, perhaps?’ pursued her brother with a sneer.

‘To do neither,’ she returned. ‘They never speak to me about you. Indeed they never do.’

‘I dare be bound for that,’ he said, darting a bitter look at the grandfather. ‘I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!’

‘But I love you dearly, Fred,’ said the child.

‘No doubt!’

‘I do indeed, and always will,’ the child repeated with great emotion, ‘but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy, then I could love you more.’

‘I see!’ said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child, and having kissed her, pushed her from him: ‘There—get you away now you have said your lesson. You needn’t whimper. We part good friends enough, if that’s the matter.’

He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained her little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf, said abruptly,

‘Harkee, Mr—’

‘Meaning me?’ returned the dwarf. ‘Quilp is my name. You might remember. It’s not a long one—Daniel Quilp.’

‘Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,’ pursued the other, ‘You have some influence with my grandfather there.’

‘Some,’ said Mr Quilp emphatically.

‘And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.’

‘A few,’ replied Quilp, with equal dryness.

‘Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and dreaded as if I brought the plague? He’ll tell you that I have no natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake, than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of coming to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see her when I please. That’s my point. I came here to-day to maintain it, and I’ll come here again fifty times with the same object and always with the same success. I said I would stop till I had gained it. I have done so, and now my visit’s ended. Come Dick.’

‘Stop!’ cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the door. ‘Sir!’

‘Sir, I am your humble servant,’ said Mr Quilp, to whom the monosyllable was addressed.

‘Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light, sir,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘I will with your permission, attempt a slight remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old min was friendly.’

‘Proceed, sir,’ said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden stop.

‘Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling as a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the sort of thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social harmony of the contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a course which is THE course to be adopted to the present occasion. Will you allow me to whisper half a syllable, sir?’

Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped up to the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to get at his ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all present,

‘The watch-word to the old min is—fork.’

‘Is what?’ demanded Quilp.

‘Is fork, sir, fork,’ replied Mr Swiveller slapping his pocket. ‘You are awake, sir?’

CAPITOLO 3

Il bambino era seguito da vicino da un anziano signore di tratti notevolmente duri e aspetto minaccioso, così basso di statura da essere quasi un nano, sebbene la sua testa e il suo viso fossero abbastanza grandi per il corpo di un gigante. I suoi occhi neri erano irrequieti, furbetti e astuti; la bocca e il mento erano ricoperti dalla barba ispida di una barba grossolana e dura; e il suo colorito era di quel tipo che non sembra mai pulito o sano. Ma ciò che aggiungeva maggiormente all’espressione grottesca del suo volto era un sorriso spettrale, che, sembrando essere il mero risultato dell’abitudine e senza alcun collegamento con sentimenti allegri o compiacenti, rivelava costantemente i pochi denti ingialliti ancora sparsi nella sua bocca, dandogli l’aspetto di un cane ansimante. Il suo abbigliamento consisteva in un grande cappello a tesa larga, un vestito scuro consumato, un paio di scarpe capienti e una cravatta bianca sporca sufficientemente molle e sgualcita da rivelare la maggior parte della sua gola irsuta. I suoi capelli, che erano di un nero grigiastro, tagliati corti e dritti sulle tempie, pendevano in una frangia disordinata intorno alle orecchie. Le sue mani, di grana grossolana e ruvida, erano molto sporche; le unghie erano incurvate, lunghe e gialle.

C’era tutto il tempo per osservare questi particolari, perché oltre al fatto che erano sufficientemente evidenti senza un’esplorazione molto attenta, passarono alcuni istanti prima che qualcuno rompesse il silenzio. La bambina si avvicinò timidamente a suo fratello e gli mise la mano nella sua, il nanerottolo (se possiamo chiamarlo così) lanciò uno sguardo acuto a tutti i presenti, e il mercante di curiosità, che chiaramente non si aspettava quel suo strano visitatore, sembrava disorientato ed imbarazzato.

«Ah!» disse il nanerottolo, che con la mano tesa sopra gli occhi aveva osservato attentamente il giovane uomo «questo dovrebbe essere tuo nipote, vicino!»

“Piuttosto dire che non dovrebbe essere”, rispose il vecchio uomo. “Ma lo è.”

«E quello?» disse il nanerottolo, indicando Dick Swiveller.

«Un suo amico, qui benvenuto quanto lui», disse il vecchio.

«E quello?» chiese il nanerottolo, girandosi e puntando dritto su di me.

«Un gentiluomo che ha avuto la bontà di riportare a casa Nell l’altra notte, quando si è persa tornando dalla tua casa».

Il piccolo uomo si rivolse alla ragazza come se volesse rimproverarla o esprimere la sua meraviglia, ma poiché lei stava parlando con il giovane, tacque e chinò la testa per ascoltare.

«Bene, Nelly», disse il giovane ad alta voce. «Vi insegnano a odiarmi, eh?»

«No, no! Che vergogna! Oh, no!» gridò il bambino.

«Per amarmi, forse?» proseguì suo fratello con un ghigno.

‘Non fare né l’uno né l’altro’, rispose lei. ‘Non mi parlano mai di te, infatti non lo fanno.’

«Mi prendo la responsabilità di dirlo», disse lanciando uno sguardo amaro al nonno. «Mi prendo la responsabilità di dirlo, Nell. Ah! Ci credo che lo pensiate!»

«Ma ti amo molto, Fred», disse il bambino.

«Nessun dubbio!»

«Lo faccio davvero e lo farò sempre», ripeté il bambino con grande emozione, «ma oh! Se smettessi di tormentarlo e renderlo infelice, allora potrei amarti ancora di più.»

«Capisco!» disse il giovane mentre si chinava con nonchalance sulla bambina, e dopo averla baciata la spinse via: «Ecco, ora vattene, hai detto la tua lezione. Non c’è bisogno di piagnucolare. Ci separiamo come buoni amici, se questo è il problema».

Rimase in silenzio, seguendola con gli occhi finché non raggiunse la sua piccola stanza e chiuse la porta; poi si rivolse al nanerottolo dicendo bruscamente:

‘Ascolti, signor, ’

«Vuoi dire me?» rispose il nanerottolo. «Quilp è il mio nome. Potresti ricordartelo. Non è molto lungo: Daniel Quilp.»

«Ebbene, signor Quilp», proseguì l’altro, «lei ha un certo ascendente su mio nonno.»

«Alcuni», disse il signor Quilp con enfasi.

«E sono coinvolti in alcuni dei suoi misteri e segreti.»

«Qualcuno», rispose Quilp con uguale secchezza.

«Allora lasciate che gli dica una volta per tutte, attraverso di voi, che entrerò e uscirò da questo posto tutte le volte che vorrò, finché terrà Nell qui; e se vuole liberarsi di me, dovrà prima liberarsi di lei. Cosa ho fatto per essere trasformato in un mostro, e per essere evitato e temuto come se portassi la peste? Mi dirà che non ho affetto naturale; e che non mi importa più di Nell, per il suo bene, di quanto ne importi a lui. Che lo dica pure. Allora mi interessa l’idea di venire e andare e ricordarle della mia esistenza. LA VEDRÒ quando vorrò. Questo è il mio punto. Sono venuto qui oggi per sostenerlo, e tornerò cinquanta volte con lo stesso obiettivo e sempre con lo stesso successo. Ho detto che sarei rimasto finché non l’avessi ottenuto. L’ho fatto, e ora la mia visita è finita. Vieni Dick».

“Fermati!” gridò il signor Swiveller mentre il suo compagno si voltava verso la porta. “Signore!”

«Signore, sono il vostro umile servitore», disse il signor Quilp a cui era stato rivolto il monosillabo.

«Prima di lasciare questa scena allegra e festosa, e queste sale di luce abbagliante, signore», disse il signor Swiveller, «con il suo permesso vorrei fare una breve osservazione. Sono venuto qui oggi, signore, con la convinzione che il vecchio min fosse amichevole».

«Continui, signore», disse Daniel Quilp; perché l’oratore si era fermato di colpo.

«Ispirato da questa idea e dai sentimenti che ha suscitato, signore, e sentendo come un amico comune che il tormentare, l’infierire e lo strapazzare non fossero cose adatte ad ampliare le anime e a promuovere l’armonia sociale delle parti contendenti, mi sono preso la libertà di suggerire una linea d’azione che è LA linea da seguire in questa occasione. Mi permette di sussurrarle mezzo sillaba, signore?»

Senza aspettare il permesso che cercava, il signor Swiveller si avvicinò al nanerottolo e, appoggiandosi alla sua spalla e chinandosi per raggiungere l’orecchio, disse con una voce perfettamente udibile a tutti i presenti:

‘La parola d’ordine per il vecchio è, forchetta.’

«Cosa?» chiese Quilp.

‘È forchetta, signore, forchetta’, rispose il signor Swiveller battendosi la tasca. ‘Siete sveglio, signore?’

The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise, then drew a little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these means he in time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to attract the dwarf’s attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in dumb show, the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy. Having performed the serious pantomime that was necessary for the due conveyance of these idea, he cast himself upon his friend’s track, and vanished.

‘Humph!’ said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his shoulders, ‘so much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge none! Nor need you either,’ he added, turning to the old man, ‘if you were not as weak as a reed, and nearly as senseless.’

‘What would you have me do?’ he retorted in a kind of helpless desperation. ‘It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?’

‘What would I do if I was in your case?’ said the dwarf.

‘Something violent, no doubt.’

‘You’re right there,’ returned the little man, highly gratified by the compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a devil as he rubbed his dirty hands together. ‘Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty Mrs Quilp, obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me—I have left her all alone, and she will be anxious and know not a moment’s peace till I return. I know she’s always in that condition when I’m away, thought she doesn’t dare to say so, unless I lead her on and tell her she may speak freely and I won’t be angry with her. Oh! well-trained Mrs Quilp.’

The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and little body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round again—with something fantastic even in his manner of performing this slight action—and, dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp might have copied and appropriated to himself.

‘Here,’ he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the old man as he spoke; ‘I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as, being in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in her bag. She need be accustomed to such loads betimes though, neighbor, for she will carry weight when you are dead.’

‘Heaven send she may! I hope so,’ said the old man with something like a groan.

‘Hope so!’ echoed the dwarf, approaching close to his ear; ‘neighbour, I would I knew in what good investment all these supplies are sunk. But you are a deep man, and keep your secret close.’

‘My secret!’ said the other with a haggard look. ‘Yes, you’re right—I—I—keep it close—very close.’

He said no more, but taking the money turned away with a slow, uncertain step, and pressed his hand upon his head like a weary and dejected man. The dwarf watched him sharply, while he passed into the little sitting-room and locked it in an iron safe above the chimney-piece; and after musing for a short space, prepared to take his leave, observing that unless he made good haste, Mrs Quilp would certainly be in fits on his return.

‘And so, neighbour,’ he added, ‘I’ll turn my face homewards, leaving my love for Nelly and hoping she may never lose her way again, though her doing so HAS procured me an honour I didn’t expect.’ With that he bowed and leered at me, and with a keen glance around which seemed to comprehend every object within his range of vision, however, small or trivial, went his way.

I had several times essayed to go myself, but the old man had always opposed it and entreated me to remain. As he renewed his entreaties on our being left along, and adverted with many thanks to the former occasion of our being together, I willingly yielded to his persuasions, and sat down, pretending to examine some curious miniatures and a few old medals which he placed before me. It needed no great pressing to induce me to stay, for if my curiosity has been excited on the occasion of my first visit, it certainly was not diminished now.

Nell joined us before long, and bringing some needle-work to the table, sat by the old man’s side. It was pleasant to observe the fresh flowers in the room, the pet bird with a green bough shading his little cage, the breath of freshness and youth which seemed to rustle through the old dull house and hover round the child. It was curious, but not so pleasant, to turn from the beauty and grace of the girl, to the stooping figure, care-worn face, and jaded aspect of the old man. As he grew weaker and more feeble, what would become of this lonely little creature; poor protector as he was, say that he died—what would be her fate, then?

The old man almost answered my thoughts, as he laid his hand on hers, and spoke aloud.

‘I’ll be of better cheer, Nell,’ he said; ‘there must be good fortune in store for thee—I do not ask it for myself, but thee. Such miseries must fall on thy innocent head without it, that I cannot believe but that, being tempted, it will come at last!’

She looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer.

‘When I think,’ said he, ‘of the many years—many in thy short life—that thou has lived with me; of my monotonous existence, knowing no companions of thy own age nor any childish pleasures; of the solitude in which thou has grown to be what thou art, and in which thou hast lived apart from nearly all thy kind but one old man; I sometimes fear I have dealt hardly by thee, Nell.’

‘Grandfather!’ cried the child in unfeigned surprise.

‘Not in intention—no no,’ said he. ‘I have ever looked forward to the time that should enable thee to mix among the gayest and prettiest, and take thy station with the best. But I still look forward, Nell, I still look forward, and if I should be forced to leave thee, meanwhile, how have I fitted thee for struggles with the world? The poor bird yonder is as well qualified to encounter it, and be turned adrift upon its mercies—Hark! I hear Kit outside. Go to him, Nell, go to him.’

Il nanerottolo annuì. Il signor Swiveller si ritrasse e fece altrettanto con un cenno del capo, poi indietreggiò ancora di più e annuì nuovamente, e così via. Con questo sistema alla fine raggiunse la porta, dove emise una gran tosse per attirare l’attenzione del nanerottolo e avere modo di esprimere con il linguaggio dei gesti la più stretta confidenza e il segreto più inviolabile. Dopo aver recitato la grave pantomima necessaria a trasmettere adeguatamente queste idee, si mise sulle tracce del suo amico e scomparve.

«Humph!» disse il nanerottolo con uno sguardo torvo e stringendosi nelle spalle, «questo è ciò che si può dire dei cari parenti. Grazie a Dio io non ne riconosco nessuno! E nemmeno tu dovresti,» aggiunse rivolgendosi al vecchio «se non fossi debole come un giunco e quasi senza senno».

«Che cosa vorreste che facessi?» ribatté con una specie di disperazione impotente. «È facile parlare e schernire. Che cosa vorreste che facessi?»

«Cosa farei se fossi nel tuo caso?» disse il nanerottolo.

«Qualcosa di violento, senza alcun dubbio.»

«Avete ragione», rispose il piccoletto, molto compiaciuto del complimento, che evidentemente considerava tale; e sogghignò come un diavolo strofinandosi le mani sporche. «Chiedetelo alla signora Quilp, la graziosa signora Quilp, l’obbediente, timida, amorevole signora Quilp. Ma questo mi ricorda che l’ho lasciata tutta sola, e sarà in ansia e non conoscerà un momento di pace finché non tornerò. So che è sempre così quando sono via, anche se non osa dirlo, a meno che io non la incoraggi e le dica che può parlare liberamente e che non mi arrabbierò con lei. Oh! La signora Quilp è bene addestrata».

La creatura appariva veramente orribile con la sua testa mostruosa e il piccolo corpo, mentre si strofinava lentamente le mani, una volta dopo l’altra — con qualcosa di fantastico anche nel modo in cui compiva questa semplice azione — e, abbassando le sopracciglia pelose e alzando il mento verso l’alto, lanciò uno sguardo furtivo pieno di esultanza che un diavoletto avrebbe potuto copiare e appropriarsi.

«Ecco», disse mettendo la mano nel petto e avvicinandosi di soppiatto al vecchio mentre parlava; «l’ho portato io stesso per paura degli incidenti, dato che, essendo d’oro, era qualcosa di grande e pesante da far trasportare a Nell nella sua borsa. Dovrà abituarsi presto a carichi del genere però, vicino, perché ne porterà molti quando lei sarà morto».

«Dio voglia che lo faccia! Io spero di sì», disse il vecchio con qualcosa di simile a un gemito.

«Spero proprio di sì!» fece eco il nanerottolo, avvicinandosi al suo orecchio; «buon vicino, mi piacerebbe sapere in quale buon investimento vengono impiegate tutte queste provviste. Ma lei è un uomo profondo e tiene ben custodito il suo segreto».

«Il mio segreto!» disse l’altro con uno sguardo smunto «Sì, avete ragione, io, lo custodisco gelosamente, molto gelosamente.»

Non disse altro, ma prendendo i soldi si allontanò con un passo lento e incerto, e si premette la mano sulla testa come un uomo stanco e abbattuto. Il nanerottolo lo osservò attentamente mentre entrava nel piccolo salotto e chiudeva tutto in una cassaforte di ferro sopra il caminetto; dopo aver riflettuto per qualche istante, si preparò ad andarsene, dicendo che se non avesse fatto presto, la signora Quilp sarebbe certamente svenuta al suo ritorno.

«E così, vicino», aggiunse, «mi volgerò verso casa, lasciando il mio amore per Nelly e sperando che non si perderà mai più, anche se ciò mi ha procurato un onore inaspettato.» Detto questo, fece un inchino e mi lanciò uno sguardo malizioso; poi, dopo aver scrutato tutto intorno con occhi acuti che sembravano cogliere ogni oggetto nel loro campo visivo, per quanto piccolo o insignificante, se ne andò.

Avevo tentato più volte di recarmici io stesso, ma il vecchio si era sempre opposto e mi aveva pregato di rimanere. Poiché rinnovò le sue preghiere quando ci trovammo soli e ricordò con molte grazie la precedente occasione in cui eravamo stati insieme, cedetti volentieri alle sue insistenze e mi sedetti fingendo di esaminare alcune curiose miniature e poche vecchie medaglie che aveva messo davanti a me. Non era necessario insistere molto per convincermi a rimanere, perché se la mia curiosità era stata stimolata in occasione della mia prima visita, certamente non si era affatto ridotta ora.

Nell si unì a noi poco dopo e, portando del lavoro all’uncinetto al tavolo, si sedette accanto al vecchio. Era piacevole osservare i freschi fiori nella stanza, l’uccello domestico con un ramo verde che ombreggiava la sua piccola gabbia, il respiro di freschezza e giovinezza che sembrava frusciare attraverso la vecchia opaca casa e aleggiare attorno al bambino. Era curioso, ma non così piacevole, passare dalla bellezza e grazia della ragazza alla figura curva, il volto segnato dalle preoccupazioni e l’aspetto stanco del vecchio. Man mano che diventava più debole e fragile, cosa sarebbe successo a questa piccola creatura solitaria; povero protettore com’era, diciamo che morì: qual sarebbe stato il suo destino?

Il vecchio quasi rispose ai miei pensieri mentre posava la mano sulla sua e parlava ad alta voce.

«Sarò più allegro, Nell», disse; «deve esserci una buona sorte in serbo per te—non la chiedo per me stesso, ma per te. Tali miserie cadranno sulla tua testa innocente senza di essa, che non posso credere se non che, essendo tentata, alla fine arriverà!»

Gli guardò il viso con aria allegra, ma non rispose.

«Quando penso», disse lui, «agli anni tanti - tanti nella tua breve vita - che hai vissuto con me; alla mia esistenza monotona, che non ha mai conosciuto compagni della tua età né piaceri infantili; alla solitudine in cui sei cresciuta fino a diventare quella che sei e in cui hai vissuto lontana da quasi tutti i tuoi simili tranne un vecchio uomo, talvolta ho paura di aver agito duramente con te, Nell.»

«Nonno!» esclamò il bambino con sincera sorpresa.

«Non intenzionalmente — no, no», disse lui. «Ho sempre desiderato che arrivasse il momento in cui tu potessi mescolarti tra i più gaudenti e graziosi, e prendere posto tra i migliori. Ma continuo a guardare avanti, Nell, continuo a guardare avanti, e se dovessi essere costretto ad abbandonarti, nel frattempo, come ti ho preparata per le lotte con il mondo? Il povero uccello laggiù è altrettanto bene attrezzato per affrontarlo, e lasciato alla deriva in balia della sua misericordia — Ascolta! Sento Kit fuori. Vai da lui, Nell, vai da lui».

She rose, and hurrying away, stopped, turned back, and put her arms about the old man’s neck, then left him and hurried away again—but faster this time, to hide her falling tears.

‘A word in your ear, sir,’ said the old man in a hurried whisper. ‘I have been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can only plead that I have done all for the best—that it is too late to retract, if I could (though I cannot)—and that I hope to triumph yet. All is for her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would spare her the sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare her the miseries that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an early grave. I would leave her—not with resources which could be easily spent or squandered away, but with what would place her beyond the reach of want for ever. You mark me sir? She shall have no pittance, but a fortune—Hush! I can say no more than that, now or at any other time, and she is here again!’

The eagerness with which all this was poured into my ear, the trembling of the hand with which he clasped my arm, the strained and starting eyes he fixed upon me, the wild vehemence and agitation of his manner, filled me with amazement. All that I had heard and seen, and a great part of what he had said himself, led me to suppose that he was a wealthy man. I could form no comprehension of his character, unless he were one of those miserable wretches who, having made gain the sole end and object of their lives and having succeeded in amassing great riches, are constantly tortured by the dread of poverty, and beset by fears of loss and ruin. Many things he had said which I had been at a loss to understand, were quite reconcilable with the idea thus presented to me, and at length I concluded that beyond all doubt he was one of this unhappy race.

The opinion was not the result of hasty consideration, for which indeed there was no opportunity at that time, as the child came directly, and soon occupied herself in preparations for giving Kit a writing lesson, of which it seemed he had a couple every week, and one regularly on that evening, to the great mirth and enjoyment both of himself and his instructress. To relate how it was a long time before his modesty could be so far prevailed upon as it admit of his sitting down in the parlour, in the presence of an unknown gentleman—how, when he did set down, he tucked up his sleeves and squared his elbows and put his face close to the copy-book and squinted horribly at the lines—how, from the very first moment of having the pen in his hand, he began to wallow in blots, and to daub himself with ink up to the very roots of his hair—how, if he did by accident form a letter properly, he immediately smeared it out again with his arm in his preparations to make another—how, at every fresh mistake, there was a fresh burst of merriment from the child and louder and not less hearty laugh from poor Kit himself—and how there was all the way through, notwithstanding, a gentle wish on her part to teach, and an anxious desire on his to learn—to relate all these particulars would no doubt occupy more space and time than they deserve. It will be sufficient to say that the lesson was given—that evening passed and night came on—that the old man again grew restless and impatient—that he quitted the house secretly at the same hour as before—and that the child was once more left alone within its gloomy walls.

And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character and introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the convenience of the narrative detach myself from its further course, and leave those who have prominent and necessary parts in it to speak and act for themselves.

Si alzò e, allontanandosi di corsa, si fermò, tornò indietro e gli mise le braccia al collo; poi lo lasciò e ripartì di corsa — ma più in fretta questa volta, per nascondere le sue lacrime che cadevano.

«Una parola in privato, signore», disse il vecchio sussurrando concitato. «Sono rimasto turbato da quanto ha detto l’altra sera, e posso solo giustificarmi dicendo che ho fatto tutto per il meglio — che è troppo tardi per tirarsi indietro, anche se potessi (ma non posso) — e che spero di trionfare ancora. È tutto per il suo bene. Ho sopportato grande povertà io stesso, e vorrei risparmiarle le sofferenze che la povertà comporta. Vorrei risparmiarle i mali che hanno portato sua madre, mia cara figlia, a una morte prematura. Vorrei lasciarle — non delle risorse che potrebbero essere facilmente spese o sperperate, ma qualcosa che la metterebbe al riparo dal bisogno per sempre. Mi segue, signore? Non avrà un’elemosina, ma una fortuna — Silenzio! Non posso dire altro, ora o in qualsiasi altro momento, e lei è di nuovo qui!»

L’ardore con cui tutto ciò mi fu sussurrato nell’orecchio, il tremito della mano con la quale mi afferrò il braccio, lo sguardo teso e sbalordito che fissò su di me, l’agitazione selvaggia e violenta del suo comportamento, mi riempirono di stupore. Tutto ciò che avevo udito e visto, e gran parte di quanto egli stesso aveva detto, mi portarono a supporre che fosse un uomo ricco. Non riuscivo a comprendere il suo carattere, se non fosse stato uno di quei miserabili disgraziati che, avendo fatto del guadagno l’unico scopo e obiettivo della loro vita e avendo avuto successo nell’ammassare grandi ricchezze, sono costantemente torturati dalla paura della povertà e assillati da timori di perdita e rovina. Molte cose che aveva detto mi erano state incomprensibili, ma si conciliavano perfettamente con l’idea così presentatami, e alla fine conclusi che senza alcun dubbio egli appartenesse a questa infelice razza.

Questa opinione non era il risultato di una considerazione affrettata, per la quale in verità non vi era alcuna opportunità a quel tempo, poiché la bambina arrivò direttamente e presto si dedicò ai preparativi per dare a Kit una lezione di scrittura, della quale sembrava ne avesse un paio ogni settimana, e una regolarmente quella sera, con grande allegria e divertimento sia suo che della sua istitutrice. Raccontare come fu necessario molto tempo prima che la sua modestia potesse essere convinta a sedersi nel salotto in presenza di un gentiluomo sconosciuto—come, quando si sedette, rimboccò le maniche e mise i gomiti a squadra e avvicinò il viso al quaderno e strizzò gli occhi terribilmente sulle righe—come, dal primo momento in cui ebbe la penna in mano, cominciò ad affogare nelle macchie d’inchiostro e si imbrattò fino alle radici dei capelli—come, se per caso formava una lettera correttamente, subito la cancellava di nuovo con il braccio mentre preparava a fare un’altra—come, ad ogni nuovo errore, ci fu una nuova esplosione di allegria da parte della bambina e una risata più forte e non meno cordiale dal povero Kit stesso—e come in tutto ciò vi fosse nondimeno un gentile desiderio da parte sua di insegnare, e un ansioso desiderio da parte sua di imparare—raccontare tutti questi particolari non avrebbe no dubbio occupato più spazio e tempo del dovuto. Sarà sufficiente dire che la lezione fu data, quella sera passò e venne la notte, l’anziano uomo divenne di nuovo irrequieto e impaziente, lasciò la casa segretamente alla stessa ora del giorno prima, e la bambina fu ancora una volta lasciata sola entro le sue mura cupe.

E ora che ho condotto questa storia fin qui nella mia veste e presentato questi personaggi al lettore, per comodità del racconto mi distaccherò dal suo ulteriore svolgimento, lasciando a coloro che hanno ruoli di primo piano e indispensabili in essa la facoltà di parlare e agire per conto proprio.

CHAPTER 4

Mr and Mrs Quilp resided on Tower Hill; and in her bower on Tower Hill Mrs Quilp was left to pine the absence of her lord, when he quitted her on the business which he had already seen to transact.

Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or calling, though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets and alleys by the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very nose of the Custom House, and made appointments on ‘Change with men in glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the Surrey side of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called ‘Quilp’s Wharf,’ in which were a little wooden counting-house burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp’s Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship-breaker, yet to judge from these appearances he must either have been a ship-breaker on a very small scale, or have broken his ships up very small indeed. Neither did the place present any extraordinary aspect of life or activity, as its only human occupant was an amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole change of occupation was from sitting on the head of a pile and throwing stones into the mud when the tide was out, to standing with his hands in his pockets gazing listlessly on the motion and on the bustle of the river at high-water.

The dwarf’s lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet for that lady’s mother, who resided with the couple and waged perpetual war with Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in no slight dread. Indeed, the ugly creature contrived by some means or other—whether by his ugliness or his ferocity or his natural cunning is no great matter—to impress with a wholesome fear of his anger, most of those with whom he was brought into daily contact and communication. Over nobody had he such complete ascendance as Mrs Quilp herself—a pretty little, mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman, who having allied herself in wedlock to the dwarf in one of those strange infatuations of which examples are by no means scarce, performed a sound practical penance for her folly, every day of her life.

It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her bower she was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of whom mention has recently been made, there were present some half-dozen ladies of the neighborhood who had happened by a strange accident (and also by a little understanding among themselves) to drop in one after another, just about tea-time. This being a season favourable to conversation, and the room being a cool, shady, lazy kind of place, with some plants at the open window shutting out the dust, and interposing pleasantly enough between the tea table within and the old Tower without, it is no wonder that the ladies felt an inclination to talk and linger, especially when there are taken into account the additional inducements of fresh butter, new bread, shrimps, and watercresses.

Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was extremely natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity of mankind to tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that developed upon the weaker sex to resist that tyranny and assert their rights and dignity. It was natural for four reasons: firstly, because Mrs Quilp being a young woman and notoriously under the dominion of her husband ought to be excited to rebel; secondly, because Mrs Quilp’s parent was known to be laudably shrewish in her disposition and inclined to resist male authority; thirdly, because each visitor wished to show for herself how superior she was in this respect to the generality of her sex; and fourthly, because the company being accustomed to scandalise each other in pairs, were deprived of their usual subject of conversation now that they were all assembled in close friendship, and had consequently no better employment than to attack the common enemy.

Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings by inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr Quilp was; whereunto Mr Quilp’s wife’s mother replied sharply, ‘Oh! He was well enough—nothing much was ever the matter with him—and ill weeds were sure to thrive.’ All the ladies then sighed in concert, shook their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr.

‘Ah!’ said the spokeswoman, ‘I wish you’d give her a little of your advice, Mrs Jiniwin’—Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should be observed—‘nobody knows better than you, ma’am, what us women owe to ourselves.’

‘Owe indeed, ma’am!’ replied Mrs Jiniwin. ‘When my poor husband, her dear father, was alive, if he had ever ventured a cross word to me, I’d have—’ The good old lady did not finish the sentence, but she twisted off the head of a shrimp with a vindictiveness which seemed to imply that the action was in some degree a substitute for words. In this light it was clearly understood by the other party, who immediately replied with great approbation, ‘You quite enter into my feelings, ma’am, and it’s jist what I’d do myself.’

‘But you have no call to do it,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. ‘Luckily for you, you have no more occasion to do it than I had.’

‘No woman need have, if she was true to herself,’ rejoined the stout lady.

‘Do you hear that, Betsy?’ said Mrs Jiniwin, in a warning voice. ‘How often have I said the same words to you, and almost gone down my knees when I spoke ‘em!’

CAPITOLO 4

Il signor e la signora Quilp risiedevano su Tower Hill; e nel suo boudoir su Tower Hill la signora Quilp fu lasciata a languire per l’assenza del suo sposo, quando egli la abbandonò per occuparsi di quella faccenda che aveva già visto a conclusione.

Non si poteva dire che il signor Quilp esercitasse un mestiere o una professione particolare, sebbene le sue attività fossero varie e i suoi impieghi numerosi. Riscuoteva gli affitti di interi quartieri di strade e vicoli luridi lungo il fiume, prestava denaro ai marinai e agli ufficiali minori delle navi mercantili, aveva una quota nelle imprese di vari capitani delle navi per le Indie Orientali, fumava i suoi sigari di contrabbando sotto al naso della Dogana, e si dava appuntamento alla Borsa con uomini in cappelli lucidi e giacche a quadri praticamente ogni giorno. Sulla riva del Surrey c’era un piccolo cortile desolato infestato dai topi chiamato “Molo di Quilp”, dove si trovavano una piccola contabilità in legno che scavava nel polvere come se fosse caduta dalle nuvole e avesse arato il terreno; alcuni frammenti di ancore arrugginite; diversi grandi anelli di ferro; alcune pile di legname marcio; e due o tre mucchi di vecchie lamiere di rame, accartocciate, crepate e ammaccate. Al Molo di Quilp, Daniel Quilp era un demolitore di navi, ma a giudicare da queste apparenze doveva essere o un demolitore di navi su scala molto ridotta, o aver smantellato le sue navi in pezzi davvero piccoli. Né il posto presentava un aspetto straordinario di vita o attività, poiché il suo unico occupante umano era un ragazzo anfibio in tuta di tela cerata, la cui unica variazione di occupazione consisteva nel passare dal sedere sulla testa di una pila e lanciare sassi nel fango quando la marea era bassa, a stare in piedi con le mani nelle tasche fissando apaticamente il movimento e l’attività del fiume all’alta marea.

L’alloggio del nanerottolo su Tower hill comprendeva, oltre al necessario spazio per lui e la signora Quilp, un piccolo ripostiglio da letto per la madre di quella signora, che risiedeva con la coppia e combatteva una guerra perpetua con Daniel; di cui, nonostante ciò, aveva una certa paura. Infatti, la brutta creatura riusciva in qualche modo — se fosse grazie alla sua bruttezza o alla sua ferocia o al suo naturale inganno non ha molta importanza — a imporre un sano timore della sua ira su gran parte di coloro con cui veniva quotidianamente in contatto e comunicazione. Su nessuno aveva un tale ascendente come sulla stessa signora Quilp — una donna graziosa, dal parlare mite e dagli occhi azzurri, che avendo unito in matrimonio il nanerottolo in uno di quegli strani capricci dei quali gli esempi non sono affatto rari, si pentiva ogni giorno della propria follia.

Si è detto che la signora Quilp languisse nel suo boudoir. Nel suo boudoir era, ma non da sola, perché oltre alla vecchia signora sua madre di cui si è recentemente parlato, erano presenti una mezza dozzina circa di signore del vicinato che per un strano caso (e anche grazie a qualche accordo tra loro) erano entrate una dopo l’altra proprio verso l’ora del tè. Essendo questa un’occasione propizia alla conversazione, e la stanza essendo un luogo fresco, ombreggiato e pigro, con alcune piante all’aperta finestra che tenevano lontana la polvere e si interponessero in modo gradevole tra il tavolino del tè dentro e la vecchia Torre fuori, non c’è da stupirsi se le signore sentivano una certa inclinazione a chiacchierare e indugiare, specialmente quando si tengono in considerazione gli ulteriori incentivi del burro fresco, il pane nuovo, i gamberetti e i crescioni.

Ora che le signore si trovavano insieme in tali circostanze, era del tutto naturale che il discorso cadesse sulla propensione dell’umanità a tiranneggiare il sesso debole e sul dovere di quest’ultimo di resistere a tale tirannia e rivendicare i propri diritti e dignità. Era naturale per quattro ragioni: in primo luogo, perché la signora Quilp, essendo una giovane donna notoriamente sotto il dominio del marito, avrebbe dovuto essere incoraggiata ad insorgere; in secondo luogo, perché si sapeva che la madre della signora Quilp era lodevolmente irascibile nel suo carattere e incline a resistere all’autorità maschile; in terzo luogo, perché ogni visitatrice desiderava dimostrare di essere superiore sotto questo aspetto alla maggior parte del proprio sesso; e in quarto luogo, perché le signore, abituate a scandalizzarsi l’una con l’altra a coppie, erano ora private dell’argomento di conversazione consueto, dato che si trovavano tutte riunite in stretta amicizia, e non avevano quindi altro da fare se non attaccare il nemico comune.

Mossa da queste considerazioni, una signora robusta aprì i lavori chiedendo, con un’aria di grande preoccupazione e simpatia, come stesse il signor Quilp; alla quale la madre della moglie del signor Quilp rispose bruscamente: «Oh! Era bene abbastanza - non c’era mai molto da dire su di lui - e le erbacce sono sicuramente destinate a prosperare». Tutte le signore sospirarono all’unisono, scossero gravemente la testa e guardarono la signora Quilp come una martire.

«Ah!» disse la portavoce «vorrei che le dessi un po’ dei tuoi consigli, signora Jiniwin» — va osservato che la signora Quilp era stata una certa miss Jiniwin — «nessuno lo sa meglio di te, signora, cosa noi donne dobbiamo a noi stesse.»

«Debito davvero, signora!» rispose la signora Jiniwin. «Quando mio povero marito, suo caro padre, era in vita, se avesse mai osato rivolgermi una parola sgradevole, io, » La buona vecchia non finì la frase, ma strappò via la testa di un gamberetto con tale vendicatività che sembrava voler dire che quell’azione fosse in qualche modo un sostituto delle parole. Questo fu chiaramente compreso dall’altra parte, che rispose subito con grande approvazione: «Entrate perfettamente nei miei sentimenti, signora, ed è esattamente quello che farei io stessa».

«Ma non hai motivo di farlo», disse la signora Jiniwin, «per fortuna tua, non hai più motivo di farlo di quelli che avevo io».

«Nessuna donna dovrebbe averne bisogno, se fosse fedele a sé stessa», replicò la signora robusta.

«Avete sentito, Betsy?» disse la signora Jiniwin con voce ammonitrice «Quante volte vi ho detto le stesse parole e quasi mi sono messa in ginocchio mentre le pronunciavo!»

Poor Mrs Quilp, who had looked in a state of helplessness from one face of condolence to another, coloured, smiled, and shook her head doubtfully. This was the signal for a general clamour, which beginning in a low murmur gradually swelled into a great noise in which everybody spoke at once, and all said that she being a young woman had no right to set up her opinions against the experiences of those who knew so much better; that it was very wrong of her not to take the advice of people who had nothing at heart but her good; that it was next door to being downright ungrateful to conduct herself in that manner; that if she had no respect for herself she ought to have some for other women, all of whom she compromised by her meekness; and that if she had no respect for other women, the time would come when other women would have no respect for her; and she would be very sorry for that, they could tell her. Having dealt out these admonitions, the ladies fell to a more powerful assault than they had yet made upon the mixed tea, new bread, fresh butter, shrimps, and watercresses, and said that their vexation was so great to see her going on like that, that they could hardly bring themselves to eat a single morsel.

It’s all very fine to talk,’ said Mrs Quilp with much simplicity, ‘but I know that if I was to die to-morrow, Quilp could marry anybody he pleased—now that he could, I know!’

There was quite a scream of indignation at this idea. Marry whom he pleased! They would like to see him dare to think of marrying any of them; they would like to see the faintest approach to such a thing. One lady (a widow) was quite certain she should stab him if he hinted at it.

‘Very well,’ said Mrs Quilp, nodding her head, ‘as I said just now, it’s very easy to talk, but I say again that I know—that I’m sure—Quilp has such a way with him when he likes, that the best looking woman here couldn’t refuse him if I was dead, and she was free, and he chose to make love to her. Come!’

Everybody bridled up at this remark, as much as to say, ‘I know you mean me. Let him try—that’s all.’ and yet for some hidden reason they were all angry with the widow, and each lady whispered in her neighbour’s ear that it was very plain that said widow thought herself the person referred to, and what a puss she was!

‘Mother knows,’ said Mrs Quilp, ‘that what I say is quite correct, for she often said so before we were married. Didn’t you say so, mother?’

This inquiry involved the respected lady in rather a delicate position, for she certainly had been an active party in making her daughter Mrs Quilp, and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to encourage the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else would have. On the other hand, to exaggerate the captivating qualities of her son-in-law would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in which all her energies were deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing considerations, Mrs Jiniwin admitted the powers of insinuation, but denied the right to govern, and with a timely compliment to the stout lady brought back the discussion to the point from which it had strayed.

‘Oh! It’s a sensible and proper thing indeed, what Mrs George has said!’ exclaimed the old lady. ‘If women are only true to themselves!—But Betsy isn’t, and more’s the shame and pity.’

‘Before I’d let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,’ said Mrs George, ‘before I’d consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of him, I’d—I’d kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it!’

This remark being loudly commended and approved of, another lady (from the Minories) put in her word:

‘Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,’ said this lady, ‘and I supposed there’s no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs Jiniwin says he is, and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still he is not quite a—what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young man neither, which might be a little excuse for him if anything could be; whereas his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman—which is the greatest thing after all.’

This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the lady went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and unreasonable with such a wife, then—

‘If he is!’ interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn declaration. ‘If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she daren’t call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn’t the spirit to give him a word back, no, not a single word.’

Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all the tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this official communication was no sooner made than they all began to talk at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility. Mrs George remarked that people would talk, that people had often said this to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had told her so twenty times, that she had always said, ‘No, Henrietta Simmons, unless I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears, I never will believe it.’ Mrs Simmons corroborated this testimony and added strong evidence of her own. The lady from the Minories recounted a successful course of treatment under which she had placed her own husband, who, from manifesting one month after marriage unequivocal symptoms of the tiger, had by this means become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another lady recounted her own personal struggle and final triumph, in the course whereof she had found it necessary to call in her mother and two aunts, and to weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third, who in the general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened herself upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The noise was at its height, and half the company had elevated their voices into a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other half, when Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her forefinger stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this clamour, was observed to be in the room, looking on and listening with profound attention.

‘Go on, ladies, go on,’ said Daniel. ‘Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and palatable.’

‘I—I—didn’t ask them to tea, Quilp,’ stammered his wife. ‘It’s quite an accident.’

‘So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always the pleasantest,’ said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he seemed to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they were encrusted, little charges for popguns. ‘What! Not going, ladies, you are not going, surely!’

His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a faint struggle to sustain the character.

‘And why not stop to supper, Quilp,’ said the old lady, ‘if my daughter had a mind?’

‘To be sure,’ rejoined Daniel. ‘Why not?’

‘There’s nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?’ said Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Surely not,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Why should there be? Nor anything unwholesome, either, unless there’s lobster-salad or prawns, which I’m told are not good for digestion.’

‘And you wouldn’t like your wife to be attacked with that, or anything else that would make her uneasy would you?’ said Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Not for a score of worlds,’ replied the dwarf with a grin. ‘Not even to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time—and what a blessing that would be!’

‘My daughter’s your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,’ said the old lady with a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be reminded of the fact; ‘your wedded wife.’

‘So she is, certainly. So she is,’ observed the dwarf.

‘And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,’ said the old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of her impish son-in-law.

‘Hope she has!’ he replied. ‘Oh! Don’t you know she has? Don’t you know she has, Mrs Jiniwin?

‘I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my way of thinking.’

‘Why an’t you of your mother’s way of thinking, my dear?’ said the dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, ‘why don’t you always imitate your mother, my dear? She’s the ornament of her sex—your father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.’

‘Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty thousand of some people,’ said Mrs Jiniwin; ‘twenty hundred million thousand.’

‘I should like to have known him,’ remarked the dwarf. ‘I dare say he was a blessed creature then; but I’m sure he is now. It was a happy release. I believe he had suffered a long time?’

The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his tongue.

‘You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too much—talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to bed.’

‘I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.’

‘But please to do now. Do please to go now,’ said the dwarf.

The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a long time without speaking.

‘Mrs Quilp,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, Quilp,’ she replead meekly.

Instead of pursuing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted her eyes and kept them on the ground.

‘Mrs Quilp.’

‘Yes, Quilp.’

‘If ever you listen to these beldames again, I’ll bite you.’

With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship’s locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted on the table.

‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ he said; ‘I feel in a smoking humour, and shall probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in case I want you.’

His wife returned no other reply than the necessary ‘Yes, Quilp,’ and the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red, but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position, and staring listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of restlessness or fatigue; and then it expanded into a grin of delight.

«Avanti, signore, avanti», disse Daniel. «Signora Quilp, la prego di chiedere alle signore di fermarsi per cena e di procurare un paio di aragoste e qualcosa di leggero e gustoso».

«Non li ho invitati a prendere il tè, Quilp», balbettò sua moglie. «È stato un puro caso».

«Tanto meglio, signora Quilp; queste feste casuali sono sempre le più piacevoli», disse il nanerottolo, strofinandosi le mani così forte che sembrava impegnato a fabbricare, dalla sporcizia con cui erano incrostate, piccole cariche per pistole giocattolo. «Che cosa! Non ve ne andate, signore, non ve ne andrete mica, spero!»

Le sue avversarie gentili scossero leggermente la testa mentre cercavano i rispettivi cappelli e scialli, ma lasciarono ogni contesa verbale alla signora Jiniwin, che trovandosi nella posizione di campionessa, fece un debole tentativo per sostenere il personaggio.

“E perché non fermarsi a cena, Quilp,” disse la vecchia signora, “se mia figlia avesse voglia?”

«Certo», replicò Daniel. «Perché no?»

«Non c’è nulla di disonesto o sbagliato in una cena, lo spero?» disse la signora Jiniwin.

«Certo che no», rispose il nanerottolo. «Perché dovrebbe esserci? E nemmeno niente di nocivo, a meno che non ci siano insalate di aragosta o gamberetti, e mi hanno detto che non sono buoni per la digestione.»

«E non vorreste che vostra moglie fosse aggredita con quello o con qualsiasi altra cosa che la rendesse inquieta, vero?» disse la signora Jiniwin.

«Non per un centinaio di mondi», rispose il n nano con una smorfia. «Neanche per avere un centinaio di suocere nello stesso momento—e che benedizione sarebbe!»

«La mia figlia è sua moglie, signor Quilp, certamente», disse la vecchia signora con una risatina che intendeva essere sarcastica e implicava che lui aveva bisogno di ricordare quel fatto; «sua legittima sposa.»

«E infatti lo è, certamente. E infatti lo è», osservò il nanerottolo.

«E ha il diritto di fare ciò che vuole, lo spero, Quilp», disse la vecchia signora tremando, in parte per rabbia e in parte per un segreto timore del suo diabolico genero.

«Ha speranza!» rispose lui. «Oh! Non lo sapeva che l’ha? Non lo sapeva, signora Jiniwin?

‘So avrebbe dovuto fare, Quilp, e lo avrebbe fatto se pensasse come me.’

«Perché non sei dello stesso modo di pensare di tua madre, mia cara?» disse il nanerottolo, girandosi e rivolgendosi a sua moglie «perché non imiti sempre tua madre, mia cara? È l’ornamento del suo sesso: tuo padre lo diceva ogni giorno della sua vita. Ne sono sicuro».

«Suo padre era una creatura benedetta, Quilp, e valeva ventimila volte più di certa gente», disse la signora Jiniwin; «venti milioni di miliardi».

«Mi sarebbe piaciuto conoscerlo», osservò il nanerottolo. «Immagino che fosse una creatura benedetta allora; ma sono sicuro che lo è adesso. È stata una liberazione felice. Credo abbia sofferto a lungo per un bel pezzo?»

La vecchia signora emise un gemito soffocato, ma non ne venne fuori nulla; Quilp riprese con la stessa malizia negli occhi e lo stesso sarcasmo cortese nella voce.

«Avete un’aria malaticcia, signora Jiniwin; so che vi siete agitata troppo, parlando probabilmente, perché è il vostro punto debole. Andate a letto. Andate a letto».

‘Andrò quando mi pare, Quilp, e non prima.’

«Ma per favore fatelo ora. Per piacere andatevene ora», disse il nanerottolo.

La vecchia lo guardò con rabbia ma si ritirò mentre lui avanzava e, indietreggiando davanti a lui, gli permise di chiudere la porta su di lei e di sbatterla fuori tra gli ospiti che in quel momento affollavano le scale. Rimaso solo con sua moglie, che sedeva tremante in un angolo con lo sguardo fisso a terra, l’uomo si piantò davanti a lei e, incrociando le braccia, la guardò attentamente per un lungo periodo senza parlare.

«Signora Quilp», disse alla fine.

«Sì, Quilp», replicò mansueta.

Invece di proseguire con il tema che aveva in mente, Quilp si incrociò nuovamente le braccia e la guardò più severamente del prima, mentre lei distoglieva lo sguardo e lo teneva fisso a terra.

‘La signora Quilp.’

‘Sì, Quilp.’

‘Non ascoltare mai più queste vecchie streghe, altrimenti ti mordo.’

Con questa laconica minaccia, che accompagnò con un ringhio che gli conferiva l’aspetto di essere particolarmente serio, il signor Quilp le ordinò di sparecchiare il vassoio del tè e portare il rum. Lo spirito fu messo davanti a lui in una enorme bottiglia da viaggio, che era originariamente uscita dal cassettone di qualche nave, si sistemò su una poltrona con la sua grande testa e viso schiacciati contro lo schienale e le sue piccole gambe appoggiate sul tavolo.

«Ora, signora Quilp», disse lui, «mi sento nell’umore di fumare e probabilmente continuerò a farlo tutta la notte. Ma resti dove è, per favore, nel caso avessi bisogno di lei.»

Sua moglie non rispose altro che il necessario “Sì, Quilp”, e il piccolo signore della creazione accese il suo primo sigaro e preparò la sua prima coppa di grog. Il sole tramontò e le stelle apparvero, la Torre cambiò dai suoi colori naturali al grigio e dal grigio al nero, la stanza divenne completamente buia e l’estremità del sigaro si tinse di un rosso fuoco intenso; ma il signor Quilp continuava a fumare e bere nella stessa posizione, fissando senza interesse dalla finestra con quel sorriso da cane sempre sul volto, tranne quando la signora Quilp faceva qualche movimento involontario di inquietudine o affaticamento; allora si trasformava in una smorfia di piacere.

CHAPTER 5

Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time, or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth.

At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding him by an occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her penance had been of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her; and it was not until the sun had some time risen, and the activity and noise of city day were rife in the street, that he deigned to recognize her presence by any word or sign. He might not have done so even then, but for certain impatient tapping at the door he seemed to denote that some pretty hard knuckles were actively engaged upon the other side.

‘Why dear me!’ he said looking round with a malicious grin, ‘it’s day. Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!’

His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.

Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for, supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on the previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.

Nothing escaped the hawk’s eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly understanding what passed in the old lady’s mind, turned uglier still in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a leer or triumph.

‘Why, Betsy,’ said the old woman, ‘you haven’t been—you don’t mean to say you’ve been a—’

‘Sitting up all night?’ said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the sentence. ‘Yes she has!’

‘All night?’ cried Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?’ said Quilp, with a smile of which a frown was part. ‘Who says man and wife are bad company? Ha ha! The time has flown.’

‘You’re a brute!’ exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Come come,’ said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, ‘you mustn’t call her names. She’s married now, you know. And though she did beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly careful of me as to be out of humour with her. Bless you for a dear old lady. Here’s to your health!’

‘I am much obliged to you,’ returned the old woman, testifying by a certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her matronly fist at her son-in-law. ‘Oh! I’m very much obliged to you!’

‘Grateful soul!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Mrs Quilp.’

‘Yes, Quilp,’ said the timid sufferer.

‘Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the wharf this morning—the earlier the better, so be quick.’

Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied herself to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.

While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room, and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his complexion rather more cloudy than it was before. But, while he was thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in this short process, and stood listening for any conversation in the next room, of which he might be the theme.

‘Ah!’ he said after a short effort of attention, ‘it was not the towel over my ears, I thought it wasn’t. I’m a little hunchy villain and a monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!’

The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.

Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin happening to be behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she did so and accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye in the glass, catching her in the very act. The same glance at the mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and the next instant the dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and placid look, inquired in a tone of great affection.

‘How are you now, my dear old darling?’

Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and suffered herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the breakfast-table. Here he by no means diminished the impression he had just produced, for he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature. At last, having gone through these proceedings and many others which were equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them, reduced to a very obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the river-side, where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed his name.

CAPITOLO 5

Che il signor Quilp dormisse di un sonno spezzato da pochi battiti di ciglia alla volta, o che se ne stesse seduto con gli occhi spalancati tutta la notte, è certo che mantenne acceso il suo sigaro, e accese ogni nuovo sigaro dalle ceneri di quello quasi consumato, senza aver bisogno dell’aiuto di una candela. Né i rintocchi degli orologi, ora dopo ora, sembravano ispirargli alcun senso di sonnolenza o naturale desiderio di andare a riposare, ma piuttosto aumentarono la sua veglia, che mostrò ad ogni tale indicazione del progredire della notte, con un gorgoglio represso in gola e un movimento delle spalle, come uno che ride di gusto ma allo stesso tempo furtivamente e di nascosto.

Alla fine il giorno sorse e la povera signora Quilp, tremante dal freddo del primo mattino e tormentata dalla fatica e dalla mancanza di sonno, fu scoperta seduta pazientemente sulla sua sedia, alzando gli occhi a intervalli in un muto appello alla compassione e alla clemenza del suo signore, e ricordandogli gentilmente con una tosse occasionale che era ancora non perdonata e che la sua penitenza era stata di lunga durata. Ma il suo marito nano continuava a fumare il suo sigaro e bere il suo rum senza badarle; e non fu fino a quando il sole era già sorto da qualche tempo e l’attività e il rumore della giornata di città erano vivaci in strada, che si degnò di riconoscere la sua presenza con una parola o un segno. Forse non lo avrebbe fatto nemmeno allora, se non fosse stato per alcuni colpi impazienti alla porta che sembravano indicare che alcune abbastanza dure nocche erano attivamente impegnate dall’altra parte.

«Perbacco!» disse guardandosi intorno con un ghigno malizioso «è giorno. Apra la porta, cara signora Quilp!»

La moglie obbediente tolse il chiavistello e la madre della signora entrò.

In quel momento la signora Jiniwin entrò nella stanza con grande impeto; infatti, pensando che il genero fosse ancora a letto, era venuta per sfogare i suoi sentimenti esprimendo un’opinione decisa sulla sua condotta e sul suo carattere in generale. Vedendo che lui si era alzato e vestito, e che la stanza sembrava essere stata occupata da quando l’aveva lasciata la sera precedente, si fermò di colpo, un po’ imbarazzata.

Nulla sfuggiva all’occhio di falco dell’uomo brutto e piccolo che, comprendendo perfettamente ciò che passava nella mente della vecchia signora, diventò ancora più brutto per la pienezza del suo compiacimento, e le augurò buongiorno con un ghigno di trionfo.

«Ma, Betsy», disse la vecchia signora, «non siete stata, non vorrete dire che siete stata una, »

«Rimane in piedi tutta la notte?» disse Quilp, fornendo la conclusione della frase. «Sì che lo ha fatto!»

«Tutta la notte?» esclamò la signora Jiniwin.

«Sì, tutta la notte. La cara vecchietta è sorda?» disse Quilp con un sorriso in cui si mescolava una smorfia. «Chi dice che marito e moglie non fanno buona compagnia? Ah ah! Il tempo è volato.»

«Sei un bruto!» esclamò la signora Jiniwin.

«Dai, dai», disse Quilp, fingendo di non capirla, naturalmente, «non dovete chiamarla con quei nomi. Ora è sposata, sapete. E anche se ha ingannato il tempo e mi ha tenuto lontano dal mio letto, non dovete essere così teneramente premurosi nei miei confronti da arrabbiarvi con lei. Dio vi benedica, cara vecchia signora. Alla vostra salute!»

«Sono molto obbligata», rispose la vecchia, dimostrando con una certa irrequietezza delle mani un vivace desiderio di scuotere il suo pugno matronale contro il genero. «Oh! Sono davvero molto obbligata!»

«Grata anima!» gridò il nanerottolo. «Signora Quilp.»

«Sì, Quilp», disse la timida vittima.

«Aiuta tua madre a preparare la colazione, signora Quilp. Questa mattina vado al molo: prima è meglio, quindi sbrigati».

La signora Jiniwin fece un debole tentativo di ribellione sedendosi su una sedia vicino alla porta e incrociando le braccia come se fosse determinata a non fare nulla. Ma poche parole sussurrate da sua figlia, e la gentile domanda del genero se si sentisse male, con l’accenno che c’era abbondante acqua fredda nella stanza accanto, misero in fuga efficacemente questi sintomi, e lei si dedicò alle prescritte preparazioni con diligente malumore.

Mentre tutto ciò era in corso, il signor Quilp si ritirò nella stanza attigua e, voltandosi di spalle, procedette a strofinare il suo volto con un asciugamano umido dall’aspetto piuttosto poco salubre, che rese la sua carnagione ancora più scura di prima. Ma mentre era così impegnato, la sua cautela e curiosità non lo abbandonarono, poiché spesso si fermava, anche in questo breve processo, e rimaneva in ascolto per cogliere eventuali conversazioni nella stanza accanto, delle quali lui potesse essere l’argomento.

«Ah!» disse dopo un breve sforzo di attenzione «non era l’asciugamano sopra le mie orecchie, pensavo che non lo fosse. Sono un piccolo gobbo villain e una mostro, vero signora Jiniwin? Oh!»

Il piacere di questa scoperta fece riapparire il vecchio sorriso da cane con tutta la sua forza. Quando ebbe finito, si scrollò in modo molto canino e tornò dalle signore.

Il signor Quilp si avvicinò ora allo specchio e stava lì mettendosi il fazzoletto al collo quando la signora Jiniwin, trovandosi per caso dietro di lui, non seppe resistere alla voglia che provava di mostrargli il pugno chiuso contro quel tiranno di genero. Fu un gesto istantaneo, ma mentre lo faceva e accompagnava l’azione con uno sguardo minaccioso, incrociò i suoi occhi nello specchio che la coglievano sul fatto. La stessa occhiata allo specchio le mostrò il riflesso di un volto orribilmente grottesco e distorto con la lingua fuori; e nel momento successivo lo stesso nanerottolo, voltandosi con uno sguardo perfettamente mite e placido, le chiese in tono di grande affetto.

‘Come stai ora, mia cara vecchia tesoro?’

Leggero e ridicolo com’era l’accaduto, lo fece apparire così diabolico, e al tempo stesso così acuto e scaltro, che la vecchia si sentì troppo spaventata per dire una sola parola, e si lasciò condurre con straordinaria cortesia fino alla tavola della colazione. Qui egli non fece altro che rafforzare l’impressione appena prodotta, perché mangiava uova dure, guscio e tutto, divorava enormi gamberetti con teste e code, masticava tabacco e acqua-crescia nello stesso tempo e con straordinaria golosità, beveva tè bollente senza batter ciglio, mordicchiava forchetta e cucchiaio fino a piegarli, e in breve compiva tanti atti orribili e insoliti che le donne erano quasi fuori di sé dalla paura, e cominciarono a dubitare se fosse davvero un essere umano. Alla fine, dopo aver portato a termine queste operazioni e molte altre che facevano ugualmente parte del suo sistema, il signor Quilp li lasciò, ridotti in uno stato di grande obbedienza e umiltà, e si recò sulle rive del fiume, dove prese una barca per il molo a cui aveva dato il proprio nome.

It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on, some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a wrong-headed, dogged, obstinate way, bumping up against the larger craft, running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on all sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some lumbering fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands were busily engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry, taking in or discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible but two or three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to and fro upon the deck or scrambling up to look over the side and bark the louder for the view. Coming slowly on through the forests of masts was a great steamship, beating the water in short impatient strokes with her heavy paddles as though she wanted room to breathe, and advancing in her huge bulk like a sea monster among the minnows of the Thames. On either hand were long black tiers of colliers; between them vessels slowly working out of harbour with sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on board, re-echoed from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was in active motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old grey Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their chafing, restless neighbour.

Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save in so far as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused himself to be put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither through a narrow lane which, partaking of the amphibious character of its frequenters, had as much water as mud in its composition, and a very liberal supply of both. Arrived at his destination, the first object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which remarkable appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an eccentric spirit and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now standing on his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under these uncommon circumstances. He was speedily brought on his heels by the sound of his master’s voice, and as soon as his head was in its right position, Mr Quilp, to speak expressively in the absence of a better verb, ‘punched it’ for him.

‘Come, you let me alone,’ said the boy, parrying Quilp’s hand with both his elbows alternatively. ‘You’ll get something you won’t like if you don’t and so I tell you.’

‘You dog,’ snarled Quilp, ‘I’ll beat you with an iron rod, I’ll scratch you with a rusty nail, I’ll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me—I will.’

With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously diving in between the elbows and catching the boy’s head as it dodged from side to side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having now carried his point and insisted on it, he left off.

‘You won’t do it agin,’ said the boy, nodding his head and drawing back, with the elbows ready in case of the worst; ‘now—’

‘Stand still, you dog,’ said Quilp. ‘I won’t do it again, because I’ve done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.’

‘Why don’t you hit one of your size?’ said the boy approaching very slowly.

‘Where is there one of my size, you dog?’ returned Quilp. ‘Take the key, or I’ll brain you with it’—indeed he gave him a smart tap with the handle as he spoke. ‘Now, open the counting-house.’

The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he looked round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady look. And here it may be remarked, that between this boy and the dwarf there existed a strange kind of mutual liking. How born or bred, and or nourished upon blows and threats on one side, and retorts and defiances on the other, is not to the purpose. Quilp would certainly suffer nobody to contract him but the boy, and the boy would assuredly not have submitted to be so knocked about by anybody but Quilp, when he had the power to run away at any time he chose.

‘Now,’ said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, ‘you mind the wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I’ll cut one of your feet off.’

The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in, stood on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the back and stood on his head there, and then to the opposite side and repeated the performance. There were indeed four sides to the counting-house, but he avoided that one where the window was, deeming it probable that Quilp would be looking out of it. This was prudent, for in point of fact, the dwarf, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance from the sash armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and jagged and studded in many parts with broken nails, might possibly have hurt him.

It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but an old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock which hadn’t gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp pulled his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top) and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with ease of an old practitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the deprivation of last night’s rest, by a long and sound nap.

Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust in his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp was a light sleeper and started up directly.

‘Here’s somebody for you,’ said the boy.

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ask!’ said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. ‘Ask, you dog.’

Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who now presented herself at the door.

‘What, Nelly!’ cried Quilp.

‘Yes,’ said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him and a yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to behold; it’s only me, sir.’

‘Come in,’ said Quilp, without getting off the desk. ‘Come in. Stay. Just look out into the yard, and see whether there’s a boy standing on his head.’

‘No, sir,’ replied Nell. ‘He’s on his feet.’

‘You’re sure he is?’ said Quilp. ‘Well. Now, come in and shut the door. What’s your message, Nelly?’

The child handed him a letter. Mr Quilp, without changing his position further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his chin on his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its contents.

Era alta marea quando Daniel Quilp si sedette sulla barca traghettatrice per attraversare fino alla riva opposta. Una flottiglia di chiatte stava arrivando pigramente, alcune di traverso, altre prua avanti, altre poppa avanti; tutte in un modo testardo e ostinato, sbattendo contro le imbarcazioni più grandi, passando sotto la prua delle navi a vapore, infilandosi in ogni sorta di angolo dove non avevano nulla da fare, e venendo schiacciate da tutte le parti come tante gusci di noce; mentre ognuna con il suo paio di lunghi remi che si agitavano e facevano schiuma nell’acqua sembrava un pesce goffo in agonia. In alcune delle navi all’ancora tutti erano impegnati a riavvolgere le corde, stendere le vele ad asciugare, caricare o scaricare i loro carichi; in altre non si vedeva vita se non due o tre ragazzini sporchi di catrame e forse un cane che abbaiava correndo avanti e indietro sul ponte o arrampicandosi per guardare oltre il parapetto e abbaiare più forte alla vista. Avanzando lentamente attraverso le foreste di alberi comparve una grande nave a vapore, che batteva l’acqua con brevi colpi impazienti delle sue pesanti pale come se volesse spazio per respirare, e avanzava nella sua enorme mole come un mostro marino tra i piccoli pesci del Tamigi. Da entrambi i lati si allungavano file di navi carbone; tra loro altre imbarcazioni che uscivano lentamente dal porto con le vele che brillavano al sole, e il rumore scricchiolante a bordo, riecheggiato da centinaia di direzioni. L’acqua e tutto ciò che vi era sopra erano in movimento attivo, danzando e galleggiando e formando bolle; mentre la vecchia Torre grigia e i cumuli di edifici sulla riva, con molte guglie di chiese che spuntavano tra loro, guardavano freddamente e sembravano disdegnare il loro vicino agitato e irrequieto.

Daniel Quilp, che non era molto influenzato da una mattina luminosa se non per il fatto che gli risparmiava la fatica di portare un ombrello, fece sì che lo mettessero a terra vicino al molo e si diresse lì attraverso un vicolo stretto che, condividendo il carattere anfibio dei suoi frequentatori, aveva nella sua composizione tanto acqua quanto fango e una generosa quantità di entrambi. Giunto a destinazione, il primo oggetto che gli si presentò alla vista fu un paio di piedi molto imperfettamente calzati sollevati in aria con le suole rivolte verso l’alto, un’apparenza notevole attribuibile al ragazzo, che essendo di spirito eccentrico e avendo una naturale propensione per le capriole, ora stava in piedi sulla testa e contemplava l’aspetto del fiume sotto queste circostanze insolite. Fu rapidamente riportato sui talloni dal suono della voce del suo padrone, e non appena la sua testa fu nella posizione corretta, il signor Quilp, per esprimersi in modo efficace in assenza di un verbo migliore, gliela “spedì”.

«Su, lasciami in pace», disse il ragazzo, parando la mano di Quilp con entrambi i gomiti alternativamente. «Se non lo fai ti darò qualcosa che non ti piacerà e te lo dico io».

«Cane», ringhiò Quilp, «ti picchierò con una sbarra di ferro, ti graffierò con un chiodo arrugginito, ti strapperò gli occhi se continui a parlarmi così - lo farò.»

Accompagnando queste minacce con un pugno chiuso e con una manovra abile, scivolò tra i gomiti del ragazzo e, afferrandogli la testa mentre si muoveva da una parte all’altra, gli assestò tre o quattro buoni colpi. Avendo ora ottenuto il suo scopo e insistito su di esso, smise.

«Non lo farai più», disse il ragazzo, annuendo e arretrando con i gomiti pronti nel caso peggiore; «ora, »

«Resta fermo, cane», disse Quilp. «Non lo farò più perché l’ho fatto tutte le volte che volevo. Ecco. Prendi la chiave».

«Perché non colpisci qualcuno della tua statura?» disse il ragazzo avvicinandosi molto lentamente.

«Dov’è qualcuno della mia taglia, cane?» rispose Quilp. «Prendi la chiave, o ti spacco il cranio con essa» — in effetti gli diede un colpetto deciso sul manico mentre parlava. «Ora, apri l’ufficio contabile».

Il ragazzo obbedì malvolentieri, borbottando all’inizio, ma smise quando si guardò intorno e vide che Quilp lo stava seguendo con uno sguardo fisso. E qui si può osservare che tra questo ragazzo e il nanerottolo esisteva una strana specie di reciproca simpatia. Come fosse nata o cresciuta, e se fosse stata nutrita da botte e minacce da un lato e risposte taglienti e sfide dall’altro, non è qui il caso di discuterne. Quilp avrebbe certamente permesso a nessun altro di contrattare con lui tranne il ragazzo, e il ragazzo non si sarebbe assolutamente sottomesso ad essere così malmenato da chiunque altro se non da Quilp, quando aveva la possibilità di scappare in qualsiasi momento lo desiderasse.

«Ora», disse Quilp entrando nella cassa di legno, «tu sorvegli il molo. Stai di nuovo in piedi sulla testa e ti taglio un piede.»

Il ragazzo non rispose; ma appena Quilp si fu chiuso dentro, si mise a testa in giù davanti alla porta, poi camminò sulle mani fino al retro e lì rimase a testa in giù, quindi passò all’altro lato e ripeté la scena. La cassa di banca aveva infatti quattro lati, ma lui evitò quello dove c’era la finestra, ritenendo probabile che Quilp potesse guardare fuori da lì. Fu prudente, perché in effetti il nanerottolo, conoscendone i modi, si era appostato a poca distanza dallo stipite armato di un grosso pezzo di legno che, essendo ruvido e frastagliato e munito qua e là di chiodi spezzati, avrebbe potuto ferirlo.

Era una sudicia casupola, questa bottega di cambiavalute, che non conteneva altro che un vecchio tavolo traballante e due sgabelli, un gancio per il cappello, un almanacco antico, un calamaio senza inchiostro, lo stelo di una penna e un orologio a otto giorni orologio che non funzionava da almeno diciotto anni e del quale l’indice delle ore era stato piegato per farne uno stuzzicadenti. Daniel Quilp si tirò il cappello sugli occhi, salì sul tavolo (che aveva un piano piatto) e distendendovi sopra la sua piccola figura vi si addormentò con l’agilità di un vecchio praticone; intendendo, senza dubbio, compensarsi della privazione del riposo della scorsa notte con un lungo e profondo pisolino.

Forse era un rumore, ma non durò molto, perché non aveva dormito da neanche quindici minuti quando il ragazzo aprì la porta e infilò dentro la testa, che sembrava un fascio di canapa scartata male. Quilp si svegliava facilmente e si rizzò subito a sedere.

«Ecco qualcuno per voi», disse il ragazzo.

“Chi?”

‘Non lo so.’

«Chiedi!» disse Quilp, afferrando il pezzetto di legno sopra menzionato e lanciandolo verso di lui con tale destrezza che fu bene che il ragazzo scomparve prima che raggiungesse il punto in cui si era trovato. «Chiedi, cane.»

Non volendo più esporsi al rischio di quei proiettili, il ragazzo inviò con discrezione la prima causa dell’interruzione, che ora si presentava alla porta.

«Che cosa, Nell!» esclamò Quilp.

«Sì», disse il bambino, esitando se entrare o ritirarsi, perché il nanerottolo appena svegliato, con i capelli arruffati che gli pendevano intorno e un fazzoletto giallo in testa, era una vista spaventosa; «sono solo io, signore».

«Entri», disse Quilp senza alzarsi dal banco. «Entri. Resti. Guardi solo nel cortile e veda se c’è un ragazzo che sta in piedi sulla testa».

‘No, signore’, rispose Nell. ‘È in piedi.’

«Ne sei sicuro?» disse Quilp. «Bene. Ora, entra e chiudi la porta. Qual è il tuo messaggio, Nelly?»

Il bambino gli porse una lettera. Il signor Quilp, senza cambiare posizione se non per girarsi un po’ di più sul fianco e appoggiare il mento sulla mano, procedette a prendere conoscenza del contenuto.

CHAPTER 6

Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this impulse and restrained it more effectually than she could possibly have done by any efforts of her own.

That Mr Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree, by the contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had got through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes very wide and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused him to scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when he came to the conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of surprise and dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he bit the nails of all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and taking it up sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all appearance as unsatisfactory as the first, and plunged him into a profound reverie from which he awakened to another assault upon his nails and a long stare at the child, who with her eyes turned towards the ground awaited his further pleasure.

‘Halloa here!’ he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness, which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her ear. ‘Nelly!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you know what’s inside this letter, Nell?’

‘No, sir!’

‘Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?’

‘Quite sure, sir.’

‘Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?’ said the dwarf.

‘Indeed I don’t know,’ returned the child.

‘Well!’ muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. ‘I believe you. Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What the devil has he done with it, that’s the mystery!’

This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once more. While he was thus employed his features gradually relaxed into what was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man would have been a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked up again she found that he was regarding her with extraordinary favour and complacency.

‘You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you tired, Nelly?’

‘No, sir. I’m in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I am away.’

‘There’s no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,’ said Quilp. ‘How should you like to be my number two, Nelly?’

‘To be what, sir?’

‘My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf.

The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more distinctly.

‘To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead, sweet Nell,’ said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him with his bent forefinger, ‘to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked, red-lipped wife. Say that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only four, you’ll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a very good girl, and see if one of these days you don’t come to be Mrs Quilp of Tower Hill.’

So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful prospect, the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled violently. Mr Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded him a constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to contemplate the death of Mrs Quilp number one, and the elevation of Mrs Quilp number two to her post and title, or because he was determined from purposes of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at that particular time, only laughed and feigned to take no heed of her alarm.

‘You shall come with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs Quilp that is, directly,’ said the dwarf. ‘She’s very fond of you, Nell, though not so fond as I am. You shall come home with me.’

‘I must go back indeed,’ said the child. ‘He told me to return directly I had the answer.’

‘But you haven’t it, Nelly,’ retorted the dwarf, ‘and won’t have it, and can’t have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your errand, you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and we’ll go directly.’ With that, Mr Quilp suffered himself to roll gradually off the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when he got upon them and led the way from the counting-house to the wharf outside, when the first objects that presented themselves were the boy who had stood on his head and another young gentleman of about his own stature, rolling in the mud together, locked in a tight embrace, and cuffing each other with mutual heartiness.

‘It’s Kit!’ cried Nelly, clasping her hand, ‘poor Kit who came with me! Oh, pray stop them, Mr Quilp!’

‘I’ll stop ‘em,’ cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and returning with a thick stick, ‘I’ll stop ‘em. Now, my boys, fight away. I’ll fight you both. I’ll take both of you, both together, both together!’

With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing round the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on the other, in a most desperate manner, always aiming at their heads and dealing such blows as none but the veriest little savage would have inflicted. This being warmer work than they had calculated upon, speedily cooled the courage of the belligerents, who scrambled to their feet and called for quarter.

‘I’ll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,’ said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to get near either of them for a parting blow. ‘I’ll bruise you until you’re copper-coloured, I’ll break your faces till you haven’t a profile between you, I will.’

CAPITOLO 6

La piccola Nell stava timidamente in disparte, con gli occhi fissi sul volto del signor Quilp mentre leggeva la lettera, mostrando chiaramente dal suo sguardo che sebbene provasse un po’ di timore e diffidenza per l’uomo basso, era molto incline a ridere della sua apparenza goffa e dell’atteggiamento grotesco. Eppure si poteva notare nel bambino una dolorosa ansia per la risposta di lui, e la consapevolezza del suo potere di renderla spiacevole o angosciante, che era fortemente in contrasto con questo impulso e lo restringeva più efficacemente di quanto lei avrebbe potuto fare con qualsiasi sforzo.

Che il signor Quilp fosse lui stesso perplesso, e in non lieve misura, per il contenuto della lettera era abbastanza evidente. Prima di averne letto le prime due o tre righe aveva cominciato ad aprire molto gli occhi e a corrugare la fronte in modo terribile; le successive due o tre lo spinsero a grattarsi la testa in maniera straordinariamente viziata, e quando giunse alla conclusione emise un lungo fischio lugubre che indicava sorpresa e sgomento. Dopo averla ripiegata e posata accanto a sé, si morse le unghie di tutte e dieci le dita con estrema voracità; e raccogliendola bruscamente la lesse di nuovo. Il secondo esame sembrò essere altrettanto insoddisfacente del primo e lo immerse in una profonda riflessione da cui si risvegliò per un altro assalto alle sue unghie e a lungo fissò il bambino, che con gli occhi rivolti verso terra attendeva i suoi ulteriori piaceri.

«Ehi là!», disse infine con una voce e con un’improvvisità che fecero sobbalzare la bambina come se le avessero sparato un colpo di pistola all’orecchio. «Nelly!»

“Sì, signore.”

‘Sai cosa c’è in questa lettera, Nell?’

‘No, signore!’

«Ne siete sicuro, proprio sicuro, assolutamente certo, sulla vostra anima?»

‘Ne sono certo, signore.’

«Desideri di morire se lo sai, eh?» disse il nanerottolo.

«In verità non lo so», rispose il bambino.

«Bene!» borbottò Quilp mentre notava il suo sguardo serio. «Ti credo. Humph! Già andato? Sparito in ventiquattro ore! Che diavolo ne ha fatto, ecco l’enigma!»

Questa riflessione lo portò di nuovo ad arruffarsi i capelli e a mordersi le unghie. Mentre era così impegnato, i suoi lineamenti si distesero gradualmente in quello che per lui era un sorriso allegro, ma che in qualsiasi altro uomo sarebbe stato un ghigno spettrale di dolore, e quando la bambina alzò di nuovo lo sguardo scoprì che lui la stava osservando con straordinaria benevolenza e compiacimento.

‘Oggi sei molto carina, Nelly, incantevolmente carina. Sei stanca, Nelly?’

‘No, signore. Devo tornare subito, perché sarà preoccupato mentre sono via.’

«Non c’è fretta, piccola Nell, non c’è fretta affatto», disse Quilp. «Che ne diresti di essere il mio numero due, Nelly?»

‘Essere cosa, signore?’

«Il mio numero due, Nelly, la mia seconda moglie, la signora Quilp», disse il nanerottolo.

Il bambino sembrava spaventato, ma non riusciva a capire cosa volesse dire il signor Quilp, che quindi si affrettò a chiarire meglio le sue intenzioni.

«Essere la signora Quilp seconda, quando la signora Quilp prima è morta, dolce Nell», disse Quilp, strizzando gli occhi e attirandola verso di sé con il dito indice curvo, «essere mia moglie, la mia piccola moglie dalle guance di ciliegia e le labbra rosse. Diciamo che la signora Quilp viva cinque anni, o solo quattro, tu avrai proprio l’età giusta per me. Ah ah! Sii una brava ragazza, Nellina, una bravissima ragazza, e vediamo se un giorno non diventerai la signora Quilp di Tower Hill.»

Lontano dal sentirsi sostenuto e stimolato da questa deliziosa prospettiva, il bambino si ritrasse da lui in grande agitazione, tremando violentemente. Il signor Quilp, o perché spaventare chiunque gli procurava un piacere costituzionale, o perché era piacevole contemplare la morte della signora Quilp numero uno e l’innalzamento della signora Quilp numero due al suo posto e titolo, o perché era determinato per i suoi scopi a essere affabile e di buon umore in quel particolare momento, si limitò a ridere e fingere di non badare al suo allarme.

«Verrai con me a Tower Hill e vedrai la signora Quilp, cioè, subito», disse il nanerottolo. «È molto affezionata a te, Nell, anche se non tanto quanto lo sono io. Verrai a casa con me».

«Devo proprio tornare», disse il bambino. «Mi ha detto di rientrare non appena avessi la risposta.»

«Ma non l’hai, Nelly», ribatté il nanerottolo, «e non l’avrai, e non puoi averla, finché io non sarò stato a casa, quindi vedi che per fare la tua commissione, devi venire con me. Passami quel cappello laggiù, mia cara, e andremo subito». Detto ciò, il signor Quilp si lasciò rotolare gradualmente dalla scrivania finché le sue gambe corte toccarono terra, quando si alzò in piedi e fece strada dal ufficio contabile fino al molo esterno, dove i primi oggetti che si presentarono furono il ragazzo che era rimasto in piedi sulla testa e un altro giovane signore della sua stessa statura, che si rotolavano nel fango insieme, stretti in un abbraccio serrato, e si percuotevano a vicenda con reciproca cordialità.

«È Kit!» gridò Nelly stringendole la mano «Povero Kit che è venuto con me! Oh, per favore fermateli, signor Quilp!»

«Li fermerò», gridò Quilp, tuffandosi nella piccola cassa di conteggio e tornando con un bastone spesso, «li fermerò. Ora, miei ragazzi, combattete. Combatterò entrambi voi. Vi prenderò tutti e due insieme!»

Con tali provocazioni il nanerottolo brandiva il suo bastone e danzando intorno ai combattenti, calpestandoli e saltellando sopra di loro in una specie di frenesia, colpiva ora l’uno ora l’altro con disperata ferocia, puntando sempre alle teste e infliggendo percosse che solo un piccolo selvaggio avrebbe potuto infliggere. Si trattava di un lavoro più duro del previsto, il che raffreddò ben presto il coraggio dei contendenti, i quali si rimisero in piedi e chiesero quartiere.

«Vi ridurrò in poltiglia, cani», disse Quilp, cercando invano di avvicinarsi a uno dei due per un ultimo colpo. «Vi concerò così male che diventerete color rame, vi romperò il viso fino a non lasciarvi nemmeno un profilo tra tutti e due, lo farò».

‘Come, you drop that stick or it’ll be worse for you,’ said his boy, dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; ‘you drop that stick.’

‘Come a little nearer, and I’ll drop it on your skull, you dog,’ said Quilp, with gleaming eyes; ‘a little nearer—nearer yet.’

But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power, when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he fell violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as at a most irresistible jest.

‘Never mind,’ said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the same time; ‘you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because they say you’re an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a penny, that’s all.’

‘Do you mean to say, I’m not, you dog?’ returned Quilp.

‘No!’ retorted the boy.

‘Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?’ said Quilp.

‘Because he said so,’ replied the boy, pointing to Kit, ‘not because you an’t.’

‘Then why did he say,’ bawled Kit, ‘that Miss Nelly was ugly, and that she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked? Why did he say that?’

‘He said what he did because he’s a fool, and you said what you did because you’re very wise and clever—almost too clever to live, unless you’re very careful of yourself, Kit.’ said Quilp, with great suavity in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes and mouth. ‘Here’s sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth. At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring me the key.’

The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed the river.

There was only Mrs Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the return of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing slumber when the sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely time to seem to be occupied in some needle-work, when he entered, accompanied by the child; having left Kit downstairs.

‘Here’s Nelly Trent, dear Mrs Quilp,’ said her husband. ‘A glass of wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She’ll sit with you, my soul, while I write a letter.’

Mrs Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse’s face to know what this unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she saw in his gesture, followed him into the next room.

‘Mind what I say to you,’ whispered Quilp. ‘See if you can get out of her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live, or what he tells her. I’ve my reasons for knowing, if I can. You women talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you have a soft, mild way with you that’ll win upon her. Do you hear?’

‘Yes, Quilp.’

‘Go then. What’s the matter now?’

‘Dear Quilp,’ faltered his wife. ‘I love the child—if you could do without making me deceive her—’

The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some weapon with which to inflict condign punishment upon his disobedient wife. The submissive little woman hurriedly entreated him not to be angry, and promised to do as he bade her.

‘Do you hear me,’ whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; ‘worm yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I’m listening, recollect. If you’re not sharp enough, I’ll creak the door, and woe betide you if I have to creak it much. Go!’

Mrs Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband, ensconcing himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his ear close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and attention.

Poor Mrs Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or what kind of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door, creaking in a very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without further consideration, that the sound of her voice was heard.

‘How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to Mr Quilp, my dear.’

‘I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,’ returned Nell innocently.

‘And what has he said to that?’

‘Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched that if you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you could not have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!’

‘It often does.’ returned Mrs Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards it. ‘But your grandfather—he used not to be so wretched?’

‘Oh, no!’ said the child eagerly, ‘so different! We were once so happy and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad change has fallen on us since.’

‘I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!’ said Mrs Quilp. And she spoke the truth.

‘Thank you,’ returned the child, kissing her cheek, ‘you are always kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one else about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me sometimes to see him alter so.’

‘He’ll alter again, Nelly,’ said Mrs Quilp, ‘and be what he was before.’

‘Oh, if God would only let that come about!’ said the child with streaming eyes; ‘but it is a long time now, since he first began to—I thought I saw that door moving!’

‘It’s the wind,’ said Mrs Quilp, faintly. ‘Began to—’

«Su, lascia quel bastone o te ne pentirai», disse il ragazzo di Joe, schivandolo e aspettando l’occasione per piombargli addosso. «Lascia quel bastone».

«Avvicinati un po’ di più e te lo sbatto in testa, cane», disse Quilp con gli occhi che brillavano; «un po’ più vicino, ancora più vicino».

Ma il ragazzo rifiutò l’invito finché il suo padrone non fu apparentemente un po’ distratto, allora si lanciò e afferrando l’arma cercò di strappargliela dalle mani. Quilp, che era forte come un leone, riuscì facilmente a tenerla finché il ragazzo non la tirava con tutta la sua forza, allora improvvisamente la lasciò andare e lo fece cadere all’indietro, tanto che egli cadde violentemente sulla testa. Il successo di questa manovra divertì Mr Quilp oltre ogni dire, e rise e pestò i piedi per terra come davanti a uno scherzo irresistibile.

«Non importa», disse il ragazzo, annuendo e grattandosi la testa nello stesso momento; «vedrete che se mai mi offrirò di colpire qualcuno ancora perché dicono che siete un nano più brutto di quelli che si possono vedere in giro per un penny, questo è tutto.»

«Vuoi dire che non lo sono, cane?» rispose Quilp.

«No!» ribatté il ragazzo.

«Allora perché combatti sul mio molo, tu mascalzone?» disse Quilp.

‘Perché lui l’ha detto’, rispose il ragazzo indicando Kit, ‘non perché tu non lo abbia fatto.’

«Allora perché ha detto», gridò Kit, «che la signorina Nell era brutta e che lei e il mio padrone erano obbligati a fare tutto quello che piaceva al suo padrone? Perché l’ha detto?»

«Ha detto quello che ha detto perché è uno stolto, e tu hai detto quello che hai detto perché sei molto saggio e intelligente - quasi troppo intelligente per vivere, a meno che non stai molto attento a te stesso, Kit.» disse Quilp con grande dolcezza nel suo modo di fare, ma ancora più malizia tranquilla intorno ai suoi occhi e alla sua bocca. «Ecco sei pence per te, Kit. Di’ sempre la verità. In ogni momento, Kit, di’ la verità. Chiudi il contabile, cane, e portami la chiave.»

L’altro ragazzo, al quale era rivolto questo ordine, fece come gli veniva detto, e fu premiato per il suo partigianismo a favore del padrone con un abile colpo sul naso con la chiave, che portò le acqua agli occhi. Poi il signor Quilp se ne andò con il bambino e Kit su una barca, e il ragazzo si vendicò ballando sulla sua testa a intervalli sul bordo estremo del molo, per tutto il tempo che attraversarono il fiume.

A casa c’era solo la signora Quilp e lei, che non si aspettava certo il ritorno del suo signore, stava appunto disponendosi a un sonnellino ristoratore quando il rumore dei suoi passi la svegliò. Non ebbe quasi tempo di fingere di essere occupata in qualche lavoro all’uncinetto, che lui entrò accompagnato dal bambino; avendo lasciato Kit al piano di sotto.

«Ecco Nelly Trent, cara signora Quilp», disse suo marito. «Un bicchiere di vino, mia cara, e un biscotto, perché ha fatto una lunga passeggiata. Si siederà con te, la mia anima, mentre scrivo una lettera».

La signora Quilp guardò tremante il volto del marito per capire cosa potesse significare questa insolita cortesia e, obbedendo all’invito che lesse nel suo gesto, lo seguì nella stanza accanto.

«Fai attenzione a quello che ti dico», sussurrò Quilp. «Vedi se riesci a farle dire qualcosa su suo nonno, o su cosa fanno, o come vivono, o cosa lui le dice. Ho i miei motivi per volerlo sapere, se posso. Voi donne parlate più liberamente tra di voi che con noi, e avete un modo dolce e mite che la conquisterà. Mi hai sentito?»

‘Sì, Quilp.’

‘Allora vai. Cosa c’è adesso?’

«Caro Quilp», balbettò sua moglie, «amo la bambina, se potessi evitare di farmi mentire a lei, »

Il nanerottolo mormorando un terribile giuramento si guardò intorno come se cercasse qualche arma con cui infliggere una punizione adeguata alla moglie disobbediente. La piccola donna sottomessa lo pregò in fretta di non arrabbiarsi e promise di fare quello che le diceva lui.

«Mi senti?», sussurrò Quilp, mordicchiandole e pizzicandole il braccio; «insinuati nei suoi segreti; so che puoi farlo. Ricorda, sto ascoltando. Se non sarai abbastanza furba, farò cigolare la porta, e guai a te se dovrò farla cigolare troppo. Vai!»

La signora Quilp se ne andò come stabilito e il suo affabile marito si nascose dietro la porta semiaperta, avvicinandovi l’orecchio, e cominciò ad ascoltare con un’espressione piena d’astuzia e attenzione.

La povera signora Quilp stava però pensando come cominciare o che tipo di domande potesse fare; e non fu fino a quando la porta, cigolando in modo molto insistente, le fece capire di procedere senza ulteriori indugi, che si udì il suono della sua voce.

‘Come sei venuto spesso avanti e indietro ultimamente da Mr Quilp, mio caro.’

«L’ho detto al nonno cento volte», rispose Nell con innocenza.

‘Che cosa ha detto in proposito?’

«Sospirò soltanto e chinò il capo, e sembrava così triste e infelice che se lo aveste visto sareste sicuramente scoppiati in lacrime; non avreste potuto evitarlo più di me, ne sono certo. Come scricchiola quella porta!»

«Spesso lo è», rispose la signora Quilp con uno sguardo inquieto verso di lui. «Ma vostro nonno, non era solito essere così infelice?»

«Oh, no!», disse il bambino con entusiasmo, «così diverso! Un tempo eravamo così felici e lui era così allegro e contento! Non potete immaginare quale triste cambiamento sia piombato su di noi da allora».

«Mi dispiace molto, moltissimo di sentirti parlare così, mia cara!» disse la signora Quilp. E diceva la verità.

«Grazie», rispose il bambino, baciandole la guancia, «sei sempre gentile con me e mi fa piacere parlare con te. Non posso parlarne con nessun altro se non povero Kit. Sono ancora molto felice, forse dovrei sentirmi più felice di quanto io sia, ma non puoi immaginare come a volte mi addolori vederlo cambiare così».

‘Cambierà di nuovo, Nelly’, disse la signora Quilp, ‘e tornerà come era prima.’

«Oh, se Dio solo lo permettesse!» disse il bambino con gli occhi pieni di lacrime; «ma è passato tanto tempo da quando lui ha iniziato a, mi sembrava di vedere quella porta muoversi!»

«È il vento», disse la signora Quilp con voce flebile. «Ha cominciato a, »

‘To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way of spending the time in the long evenings,’ said the child. ‘I used to read to him by the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped and we began to talk, he told me about my mother, and how she once looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then he used to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that she was not lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky where nothing died or ever grew old—we were very happy once!’

‘Nelly, Nelly!’ said the poor woman, ‘I can’t bear to see one as young as you so sorrowful. Pray don’t cry.’

‘I do so very seldom,’ said Nell, ‘but I have kept this to myself a long time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into my eyes and I cannot keep them back. I don’t mind telling you my grief, for I know you will not tell it to any one again.’

Mrs Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.

‘Then,’ said the child, ‘we often walked in the fields and among the green trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark and rather dull, we used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only made us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look forward to our next one. But now we never have these walks, and though it is the same house it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be, indeed!’

She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs Quilp said nothing.

‘Mind you don’t suppose,’ said the child earnestly, ‘that grandfather is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day, and is kinder and more affectionate than he was the day before. You do not know how fond he is of me!’

‘I am sure he loves you dearly,’ said Mrs Quilp.

‘Indeed, indeed he does!’ cried Nell, ‘as dearly as I love him. But I have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never breathe again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he takes by day in his easy chair; for every night and nearly all night long he is away from home.’

‘Nelly!’

‘Hush!’ said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking round. ‘When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just before day, I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were bloodshot, and that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone to bed again, I heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him, and heard him say, before he knew that I was there, that he could not bear his life much longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish to die. What shall I do! Oh! What shall I do!’

The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by the weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she had ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been received, hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst into a passion of tears.

In a few minutes Mr Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost surprise to find her in this condition, which he did very naturally and with admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it.

‘She’s tired you see, Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf, squinting in a hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. ‘It’s a long way from her home to the wharf, and then she was alarmed to see a couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the water besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor Nell!’

Mr Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the head. Such an application from any other hand might not have produced a remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from his touch and felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach, that she rose directly and declared herself ready to return.

‘But you’d better wait, and dine with Mrs Quilp and me.’ said the dwarf.

‘I have been away too long, sir, already,’ returned Nell, drying her eyes.

‘Well,’ said Mr Quilp, ‘if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here’s the note. It’s only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next day, and that I couldn’t do that little business for him this morning. Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d’ye hear?’

Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so needless an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening manner, as if he doubted whether he might not have been the cause of Nelly shedding tears, and felt more than half disposed to revenge the fact upon him on the mere suspicion, turned about and followed his young mistress, who had by this time taken her leave of Mrs Quilp and departed.

‘You’re a keen questioner, an’t you, Mrs Quilp?’ said the dwarf, turning upon her as soon as they were left alone.

‘What more could I do?’ returned his wife mildly.

‘What more could you do!’ sneered Quilp, ‘couldn’t you have done something less? Couldn’t you have done what you had to do, without appearing in your favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?’

‘I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,’ said his wife. ‘Surely I’ve done enough. I’ve led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were alone; and you were by, God forgive me.’

‘You led her on! You did a great deal truly!’ said Quilp. ‘What did I tell you about making me creak the door? It’s lucky for you that from what she let fall, I’ve got the clue I want, for if I hadn’t, I’d have visited the failure upon you, I can tell you.’

Mrs Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband added with some exultation,

‘But you may thank your fortunate stars—the same stars that made you Mrs Quilp—you may thank them that I’m upon the old gentleman’s track, and have got a new light. So let me hear no more about this matter now or at any other time, and don’t get anything too nice for dinner, for I shan’t be home to it.’

So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quilp, who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less tender-hearted persons would have mourned a much greater offence; for, in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management and leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense with it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue.

«Essere così pensierosi e abbattuti, e dimenticare il nostro vecchio modo di trascorrere le lunghe serate», disse il bambino. «Ero solito leggere per lui accanto al caminetto, e lui sedeva ad ascoltare; quando smettevo e iniziavamo a parlare, mi raccontava di mia madre, e come una volta aveva l’aspetto e parlava proprio come me quando era un piccolo bambino. Poi mi prendeva sulle ginocchia e cercava di farmi capire che lei non giaceva nella sua tomba, ma era volata in una bella terra oltre il cielo dove nulla moriva o mai invecchiava, eravamo così felici, un tempo!»

«Nelly, Nelly!», disse la povera donna, «non posso sopportare di vedere una così giovane come te tanto addolorata. Ti prego, non piangere».

«Lo faccio molto raramente», disse Nell, «ma ho tenuto questo per me un tempo lungo e non mi sento del tutto bene, credo, perché le lacrime mi salgono agli occhi e non riesco a trattenerle. Non mi dispiace raccontarti il mio dolore, perché so che tu non lo ripeterai a nessuno».

La signora Quilp distolse la testa e non rispose.

«Allora», disse il bambino, «spesso passeggiavamo nei campi e tra gli alberi verdi, e quando tornavamo a casa di notte, ci piaceva ancora di più perché eravamo stanchi, e dicevamo che era un posto così felice. E se faceva buio e un po’ triste, usavamo dire: “Che importa a noi? Ci fa solo ricordare la nostra ultima passeggiata con maggior piacere e aspettare quella successiva”. Ma ora non facciamo più queste passeggiate, e anche se è la stessa casa, è più buia e molto più tetra di prima, davvero!»

Si fermò qui, ma sebbene la porta cigolasse più di una volta, la signora Quilp non disse nulla.

«Fai attenzione a non pensare», disse il bambino con serietà, «che mio nonno sia meno gentile con me di quanto lo fosse prima. Penso che mi ami sempre più ogni giorno e che sia più affettuoso e premuroso rispetto al giorno precedente. Non sai quanto mi voglia bene!»

«Sono sicura che vi ama teneramente», disse la signora Quilp.

«In verità, in verità lo fa!» esclamò Nell «con tutto l’affetto con cui io amo lui. Ma non vi ho ancora detto la più grande delle novità e questa cosa non dovete mai rivelare a nessuno. Non ha né sonno né riposo, se non quello che prende di giorno nella sua poltrona; perché ogni notte e quasi tutta notte sta lontano da casa.»

‘Nell!’

«Ssst!», disse la bambina, mettendo un dito sulle labbra e guardandosi intorno. «Quando torna a casa al mattino, che di solito è poco prima dell’alba, lo faccio entrare. La scorsa notte è rientrato molto tardi ed era già chiaro. Ho visto che il suo viso era pallidissimo, gli occhi iniettati di sangue e che le gambe gli tremavano mentre camminava. Dopo essere tornata a letto, l’ho sentito gemere. Mi sono alzata ed è corsa da lui, e l’ho sentito dire, prima che si accorgesse della mia presenza, che non poteva sopportare la sua vita ancora per molto tempo, e se non fosse stato per il bambino, avrebbe desiderato morire. Cosa devo fare! Oh! Cosa devo fare!»

Le fonti del suo cuore si aprirono; la bambina, sopraffatta dal peso delle sue pene e delle sue ansie, dalla prima confidenza che aveva mai fatto, e dalla simpatia con cui il suo piccolo racconto era stato accolto, nascose il viso tra le braccia della sua amica impotente, e scoppiò in un fiume di lacrime.

Dopo pochi minuti il signor Quilp tornò e manifestò la massima sorpresa nel trovarla in quelle condizioni, cosa che fece con grande naturalezza ed effetto ammirevole, perché quel tipo di recitazione gli era divenuto familiare per lunga pratica, tanto da sentirsi a casa in essa.

«È stanca, vede, signora Quilp», disse il nanerottolo, strizzando gli occhi in modo orribile per far capire che sua moglie doveva seguire la sua linea di condotta. «È un lungo viaggio dal suo casa al molo, e poi si è spaventata nel vedere due giovani furfanti che combattevano, ed era timorosa sull’acqua inoltre. Tutto questo insieme è stato troppo per lei. Povera Nell!»

Il signor Quilp adottò involontariamente il mezzo migliore che avrebbe potuto escogitare per recuperare la sua giovane visitatrice, accarezzandole la testa. Un tale gesto da parte di chiunque altro non avrebbe forse prodotto un effetto notevole, ma la bambina si ritrasse così rapidamente dal suo tocco e provò un istintivo desiderio di mettersi al sicuro dalla sua portata, che si alzò immediatamente e dichiarò di essere pronta a tornare.

«Ma è meglio che aspetti e pranzi con la signora Quilp e me», disse il nanerottolo.

«Sono già stata via troppo a lungo, signore», rispose Nell asciugandosi gli occhi.

«Bene,» disse il signor Quilp «se vuoi andare, vai pure, Nell. Ecco la lettera. Dice solo che lo vedrò domani o forse dopodomani e che non ho potuto sbrigargli quella piccola faccenda questa mattina. Addio, Nell. E tu, signore; bada a lei, hai capito?»

Kit, che apparve in risposta alla chiamata, non degnò di rispondere a un’inutile ingiunzione del genere e dopo aver fissato Quilp con aria minacciosa, come se dubitasse che potesse essere stato lui la causa delle lacrime versate da Nelly e si sentisse più che propenso a vendicare il fatto su di lui per un semplice sospetto, si voltò e seguì la sua giovane padrona, che in quel momento aveva preso congedo da Mrs Quilp ed era partita.

«Siete una grande interrogatrice, non è vero, signora Quilp?» disse il nanerottolo, voltandosi verso di lei appena furono lasciati soli.

«Che altro avrei potuto fare?» rispose sua moglie con dolcezza.

«Che altro avresti potuto fare!» schernì Quilp «Non potevi fare qualcosa di meno? Non potevi fare quello che dovevi fare senza apparire nel tuo ruolo preferito del coccodrillo, tu scimmietta?»

«Mi dispiace molto per la bambina, Quilp», disse sua moglie. «Sicuramente ho fatto abbastanza. L’ho spinta a rivelare il suo segreto, lei pensava che fossimo soli, e tu eri lì, Dio mi perdoni».

«L’avete ingannata! Avete fatto davvero molto!» disse Quilp. «Che cosa vi ho detto a proposito di farmi cigolare la porta? È stato un colpo di fortuna per voi che da quello che ha lasciato intendere, io abbia ottenuto l’indizio che volevo, perché se non lo avessi fatto, ve ne sarei andato in cerca, ve lo posso dire.»

La signora Quilp, essendone pienamente persuasa, non rispose. Suo marito aggiunse con un certo trionfo:

«Ma potete ringraziare le vostre fortunate stelle—le stesse stelle che vi hanno fatto diventare la signora Quilp—potete ringraziarle per il fatto che sono sulle tracce del vecchio e ho una nuova pista. Perciò non voglio più sentir parlare di questa faccenda, ora o in qualsiasi altro momento, e non preparatemi niente di troppo prelibato per cena, perché io non ci sarò a casa.»

Detto ciò, il signor Quilp si mise il cappello e se ne andò, mentre la signora Quilp, che era afflitta oltre misura dal ricordo della parte che aveva appena recitato, si rinchiuse nella sua camera e soffocando la testa tra le coperte del letto piangeva il suo errore più amaramente di quanto avrebbero fatto molte persone meno teneri di cuore per un’offesa molto maggiore; poiché, nella maggior parte dei casi, la coscienza è un articolo elastico e molto flessibile, che sopporta una grande quantità di stiramenti e si adatta a una grande varietà di circostanze. Alcune persone, con una gestione prudente e lasciandola da parte pezzo per pezzo come un gilet di flanella in tempo caldo, riescono addirittura, col tempo, a dispensarsene del tutto; ma ce ne sono altri che possono indossare il capo e toglierlo a piacere; e questo, essendo il miglioramento più grande e comodo, è quello più in voga.

CHAPTER 7

‘Fred,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘remember the once popular melody of Begone dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.’

Mr Richard Swiveller’s apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the advantage of being over a tobacconist’s shop, so that he was enabled to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller made use of the expressions above recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his desponding friend; and it may not be uninteresting or improper to remark that even these brief observations partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetical character of Mr Swiveller’s mind, as the rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, which was replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon the table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers which, as Mr Swiveller’s was a bachelor’s establishment, may be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as ‘apartments’ for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following up the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers, conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leaving their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls, at pleasure.

In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he cherished it.

‘Fred!’ said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been productive of no effect. ‘Pass the rosy.’

Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly roused.

‘I’ll give you, Fred,’ said his friend, stirring the mixture, ‘a little sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here’s May the—’

‘Pshaw!’ interposed the other. ‘You worry me to death with your chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.’

‘Why, Mr Trent,’ returned Dick, ‘there is a proverb which talks about being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can’t be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can’t be merry. I’m one of the first sort. If the proverb’s a good ‘un, I suppose it’s better to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I’d rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one nor t’other.’

‘Bah!’ muttered his friend, peevishly.

‘With all my heart,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘In the polite circles I believe this sort of thing isn’t usually said to a gentleman in his own apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,’ adding to this retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be rather ‘cranky’ in point of temper, Richard Swiveller finished the rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an imaginary company.

‘Gentlemen, I’ll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular—Mr Richard, gentlemen,’ said Dick with great emphasis, ‘who spends all his money on his friends and is Bah!’d for his pains. Hear, hear!’

‘Dick!’ said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the room twice or thrice, ‘will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?’

‘You’ve shown me so many,’ returned Dick; ‘and nothing has come of any one of ‘em but empty pockets—’

‘You’ll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is over,’ said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. ‘You saw my sister Nell?’

‘What about her?’ returned Dick.

‘She has a pretty face, has she not?’

‘Why, certainly,’ replied Dick. ‘I must say for her that there’s not any very strong family likeness between her and you.’

‘Has she a pretty face,’ repeated his friend impatiently.

‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of that?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ returned his friend. ‘It’s very plain that the old man and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?’

‘A bat might see that, with the sun shining,’ said Dick.

‘It’s equally plain that the money which the old flint—rot him—first taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all be hers, is it not?’

‘I should said it was,’ replied Dick; ‘unless the way in which I put the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was powerful, Fred. ‘Here is a jolly old grandfather’—that was strong, I thought—very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?’

‘It didn’t strike him,’ returned the other, ‘so we needn’t discuss it. Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.’

CAPITOLO 7

«Federico,» disse il signor Swiveller, «ricordati la melodia un tempo popolare di Begone dull care; ravviva con l’ala dell’amicizia la fiamma morente della gioia e passa il vino rosato.»

Gli appartamenti del signor Richard Swiveller si trovavano nei pressi di Drury Lane e, oltre alla comodità della posizione, avevano il vantaggio di essere sopra un negozio di tabacchi, così che poteva procurarsi uno starnuto ristoratore in qualsiasi momento semplicemente uscendo sulle scale e si risparmiava la fatica e la spesa di tenere una scatola del tabacco da fiuto. Fu in questi appartamenti che il signor Swiveller fece uso delle espressioni sopra riportate per consolare e incoraggiare l’amico abbattuto; e non sarà forse privo d’interesse o sconveniente notare che anche queste brevi osservazioni partecipavano in un senso duplice del carattere figurato e poetico della mente del signor Swiveller, poiché il vino rosato era infatti rappresentato da un bicchiere di gin-and-water freddo, che veniva riempito secondo necessità da una bottiglia e un brocca sul tavolo, e passato dall’uno all’altro a causa della scarsità di bicchieri che, trattandosi dell’alloggio di scapolo del signor Swiveller, può essere ammesso senza arrossire. Per una piacevole finzione simile la sua singola stanza era sempre menzionata al plurale. Nei momenti in cui non era occupata, il tabaccaio l’aveva annunciata nella sua vitrina come “appartamenti” per un gentiluomo single e il signor Swiveller, seguendo il suggerimento, non mancava mai di parlarne come delle sue stanze, dei suoi alloggi o dei suoi appartamenti, trasmettendo ai suoi ascoltatori l’idea di uno spazio indefinito e lasciando libera la loro immaginazione a vagare attraverso lunghe suite di ampie sale, a piacere.

In questo volo di fantasia, il signor Swiveller era assistito da un ingannevole pezzo d’arredamento, in realtà una struttura per letto, ma in apparenza uno scaffale, che occupava una posizione prominente nella sua camera e sembrava sfidare il sospetto e provocare l’indagine. Non c’è dubbio che di giorno il signor Swiveller credesse fermamente che questa comodità segreta fosse uno scaffale e nient’altro; che chiudesse gli occhi sul letto, negasse risolutamente l’esistenza delle coperte e scacciasse il cuscino dai suoi pensieri. Nessuna parola del suo vero uso, nessun accenno al suo servizio notturno, nessuna allusione alle sue proprietà peculiari, era mai passata tra lui e i suoi amici più intimi. La fede implicita nella deception era il primo articolo del suo credo. Per essere l’amico di Swiveller bisognava rifiutare tutte le prove circostanziali, tutta la ragione, l’osservazione e l’esperienza, e riporre una cieca fiducia nello scaffale. Era il suo punto debole preferito, e lo coltivava.

«Fred!», disse il signor Swiveller, accorgendosi che la sua precedente esortazione non aveva sortito alcun effetto. «Passami il rosso».

Il giovane Trent con un gesto impaziente spinse il bicchiere verso di lui e riprese l’atteggiamento malinconico da cui era stato riluttantemente risvegliato.

«Ti darò, Fred», disse il suo amico mescolando la miscela, «un brindisi adatto all’occasione. Ecco a te: possa, »

«Bah!» intervenne l’altro. «Mi porti alla morte con il tuo chiacchiericcio. Tu puoi essere allegra in qualsiasi circostanza.»

«Ebbene, signor Trent», rispose Dick, «c’è un proverbio che parla di essere allegri e saggi. Ci sono alcune persone che possono essere allegre ma non saggio, e altre che possono essere sagge (o credono di esserlo) ma non possono essere allegre. Io appartengo alla prima categoria. Se il proverbio è valido, immagino sia meglio attenersi a metà di esso piuttosto che a nulla; in ogni caso, preferirei essere allegro e non saggio, piuttosto che come lei, né l’uno né l’altro».

«Bah!» borbottò il suo amico, irritato.

«Con tutto il cuore», disse il signor Swiveller. «Nelle cerchie di buona società credo che questo genere di cose non si dica solitamente a un gentiluomo nelle sue stesse stanze, ma lasciamo perdere. Mettetevi a vost agio», aggiungendo a questa risposta un’osservazione sul fatto che il suo amico sembrava piuttosto «irritabile» per quanto riguarda l’umore, Richard Swiveller finì il bicchiere di vino rosso e si dedicò alla composizione di un altro bicchiere, in cui, dopo averlo assaggiato con grande gusto, propose un brindisi a una compagnia immaginaria.

«Signori, vi auguro, se non vi dispiace, il successo alla nobile famiglia degli Swiveller e buona fortuna in particolare al signor Richard - il signor Richard, signori», disse Dick con grande enfasi, «che spende tutti i suoi soldi per gli amici e viene maledetto per questo. Evviva!»

«Dick!», disse l’altro, tornando al suo posto dopo aver camminato su e giù per la stanza due o tre volte, «vuoi parlare seriamente per due minuti se ti mostro un modo di fare fortuna con pochissima fatica?»

«Mi avete mostrato così tanti», rispose Dick; «e non è venuto fuori nulla da nessuno di essi, se non tasche vuote, »

«Racconterai una storia diversa su questa ragazza prima che sia trascorso un lungo periodo,» disse il suo compagno avvicinando la sedia al tavolo. «Hai visto mia sorella Nell?»

«E lei?» rispose Dick.

‘Ha un viso grazioso, non è vero?’

«Beh, certo», rispose Dick. «Devo dire per lei che non c’è una grande somiglianza familiare tra lei e voi».

«Ha un viso grazioso», ripeté il suo amico con impazienza.

“Sì,” disse Dick, “ha un viso grazioso, molto grazioso. E allora?”

«Ve lo dico io», rispose l’amico. «È chiaro che il vecchio e io rimarremo in pessimi rapporti fino alla fine dei nostri giorni, e che non ho nulla da aspettarmi da lui. Lo vedete anche voi, immagino?»

«Un pipistrello potrebbe vederlo con il sole che splende», disse Dick.

«È altrettanto chiaro che i soldi per cui il vecchio di pietra — marcisca in eterno — mi ha fatto credere che avrei dovuto dividerli con lei alla sua morte, saranno tutti suoi, no?»

«Avrei dovuto dirlo», rispose Dick; «a meno che il modo in cui gli ho esposto la questione non abbia fatto colpo. Potrebbe essere stato così. È stata un’argomentazione convincente, Fred. ‘Ecco un vecchio nonno allegro’ — mi sembrava una frase efficace — molto amichevole e naturale. Non ti è parsa tale?»

«Non gli è venuto in mente», rispose l’altro, «quindi non c’è bisogno di discuterne. Ora ascolti. Nell ha quasi quattordici anni».

‘Fine girl of her age, but small,’ observed Richard Swiveller parenthetically.

‘If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,’ returned Trent, fretting at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation. ‘Now I’m coming to the point.’

‘That’s right,’ said Dick.

‘The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may, at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme would take a week to tell) what’s to prevent your marrying her?’

Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the monosyllable:

‘What!’

‘I say, what’s to prevent,’ repeated the other with a steadiness of manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured by long experience, ‘what’s to prevent your marrying her?’

‘And she “nearly fourteen”!’ cried Dick.

‘I don’t mean marrying her now’—returned the brother angrily; ‘say in two year’s time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a long-liver?’

‘He don’t look like it,’ said Dick shaking his head, ‘but these old people—there’s no trusting them, Fred. There’s an aunt of mine down in Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years old, and hasn’t kept her word yet. They’re so aggravating, so unprincipled, so spiteful—unless there’s apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can’t calculate upon ‘em, and even then they deceive you just as often as not.’

‘Look at the worst side of the question then,’ said Trent as steadily as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. ‘Suppose he lives.’

‘To be sure,’ said Dick. ‘There’s the rub.’

‘I say,’ resumed his friend, ‘suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with you. What do you think would come of that?’

‘A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep ‘em on,’ said Richard Swiveller after some reflection.

‘I tell you,’ returned the other with an increased earnestness, which, whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion, ‘that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do it. You or any other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he chooses.’

‘It seems improbable certainly,’ said Dick, musing.

‘It seems improbable because it is improbable,’ his friend returned. ‘If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you, let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between you and me—let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of course—and he’ll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks, that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a beautiful young wife.’

‘I suppose there’s no doubt about his being rich’—said Dick.

‘Doubt! Did you hear what he let fall the other day when we were there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?’

It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity, interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same side. To these impulses must be added the complete ascendancy which his friend had long been accustomed to exercise over him—an ascendancy exerted in the beginning sorely at the expense of his friend’s vices, and was in nine cases out of ten looked upon as his designing tempter when he was indeed nothing but his thoughtless, light-headed tool.

The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to their own development, require no present elucidation. The negotiation was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in the act of stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying ‘Come in.’

The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a servant-girl, who being then and there engaged in cleaning the stairs had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception of surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.

Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction, and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it was one of the inconveniences of being a lady’s man, and that it was very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten her.

‘Her. Who?’ demanded Trent.

‘Sophy Wackles,’ said Dick.

‘Who’s she?’

‘She’s all my fancy painted her, sir, that’s what she is,’ said Mr Swiveller, taking a long pull at ‘the rosy’ and looking gravely at his friend. ‘She’s lovely, she’s divine. You know her.’

‘I remember,’ said his companion carelessly. ‘What of her?’

‘Why, sir,’ returned Dick, ‘between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase, is not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell you that.’

‘Am I to believe there’s anything real in what you say?’ demanded his friend; ‘you don’t mean to say that any love-making has been going on?’

‘Love-making, yes. Promising, no,’ said Dick. ‘There can be no action for breach, that’s one comfort. I’ve never committed myself in writing, Fred.’

‘And what’s in the letter, pray?’

‘A reminder, Fred, for to-night—a small party of twenty, making two hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman to have the proper complement. I must go, if it’s only to begin breaking off the affair—I’ll do it, don’t you be afraid. I should like to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any bar to her happiness, it’s affecting, Fred.’

To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum’s sake no doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she was extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr Swiveller heard this account with a degree of admiration not altogether consistent with the project in which he had just concurred, but his friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this respect, probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to control Richard Swiveller’s proceedings in this or any other matter, whenever he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes, to exert it.

«Bella ragazza per la sua età, ma piccola», osservò Richard Swiveller tra parentesi.

«Se devo continuare, stai zitto per un minuto», rispose Trent, irritato dal poco interesse che l’altro sembrava dimostrare per la conversazione. «Ora arrivo al dunque».

«Esatto», disse Dick.

«La ragazza ha un forte affetto e, essendo stata educata come è stata, può essere facilmente influenzata e persuasa alla sua età. Se la prendo in mano, con poche lusinghe e minacce la piegherò al mio volere. Senza girarci intorno (perché i vantaggi del piano richiederebbero una settimana per essere elencati), cosa vi impedisce di sposarla?»

Richard Swiveller, che stava guardando oltre il bordo del bicchiere mentre il suo compagno gli rivolgeva le precedenti osservazioni con grande energia e serietà di modi, non appena udì queste parole manifestò la massima costernazione ed emise a fatica il monosillabo:

‘Che cosa!’

«Dico, che cosa vieta», ripeté l’altro con una fermezza di modi, dell’effetto della quale sul suo compagno era ben assicurato da lunga esperienza, «che cosa vieta che tu la sposi?»

«E lei “quasi quattordicenne”!» esclamò Dick.

«Non intendo sposarla adesso» — rispose il fratello con rabbia; «diciamo tra due anni, tre, quattro. Quell’uomo sembra che viva a lungo?»

«Non sembra», disse Dick scuotendo la testa, «ma con queste persone anziane non si può mai dire, Fred. Ho una zia nel Dorsetshire che stava per morire quando avevo otto anni e ancora non ha mantenuto la promessa. Sono così irritanti, senza scrupoli, così maligni: a meno che in famiglia ci sia l’apoplessia, Fred, non si può fare affidamento su di loro, e anche allora vi ingannano più spesso che no».

«Allora guardiamo il lato peggiore della questione», disse Trent con la stessa calma di prima e continuando a fissare lo sguardo sul suo amico. «Supponiamo che viva».

“Certamente,” disse Dick. “Ecco il problema.”

«Dico» riprese il suo amico «supponiamo che lui viva e io persuada, o se la parola suona più fattibile, costringa Nell a un matrimonio segreto con te. Cosa credi che ne verrebbe fuori?»

«Una famiglia e un reddito annuo di niente per mantenerli», disse Richard Swiveller dopo averci riflettuto un po’.

«Le dico», rispose l’altro con un accresciuto fervore che, fosse reale o simulato, ebbe lo stesso effetto sul suo compagno, «che vive per lei, che tutta la sua energia e i suoi pensieri sono legati a lei, che non la disinheriterà per un atto di disobbedienza più di quanto mi riprenderebbe in simpatia per qualsiasi atto di obbedienza o virtù di cui potrei essere colpevole. Non potrebbe farlo. Lei o chiunque altro con gli occhi in testa può vederlo, se lo desidera».

«Sembra certo improbabile», disse Dick, pensieroso.

«Sembra improbabile perché è improbabile», rispose l’amico. «Se gli fornissi un ulteriore incentivo per perdonarti, che ci sia una rottura irreconciliabile, una lite mortale tra te e me - voglio dire, naturalmente, che ci sia la finzione di una cosa del genere - e lui si affretterà. Per quanto riguarda Nell, goccia a goccia anche la pietra si consuma; sai che puoi fidarti di me per quel che la riguarda. Dunque, che viva o muoia, qual è il risultato? Che tu diventi l’unico erede della ricchezza di questo vecchio taccagno, che noi due ce la spartiamo e che in più ti prendi una giovane moglie bellissima».

«Suppongo che non ci sia alcun dubbio sul fatto che sia ricco» — disse Dick.

«Dubbio! Hai sentito quello che ha lasciato cadere l’altro giorno quando eravamo là? Dubbio! Cosa vorrai dubitare dopo, Dick?»

Sarebbe noioso seguire la conversazione attraverso tutti i suoi abili giri, o sviluppare le graduali avvicinazioni con cui il cuore di Richard Swiveller fu conquistato. È sufficiente sapere che vanità, interesse, povertà, e ogni considerazione sperpera lo spinsero a guardare la proposta con favore, e che dove tutti gli altri incentivi mancavano, l’abituale disinvoltura del suo carattere interveniva e ancora faceva pendere la bilancia dalla stessa parte. A questi impulsi deve essere aggiunto il completo ascendente che il suo amico era abituato da tempo a esercitare su di lui, un ascendente esercitato all’inizio con grande danno dei vizi del suo amico e che in nove casi su dieci veniva considerato come l’astuto tentatore quando non era altro che il suo strumento sconsiderato e leggero.

Le motivazioni dall’altra parte erano qualcosa di più profondo di qualsiasi cosa che Richard Swiveller nutrisse o comprendesse, ma queste, lasciate al loro sviluppo naturale, non richiedono alcuna chiarificazione immediata. La trattativa si concluse molto piacevolmente e il signor Swiveller stava per affermare in termini fioriti che non aveva obiezioni insormontabili nel sposare chiunque fosse abbondantemente dotato di denaro o beni mobili, purché potesse essere indotto ad accettarlo, quando fu interrotto nelle sue osservazioni da un colpo alla porta e dalla conseguente necessità di gridare “Avanti”.

La porta era aperta, ma non entrò nulla tranne un braccio insaponato e una forte folata di tabacco. La folata di tabacco proveniva dal negozio al piano terra, mentre il braccio insaponato apparteneva a una cameriera che in quel momento si trovava lì per pulire le scale. Aveva appena estratto il braccio da un secchio caldo per prendere una lettera, che ora teneva in mano e annunciava ad alta voce con quella rapida percezione dei cognomi tipica della sua classe sociale: era per il signor Snivelling.

Dick appariva piuttosto pallido e sciocco quando diede un’occhiata all’intestazione, e ancor più quando guardò l’interno, osservando che era uno degli inconvenienti di essere un uomo di donne, e che era molto facile parlare come avevano fatto loro, ma lui se ne era completamente dimenticato.

«Lei. Chi?» chiese Trent.

«Sophy Wackles», disse Dick.

‘Chi è lei?’

«È proprio come me la immaginavo, signore, è così che è», disse il signor Swiveller, facendo un lungo sorso del «rosa» e guardando seriamente il suo amico. «È incantevole, è divina. La conosci».

«Mi ricordo», disse il suo compagno con nonchalance, «e allora?»

«Perché, signore», rispose Dick, «tra la signorina Sophia Wackles e l’umile individuo che ha ora l’onore di rivolgersi a voi sono nati sentimenti caldi e teneri, sentimenti del più onorevole e stimolante genere. La dea Diana, signore, che chiama ad alta voce alla caccia, non è più particolare nel suo comportamento di Sophia Wackles; ve lo posso dire io».

«Devo credere che ci sia qualcosa di vero in quello che dici?» chiese il suo amico; «non vorrai dire che c’è stato qualche tentativo di corteggiamento?»

«Fare l’amore, sì. Fare promesse, no», disse Dick. «Non ci può essere alcuna azione per mancato adempimento, questo è un conforto. Non mi sono mai impegnato per iscritto, Fred.»

‘E cosa c’è nella lettera, prego?’

«Un promemoria, Fred, per stasera: una piccola festa di venti persone, che fanno in tutto duecento piedi leggeri e fantastici, supponendo che ogni signora e signore abbia il corretto numero. Devo andare, anche solo per cominciare a interrompere la cosa — lo farò, non aver paura. Vorrei sapere se l’ha lasciato qui da sola. Se lo ha fatto, ignara di qualsiasi ostacolo alla sua felicità, è commovente, Fred.»

Per risolvere la questione, il signor Swiveller convocò la cameriera e appurò che la signorina Sophy Wackles aveva effettivamente consegnato la lettera con le proprie mani; e che era venuta accompagnata, per decoro senza dubbio alcun, da una più giovane signorina Wackles; e che apprendendo che il signor Swiveller era in casa e ricevendo l’invito a salire al piano superiore, si era mostrata estremamente scioccata e aveva dichiarato di preferire morire. Il signor Swiveller ascoltò questo resoconto con un grado di ammirazione non del tutto coerente con il progetto in cui aveva appena concordato, ma il suo amico attribuiva poca importanza al suo comportamento in tal senso, probabilmente perché sapeva di avere l’influenza sufficiente per controllare le azioni di Richard Swiveller in questa o qualsiasi altra questione, ogni volta che lo riteneva necessario, per il perseguimento dei propri scopi.

CHAPTER 8

Business disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be endangered by longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having experience of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending back for answer that if Mr Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps he would be so obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with him, as grace before meat, the amount of a certain small account which had long been outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this rebuff, but rather sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swiveller forwarded the same message to another and more distant eating-house, adding to it by way of rider that the gentleman was induced to send so far, not only by the great fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurant cook’s shop, which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The good effect of this politic course was demonstrated by the speedy arrival of a small pewter pyramid, curiously constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being resolved into its component parts afforded all things requisite and necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his friend applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.

‘May the present moment,’ said Dick, sticking his fork into a large carbuncular potato, ‘be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of sending ‘em with the peel on; there’s a charm in drawing a potato from its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and powerful are strangers. Ah! “Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long!” How true that is!—after dinner.’

‘I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may not want that little long,’ returned his companion; but I suspect you’ve no means of paying for this!’

‘I shall be passing present, and I’ll call,’ said Dick, winking his eye significantly. ‘The waiter’s quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred, and there’s an end of it.’

In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was informed by Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would call and settle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some perturbation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about ‘payment on delivery’ and ‘no trust,’ and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the beef, greens, and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time. Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety, replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven minutes past; and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation, Richard Swiveller took a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket and made an entry therein.

‘Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?’ said Trent with a sneer.

‘Not exactly, Fred,’ replied the imperturbable Richard, continuing to write with a businesslike air. ‘I enter in this little book the names of the streets that I can’t go down while the shops are open. This dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There’s only one avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every direction, that in a month’s time, unless my aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get over the way.’

‘There’s no fear of failing, in the end?’ said Trent.

‘Why, I hope not,’ returned Mr Swiveller, ‘but the average number of letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far as eight without any effect at all. I’ll write another to-morrow morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. “I’m in such a state of mind that I hardly know what I write”—blot—“if you could see me at this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct”—pepper-castor—“my hand trembles when I think”—blot again—if that don’t produce the effect, it’s all over.’

By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.

‘It’s rather sudden,’ said Dick shaking his head with a look of infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; ‘when the heart of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss Wackles appears; she’s a very nice girl. She’s like the red red rose that’s newly sprung in June—there’s no denying that—she’s also like a melody that’s sweetly played in tune. It’s really very sudden. Not that there’s any need, on account of Fred’s little sister, to turn cool directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I must begin at once, I see that. There’s the chance of an action for breach, that’s another. There’s the chance of—no, there’s no chance of that, but it’s as well to be on the safe side.’

CAPITOLO VIII

Affari conclusi, il signor Swiveller fu interiormente ricordato che era quasi l’ora di cena, e per evitare che la sua salute fosse messa a repentaglio da un prolungato digiuno, inviò un messaggio al più vicino locale dove si serviva cibo chiedendo una fornitura immediata di manzo bollito e verdure per due. Tuttavia, il locale in questione (avendo esperienza con quel cliente) rifiutò di accontentarlo, rispondendo sgarbatamente che se il signor Swiveller aveva bisogno di carne forse sarebbe stato così gentile da recarsi lì a mangiarla, portando con sé, come preghiera prima del pasto, l’importo di un certo piccolo conto in sospeso da tempo. Non affatto intimidito da questo rifiuto, anzi acutizzato negli ingegni e nell’appetito, il signor Swiveller inviò lo stesso messaggio a un altro locale più distante, aggiungendo come postilla che il gentiluomo era stato indotto a mandare così lontano non solo per la grande fama e popolarità acquisita dal suo manzo, ma anche a causa dell’estrema durezza del manzo venduto al negozio di cucina ostinato, che lo rendeva del tutto inadatto non solo come cibo da gentiluomo, ma per qualsiasi consumo umano. L’effetto positivo di questa mossa politica fu dimostrato dall’arrivo rapido di una piccola piramide di peltro, curiosamente costruita con piatti e copripiatti, dei quali i piatti del manzo bollito formavano la base e un boccale ribollente l’apice; la struttura, scomposta nelle sue parti componenti, forniva tutto il necessario per un pasto sostanzioso, al quale il signor Swiveller e il suo amico si dedicarono con grande entusiasmo e piacere.

«Che il momento presente», disse Dick, conficcando la forchetta in una grande patata carica di buccia, «sia il peggio delle nostre vite! Mi piace l’idea di mandarle con la buccia; c’è un fascino nel tirare fuori una patata dal suo elemento naturale (se posso esprimermi così) a cui i ricchi e potenti sono estranei. Ah! “L’uomo qui sotto vuole poco, né vuole quel poco a lungo!” Quanto è vero!—dopo cena.»

«Spero che il proprietario della trattoria non chieda troppo e che non voglia quel poco per molto tempo», rispose il suo compagno, «ma temo che tu non abbia i mezzi per pagare questo!»

«Passerò di qui e farò un salto», disse Dick, strizzando l’occhio in modo significativo. «Il cameriere è completamente impotente. La merce è sparita, Fred, e la cosa finisce qui».

In realtà, sembrerebbe che il cameriere avesse interiorizzato questa salutare verità, perché quando tornò per i piatti e le stoviglie vuoti e venne informato da Mr Swiveller con una dignitosa noncuranza che sarebbe passato a pagare in un secondo momento, mostrò qualche turbamento interiore e borbottò alcune osservazioni sul “pagamento alla consegna” e sulla “mancanza di fiducia”, e altri argomenti spiacevoli, ma si accontentò di chiedere a che ora era probabile che il gentiluomo sarebbe passato, in modo da poter essere presente al momento giusto dato che era già responsabile per la carne, le verdure e gli altri articoli. Mr Swiveller, dopo aver mentalmente calcolato i suoi impegni con precisione, rispose che sarebbe passato tra due minuti prima delle sei e sette minuti dopo; e l’uomo scomparve con questa debole consolazione, mentre Richard Swiveller tirò fuori dalla tasca un taccuino unto e vi fece una annotazione.

«È un promemoria nel caso dimenticaste di venire?» disse Trent con sarcasmo.

«Non esattamente, Fred», rispose l’imperturbabile Richard, continuando a scrivere con aria professionale. «In questo piccolo libro registro i nomi delle strade che non posso percorrere mentre i negozi sono aperti. La cena di oggi chiude Long Acre. Ho comprato un paio di stivali in Great Queen Street la scorsa settimana, e ho reso anche quella una via senza uscita. Ora spesso rimane solo un accesso per il Strand, e dovrò chiuderlo stan-notte con un paio di guanti. Le strade si stanno chiudendo così velocemente in ogni direzione che tra un mese, a meno che mia zia non mi invii una rimesse, dovrò allontanarmi da città di tre o quattro miglia per attraversare la strada».

«Non c’è paura di fallire, alla fine?» disse Trent.

«Ebbene, spero di no», rispose il signor Swiveller, «ma in media ci vogliono sei lettere per ammorbidirla e questa volta siamo arrivati fino a otto senza alcun effetto. Ne scriverò un’altra domani mattina. Intendo sbavare parecchio e versarci sopra un po’ di acqua dal macinino del pepe per farla sembrare pentita. “Sono in uno stato tale che a malapena so cosa scrivo”—sbaffo—“se poteste vedermi in questo momento versare lacrime per il mio comportamento passato”—macinino del pepe—“la mia mano trema al solo pensiero”—ancora uno sbaffo—se questo non sortisce l’effetto desiderato, è finita.»

A quell’ora, il signor Swiveller aveva finito di scrivere e ora ripose la matita nel suo piccolo fodero e chiuse il libro, con un atteggiamento perfettamente serio e grave. Il suo amico scoprì che era ora per lui di adempiere a qualche altro impegno, e Richard Swiveller fu quindi lasciato solo, in compagnia del vino rosso e delle proprie meditazioni riguardo alla signorina Sophy Wackles.

«È piuttosto improvviso», disse Dick scuotendo la testa con un’aria di infinita saggezza e continuando (come era solito fare) con frammenti di versi come se fossero solo prosa affrettata; «quando il cuore di un uomo è oppresso da paure, la nebbia si dissolve quando appare Miss Wackles; è una ragazza molto carina. È come la rosa rossa che sboccia a giugno—non c’è dubbio su questo—è anche come una melodia dolcemente suonata in tono. È davvero molto improvviso. Non che ci sia bisogno, per colpa della sorellina di Fred, di raffreddarsi subito, ma è meglio non esagerare. Se comincio a raffreddarmi affatto devo iniziare subito, lo vedo bene. C’è la possibilità di una causa per rottura del fidanzamento, questa è un’altra cosa. C’è la possibilità di—no, non c’è possibilità di questo, ma è meglio stare sul sicuro».

This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller sought to conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by linking his fortunes to hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further their notable scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting about for a pretext determined in favour of groundless jealousy. Having made up his mind on this important point, he circulated the glass (from his right hand to left, and back again) pretty freely, to enable him to act his part with the greater discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of his meditations.

The spot was at Chelsea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions; a circumstance which was made known to the neighbourhood by an oval board over the front first-floor windows, whereupon appeared in circumambient flourishes the words ‘Ladies’ Seminary’; and which was further published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of tender years standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts to reach the knocker with a spelling-book. The several duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged. English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work, marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs Wackles. Miss Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty summers or thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal; Miss Sophy was a fresh, good humoured, buxom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs Wackles was an excellent but rather venomous old lady of three-score.

To this Ladies’ Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin white, embellished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted curls of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole of the preceding day screwed up tight in a yellow play-bill; and the solemn gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and her eldest daughter, which struck Mr Swiveller as being uncommon but made no further impression upon him.

The truth is—and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste so strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a wilful and malicious invention—the truth is that neither Mrs Wackles nor her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of him as ‘a gay young man’ and to sigh and shake their heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller’s conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of that vague and dilatory kind which is usually looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue one way or other. Hence she had at last consented to play off against Richard Swiveller a stricken market-gardner known to be ready with his offer on the smallest encouragement, and hence—as this occasion had been specially assigned for the purpose—that great anxiety on her part for Richard Swiveller’s presence which had occasioned her to leave the note he has been seen to receive. ‘If he has any expectations at all or any means of keeping a wife well,’ said Mrs Wackles to her eldest daughter, ‘he’ll state ‘em to us now or never.’—‘If he really cares about me,’ thought Miss Sophy, ‘he must tell me so, to-night.’

But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own sister, which would have served his turn as well, when the company came, and among them the market-gardener, whose name was Cheggs. But Mr Cheggs came not alone or unsupported, for he prudently brought along with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who making straight to Miss Sophy and taking her by both hands, and kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an audible whisper that they had not come too early.

‘Too early, no!’ replied Miss Sophy.

‘Oh, my dear,’ rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before, ‘I’ve been so tormented, so worried, that it’s a mercy we were not here at four o’clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state of impatience to come! You’d hardly believe that he was dressed before dinner-time and has been looking at the clock and teasing me ever since. It’s all your fault, you naughty thing.’

Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr Cheggs (who was bashful before ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy’s mother and sisters, to prevent Mr Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and attentions upon him, and left Richard Swiveller to take care of himself. Here was the very thing he wanted, here was good cause reason and foundation for pretending to be angry; but having this cause reason and foundation which he had come expressly to seek, not expecting to find, Richard Swiveller was angry in sound earnest, and wondered what the devil Cheggs meant by his impudence.

Questa possibilità non sviluppata, che Richard Swiveller cercava di nascondere anche a se stesso, era quella di non essere immune ai fascini della signorina Wackles e, in un momento di disattenzione, di legare per sempre le sue sorti alle sue, rendendosi così incapace di portare avanti il loro notevole piano al quale si era così prontamente unito. Per tutti questi motivi, decise di litigare con la signorina Wackles senza indugio e, cercando un pretesto, optò per una infondata gelosia. Avendo preso una decisione su questo punto importante, fece circolare il bicchiere (dalla mano destra a quella sinistra e viceversa) piuttosto liberamente, per poter recitare la sua parte con maggiore discrezione, e poi, dopo aver apportato alcuni piccoli miglioramenti al suo aspetto, si diresse verso il luogo reso sacro dall’oggetto delle sue meditazioni.

Il luogo era Chelsea, dove la signorina Sophia Wackles risiedeva con sua madre vedova e due sorelle, insieme alle quali gestiva una piccolissima scuola diurna per giovani signore di proporzionate dimensioni; circostanza che veniva resa nota al vicinato da una targa ovale sopra le finestre del primo piano anteriore, su cui apparivano in ghirigori circonvoluti le parole “Seminario delle Signorine”; e che veniva ulteriormente pubblicizzata e proclamata a intervalli tra le ore di nove e mezza e dieci del mattino da una giovane signora smarrita e solitaria di tenera età, in piedi sullo scraper sulla punta dei piedi e che faceva tentativi infruttuosi di raggiungere il batacchio con un libro di ortografia. I vari doveri d’insegnamento in questo istituto erano così svolti: grammatica inglese, composizione, geografia e l’uso dei campanelli muti, dalla signorina Melissa Wackles; scrittura, aritmetica, danza, musica e fascino generale, dalla signorina Sophia Wackles; l’arte del cucito, della marcatura e dell’esempio, dalla signorina Jane Wackles; punizione corporale, digiuno e altri tormenti e terrore, dalla signora Wackles. La signorina Melissa Wackles era la figlia maggiore, Sophy la seconda e Jane la più giovane. La signorina Melissa poteva aver visto trentacinque estati o giù di lì ed era prossima all’autunno; Sophy era una ragazza fresca, di buon umore e robusta di vent’anni; e Jane ne contava a malapena sedici. La signora Wackles era un’eccellente ma piuttosto velenosa vecchia signora di sessant’anni.

Così, al Seminario delle Signorine si recò Richard Swiveller con intenti che non promettevano nulla di buono per la pace della bella Sophia, la quale, avvolta in un candido bianco e ornata soltanto da una timida rosa, lo accolse al suo arrivo tra preparativi molto eleganti, se non addirittura sontuosi: come l’abbellimento della stanza con i vasetti di fiori che di solito stavano sul davanzale esterno, tranne quando soffiava il vento e li spingeva giù nel cortile; gli abiti scelti delle allieve interne, autorizzate a partecipare alla festa; i riccioli insoliti della signorina Jane Wackles che per tutto il giorno precedente aveva tenuto la testa stretta in un manifesto giallo da teatro; e infine l’aria solenne e distinta e il portamento maestoso della vecchia signora e di sua figlia maggiore, che colpirono il signor Swiveller come qualcosa di fuori dal comune, senza però lasciare in lui un’impressione più profonda.

La verità è — e poiché i gusti non si discutono, anche un gusto così strano può essere registrato senza che venga considerato una invenzione volontaria e maliziosa — la verità è che né la signora Wackles né sua figlia maggiore avevano mai favorito molto le pretese del signor Swiveller, essendo abituate a parlare di lui con disprezzo come “un giovane allegro” e a sospirare e scuotere il capo in modo minaccioso ogni volta che veniva menzionato il suo nome. Il comportamento del signor Swiveller nei confronti della signorina Sophy era stato di quel tipo vago e dilatorio che di solito si considera come indice di nessuna intenzione matrimoniale fissa, così la giovane signora stessa cominciò col passare del tempo a ritenere altamente desiderabile che la cosa fosse portata a una conclusione in un senso o nell’altro. Di conseguenza aveva infine acconsentito a giocare contro Richard Swiveller un coltivatore di ortaggi noto per essere pronto a fare la sua proposta al minimo incoraggiamento, e di qui — poiché questa occasione era stata appositamente assegnata allo scopo — quella grande ansia da parte sua per la presenza di Richard Swiveller che l’aveva spinta a lasciare il biglietto che lo si è visto ricevere. “Se ha qualche speranza o qualche mezzo per mantenere una moglie bene,” disse la signora Wackles alla figlia maggiore, “ce lo dirà ora o mai più.” — “Se gli importa davvero di me,” pensò la signorina Sophy, “deve dirmelo stasera.”

Ma tutte queste parole e azioni e riflessioni, essendo sconosciute a Mr Swiveller, non lo influenzarono minimamente; egli stava meditando su come potesse meglio trasformare la gelosia in suo vantaggio, e desiderava che Sophy fosse per quella sola occasione molto meno carina di quanto era, o che fosse sua sorella, il che avrebbe servito al suo scopo altrettanto bene, quando arrivò la compagnia, e tra loro l’ortolano, il cui nome era Cheggs. Ma Mr Cheggs non venne da solo o senza sostegno, poiché prudenzialmente portò con sé sua sorella, Miss Cheggs, che andando dritta da Miss Sophy e prendendola per entrambe le mani, e baciandola su entrambe le guance, sperava in un sussurro udibile che non fossero arrivate troppo presto.

«Troppo presto, no!» rispose la signorina Sophy.

«Oh, mia cara», riprese Miss Cheggs con lo stesso sussurro di prima, «sono stata così tormentata e preoccupata che è una grazia non essere state qui alle quattro del pomeriggio. Alick era in uno stato tale d’impazienza per venire! Non credereste mai che si fosse vestito prima di cena e che da allora abbia continuato a guardare l’orologio e a tormentarmi. È tutta colpa tua, piccola monella».

A questo punto la signorina Sophy arrossì e anche il signor Cheggs (che era timido davanti alle donne) arrossì, e la madre e le sorelle della signorina Sophy, per evitare che il signor Cheggs arrossisse ancora di più, gli prodigarono cortesie e attenzioni, lasciando Richard Swiveller a badare a se stesso. Ecco proprio ciò che desiderava, ecco una buona ragione e fondamento per fingere di essere arrabbiato; ma avendo questa ragione e questo fondamento che era venuto appositamente a cercare, senza aspettarsi di trovarli, Richard Swiveller si arrabbiò sul serio e si chiese cosa diavolo Cheggs intendesse con la sua impudenza.

However, Mr Swiveller had Miss Sophy’s hand for the first quadrille (country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved through the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller had of the market-gardener, for determining to show the family what quality of man they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls as filled the company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles forgot for the moment to snub three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy, and could not repress a rising thought that to have such a dancer as that in the family would be a pride indeed.

At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous and useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles a contempt for Mr Swiveller’s accomplishments, she took every opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy’s ear expressions of condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a ridiculous creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest Alick should fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and entreating Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick gleamed with love and fury; passions, it may be observed, which being too much for his eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it with a crimson glow.

‘You must dance with Miss Cheggs,’ said Miss Sophy to Dick Swiviller, after she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and made great show of encouraging his advances. ‘She’s a nice girl—and her brother’s quite delightful.’

‘Quite delightful, is he?’ muttered Dick. ‘Quite delighted too, I should say, from the manner in which he’s looking this way.’

Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr Cheggs was.

‘Jealous! Like his impudence!’ said Richard Swiviller.

‘His impudence, Mr Swiviller!’ said Miss Jane, tossing her head. ‘Take care he don’t hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.’

‘Oh, pray, Jane—’ said Miss Sophy.

‘Nonsense!’ replied her sister. ‘Why shouldn’t Mr Cheggs be jealous if he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon if he hasn’t already. You know best about that, Sophy!’

Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister, originating in humane intentions and having for its object the inducing Mr Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are prematurely shrill and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr Swiviller retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs and conveying a defiance into his looks which that gentleman indignantly returned.

‘Did you speak to me, sir?’ said Mr Cheggs, following him into a corner. ‘Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be suspected. Did you speak to me, sir’?

Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg’s toes, then raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin, from that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg, until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up the middle of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said abruptly,

‘No, sir, I didn’t.’

‘’Hem!’ said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, ‘have the goodness to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me, sir.’

‘No, sir, I didn’t do that, either.’

‘Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,’ said Mr Cheggs fiercely.

At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr Chegg’s face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and carefully surveyed him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up the other leg, and thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his eyes, ‘No sir, I haven’t.’

‘Oh, indeed, sir!’ said Mr Cheggs. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You know where I’m to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to say to me?’

‘I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.’

‘There’s nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?’

‘Nothing more, sir’—With that they closed the tremendous dialog by frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophy, and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state.

Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking on at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the figure, and made some remark or other which was gall and wormwood to Richard Swiviller’s soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs and Miss Wackles for encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable on a couple of hard stools, were two of the day-scholars; and when Miss Wackles smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this offense they were both filed off immediately, with a dreadful promptitude that struck terror into the souls of all the pupils.

‘I’ve got such news for you,’ said Miss Cheggs approaching once more, ‘Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word, you know, it’s quite serious and in earnest, that’s clear.’

Tuttavia, il signor Swiveller aveva la mano della signorina Sophy per la prima quadriglia (le danze campestri essendo volgari, erano del tutto proscritte) e così guadagnò un vantaggio sul suo rivale, che sedeva scoraggiato in un angolo e contemplava la gloriosa figura della giovane signora mentre si muoveva attraverso il labirinto di passi della danza. E questo non fu l’unico vantaggio del signor Swiveller sul giardiniere, poiché deciso a mostrare alla famiglia quale uomo stessero prendendo in giro e forse influenzato dalle sue recenti libagioni, egli eseguì tali prodezze di agilità e tali giravolte che riempirono la compagnia di stupore, e in particolare fecero sì che un gentiluomo molto alto che stava ballando con uno studioso molto basso rimanesse completamente ammirato e stupefatto. Anche la signora Wackles dimenticò per un momento di rimproverare tre piccole giovani signore inclini alla felicità, e non poté reprimere il pensiero che avere un ballerino del genere in famiglia sarebbe stato davvero un orgoglio.

In questo momento cruciale, la signorina Cheggs si rivelò un’alleata vigorosa e utile, poiché non si limitò ad esprimere con sorrisi sprezzanti il disprezzo per le doti del signor Swiveller, ma colse ogni occasione per sussurrare all’orecchio della signorina Sophy parole di condoglianze e simpatia per essere importunata da una creatura così ridicola, dichiarando che era spaventata a morte dal timore che Alick potesse assalirlo e picchiarlo nel pieno della sua ira, e pregando la signorina Sophy di osservare come gli occhi del suddetto Alick brillassero di amore e furia; passioni, si può notare, che essendo troppo per i suoi occhi si riversarono anche nel suo naso, suffondendolo di un bagliore cremisi.

«Dovete ballare con la signorina Cheggs», disse Miss Sophy a Dick Swiveller, dopo aver ballato due volte lei stessa con il signor Cheggs e aver fatto grande mostra di incoraggiare le sue avances. «È una ragazza carina, e suo fratello è del tutto delizioso».

«È davvero delizioso, vero?» mormorò Dick. «Direi anche che è davvero incantato, dal modo in cui sta guardando da questa parte.»

Qui la signorina Jane (precedentemente istruita a tale scopo) interpose i suoi molti riccioli e sussurrò alla sorella di osservare quanto fosse geloso il signor Cheggs.

«Geloso! Come la sua sfacciataggine!» disse Richard Swiveller.

«La sua audacia, signor Swiveller!» disse la signorina Jane scuotendo il capo «Faccia attenzione che non la senta, altrimenti potrebbe pentirsene.»

«Oh, per favore, Jane —» disse la signorina Sophy.

«Nonsense!» rispose la sorella. «Perché il signor Cheggs non dovrebbe essere geloso se gli va? A me piace, questo sì. Il signor Cheggs ha tutto il diritto di essere geloso come chiunque altro, e forse presto avrà un diritto migliore se non l’ha già. Tu ne sai più di me a riguardo, Sophy!»

Sebbene si trattasse di un piano concertato tra Miss Sophy e sua sorella, nato da intenzioni umanitarie e avente come obiettivo quello di indurre Mr Swiviller a dichiararsi in tempo, non ebbe l’effetto sperato; infatti Miss Jane, essendo una di quelle giovani signore che sono prematuramente stridule e scontrose, diede un’importanza eccessiva al suo ruolo tanto che Mr Swiviller si ritirò in malo modo, abbandonando la sua amata a Mr Cheggs e trasmettendo una sfida nei suoi sguardi che quel gentiluomo gli restituì indignato.

«Mi ha parlato, signore?» disse il signor Cheggs seguendolo in un angolo. «Faccia la cortesia di sorridere, signore, affinché non si possa sospettare nulla. Mi ha parlato, signore?»

Il signor Swiveller guardò con un sorriso sprezzante le dita dei piedi del signor Chegg, poi alzò gli occhi da quelle alle caviglie, da queste alla parte anteriore della gamba, da questa al ginocchio e così via molto gradualmente, mantenendo in posizione eretta la sua gamba destra, finché non raggiunse il panciotto, quando sollevò gli occhi da un bottone all’altro fino a raggiungere il mento, e viaggiando dritto su per il mezzo del naso arrivò infine agli occhi, quando disse bruscamente:

‘No, signore, non l’ho fatto.’

«Ehm!» disse il signor Cheggs, guardandosi alle spalle «vuole avere la gentilezza di sorridere ancora, signore? Forse desiderava parlarmi, signore?»

‘No, signore, non ho fatto nemmeno quello.’

«Forse non avete nulla da dirmi ora, signore», disse il signor Cheggs con ferocia.

A queste parole Richard Swiveller ritrasse lo sguardo dal volto del signor Chegg e, scendendo lungo il centro del suo naso, poi lungo la sua giacca e infine lungo la sua gamba destra, raggiunse di nuovo le sue dita dei piedi e lo osservò attentamente; fatto ciò, attraversò e risalì l’altra gamba, avvicinandosi quindi alla giacca come prima, e quando arrivò ai suoi occhi disse: «No signore, non ho».

«Oh, davvero, signore!» disse il signor Cheggs. «Sono contento di saperlo. Immagino che lei sappia dove trovarmi, nel caso dovesse volermi dire qualcosa?»

‘Posso facilmente informarmi, signore, quando voglio saperlo.’

‘Non c’è altro da dire, credo, signore?’

«Nulla di più, signore» — Con ciò chiusero il tremendo dialogo con un reciproco sguardo torvo. Il signor Cheggs si affrettò ad offrire la mano alla signorina Sophy e il signor Swiviller si sedette in un angolo in uno stato d’animo molto malinconico.

Proprio vicino a questo angolo, la signora Wackles e la signorina Wackles erano sedute, osservando il ballo; e alla signora e alla signorina Wackles, la signorina Cheggs si rivolgeva di tanto in tanto quando il suo partner era occupato con la sua parte della figura, facendo qualche commento che era veleno e assenzio per l’anima di Richard Swiviller. Cercando incoraggiamento negli occhi della signora e della signorina Wackles, e sedute molto dritte e a disagio su una coppia di sgabelli duri, c’erano due delle allieve esterne; e quando la signorina Wackles sorrideva e la signora Wackles sorrideva, le due bambine sugli sgabelli cercavano di guadagnarsi il favore sorridendo anch’esse, in grazioso riconoscimento del quale atto di attenzione la vecchia signora le fulminava subito con lo sguardo e diceva che se avessero osato commettere una tale impertinenza ancora una volta, sarebbero state mandate sotto scorta nelle rispettive case. Questa minaccia fece versare lacrime a una delle giovani signore, lei essendo di un temperamento debole e tremante, e per questo reato furono entrambe immediatamente allontanate, con una terribile prontezza che incuteva terrore nelle anime di tutti gli alunni.

«Ho delle novità da comunicarle», disse la signorina Cheggs avvicinandosi di nuovo. «Alick ha detto certe cose a Sophy. In fede mia, sa, è una cosa seria e vera, questo è chiaro».

‘What’s he been saying, my dear?’ demanded Mrs Wackles.

‘All manner of things,’ replied Miss Cheggs, ‘you can’t think how out he has been speaking!’

Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs to pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was holding a flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had) with a feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr Cheggs, and by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few parting words.

‘My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass this door I will say farewell to thee,’ murmured Dick, looking gloomily upon her.

‘Are you going?’ said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at the result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference notwithstanding.

‘Am I going!’ echoed Dick bitterly. ‘Yes, I am. What then?’

‘Nothing, except that it’s very early,’ said Miss Sophy; ‘but you are your own master, of course.’

‘I would that I had been my own mistress too,’ said Dick, ‘before I had ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true, and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e’er I knew, a girl so fair yet so deceiving.’

Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.

‘I came here,’ said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he had really come, ‘with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a stifler!’

‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,’ said Miss Sophy with downcast eyes. ‘I’m very sorry if—’

‘Sorry, Ma’am!’ said Dick, ‘sorry in the possession of a Cheggs! But I wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise. It’s a gratifying circumstance which you’ll be glad to hear, that a young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account, and is now saving up for me. I thought I’d mention it. I have now merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention. Good night.’

‘There’s one good thing springs out of all this,’ said Richard Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the candle with the extinguisher in his hand, ‘which is, that I now go heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about little Nelly, and right glad he’ll be to find me so strong upon it. He shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the meantime, as it’s rather late, I’ll try and get a wink of the balmy.’

‘The balmy’ came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it into a brick-field.

«Che cosa ha detto, mia cara?» chiese la signora Wackles.

«Di ogni sorta di cose», rispose la signorina Cheggs, «non potete immaginare quanto sia stato esplicito!»

Richard Swiveller ritenne opportuno non ascoltare oltre, ma approfittando di una pausa nella danza e dell’avvicinarsi del signor Cheggs per rendere la sua corte alla vecchia signora, si avviò verso la porta con un’andatura estremamente curata che simulava un’estrema disinvoltura; lungo il tragitto superò Miss Jane Wackles, che in tutto lo splendore dei suoi ricci stava flirtando (per buona pratica, dato che non c’erano occasioni migliori) con un anziano signore gracile che alloggiava nel salotto. Vicino alla porta sedeva Miss Sophy, ancora agitata e confusa per le attenzioni del signor Cheggs; accanto a lei Richard Swiveller si trattenne per qualche istante a scambiare alcune parole di commiato.

«La mia barca è sulla riva e la mia imbarcazione è in mare, ma prima di oltrepassare questa porta ti dirò addio», mormorò Dick guardandola con aria cupa.

«State per andare?» disse la signorina Sophy, il cui cuore affondò nel vedere l’esito del suo stratagemma, ma che tuttavia simulò una leggera indifferenza.

‘Vendo via!’, fece eco Dick con amarezza. ‘Sì, vengo. E allora?’

«Nulla, se non che è molto presto», disse la signorina Sophy; «ma voi siete naturalmente il vostro padrone».

«Vorrei che fossi stata mia padrona anche tu», disse Dick, «prima di aver mai avuto un pensiero per te. Miss Wackles, credevo foste sincera e fui benedetto nel credere così, ma ora mi rammarico di aver mai conosciuto una ragazza tanto bella eppure tanto ingannevole».

La signorina Sophy si morse il labbro e finse di guardare con grande interesse verso la distanza dove il signor Cheggs stava bevendo limonata.

«Sono venuto qui», disse Dick, piuttosto ignaro dello scopo con cui era veramente venuto, «con il petto gonfio, il cuore dilatato e sentimenti di corrispondente descrizione. Me ne vado con sensazioni che possono essere immaginate ma non descritte, sentendo dentro di me quella desolante verità che le mie migliori affezioni hanno sperimentato questa notte un soffocamento!»

«Sono sicura di non sapere cosa intendete, signor Swiveller», disse la signorina Sophy con gli occhi bassi. «Mi dispiace molto se, »

«Mi dispiace, Signora!» disse Dick «mi dispiace di possedere un Cheggs! Ma le auguro una buona notte, concludendo con questa breve osservazione: che in questo preciso momento sta crescendo per me una giovane signorina non solo dotata di grandi attrattive personali ma anche di grande ricchezza, e che ha chiesto ai suoi parenti più prossimi di fare domanda per la mia mano, cosa a cui ho acconsentito di promettere avendo riguardo ad alcuni membri della sua famiglia. È una circostanza gratificante che sarà lieta di sapere: una giovane e graziosa ragazza sta diventando donna espressamente per mio conto ed ora sta mettendo da parte qualcosa per me. Ho pensato di menzionarlo. Ora mi resta solo di scusarmi per averle occupato così a lungo l’attenzione. Buona notte.»

«C’è una cosa buona che nasce da tutto questo», disse Richard Swiviller tra sé quando era arrivato a casa e stava appoggiato sulla candela con lo spegnicandele in mano, «che è che ora vado di cuore e anima, testa e piedi, con Fred in tutto il suo piano riguardo alla piccola Nellie, e sarà davvero contento di trovarmi così deciso. Domani saprà tutto a questo proposito, e nel frattempo, dato che è piuttosto tardi, cercherò di fare un pisolino».

«Il tepore» arrivò quasi subito dopo che lo ebbe cercato. In pochissimi minuti il signor Swiveller era già profondamente addormentato, sognando di aver sposato Nelly Trent e di essersi impadronito del patrimonio, e che il suo primo atto di potere fu quello di devastare l’orto di Mr Cheggs e trasformarlo in un mattatoio.

CHAPTER 9

The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly described the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth. Besides that it was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and loneliness, a constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the old man to whom she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even in the midst of her heart’s overflowing, and made her timid of allusion to the main cause of her anxiety and distress.

For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. To see the old man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might, they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care about them—these were causes of depression and anxiety that might have sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that could keep such thoughts in restless action!

And yet, to the old man’s vision, Nell was still the same. When he could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted and brooded on it always, there was his young companion with the same smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same love and care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy.

She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and cheerful presence. But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and when she left her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes—hoarse from their long silence—with her voice.

In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night, alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait; at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds.

She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as they passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their heads again. There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had fancied ugly faces that were frowning over at her and trying to peer into the room; and she felt glad when it grew too dark to make them out, though she was sorry too, when the man came to light the lamps in the street—for it made it late, and very dull inside. Then, she would draw in her head to look round the room and see that everything was in its place and hadn’t moved; and looking out into the street again, would perhaps see a man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others silently following him to a house where somebody lay dead; which made her shudder and think of such things until they suggested afresh the old man’s altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and speculations. If he were to die—if sudden illness had happened to him, and he were never to come home again, alive—if, one night, he should come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had gone to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly, and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door! These thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and more silent than before. The shops were closing fast, and lights began to shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to bed. By degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were replaced, here and there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn all night. Still, there was one late shop at no great distance which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the pavement even yet, and looked bright and companionable. But, in a little time, this closed, the light was extinguished, and all was gloomy and quiet, except when some stray footsteps sounded on the pavement, or a neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at his house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates.

When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had) the child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs, thinking as she went that if one of those hideous faces below, which often mingled with her dreams, were to meet her by the way, rendering itself visible by some strange light of its own, how terrified she would be. But these fears vanished before a well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect of her own room. After praying fervently, and with many bursting tears, for the old man, and the restoration of his peace of mind and the happiness they had once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the pillow and sob herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the day-light came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary summons which had roused her from her slumber.

CAPITOLO 9

La bambina, nella sua confidenza con la signora Quilp, aveva solo debolmente descritto il dolore e la tristezza dei suoi pensieri o la gravità della nuvola che incombeva sulla sua casa e gettava ombre scure sul suo focolare. Oltre a ciò, era molto difficile trasmettere a chiunque non fosse intimamente conosciuto della vita che conduceva un senso adeguato del suo cupo e solitario stato d’animo; una costante paura di in qualche modo compromettere o ferire il vecchio a cui era così teneramente affezionata, l’aveva trattenuta anche nel mezzo del suo cuore traboccante e l’aveva resa timorosa di accennare alla causa principale della sua ansia e angoscia.

Perché non erano i giorni monotoni privi di varietà e di piacevole compagnia, non erano le lunghe sere buie e desolate o le notti solitarie, non era l’assenza di ogni piccolo e facile piacere per cui i giovani cuori battono forte, né il fatto di conoscere dell’infanzia solo la sua debolezza e lo spirito facilmente feribile, a strappare tali lacrime a Nell. Vedere l’uomo anziano abbattuto sotto il peso di un dolore nascosto, notare il suo stato vacillante e incerto, essere talvolta agitati da una terribile paura che la sua mente stesse vagando, e scorgere nelle sue parole e nei suoi sguardi l’alba di una disperata follia; osservare, aspettare e ascoltare giorno dopo giorno per avere conferma di queste cose, e sentire e sapere che, qualunque cosa fosse accaduta, erano sole al mondo senza nessuno che li aiutasse o consigliasse o si preoccupasse di loro: questi erano motivi di depressione e ansia che avrebbero potuto gravare pesantemente su un cuore più maturo con molte influenze a disposizione per rallegrarlo, ma quanto più pesantemente sulla mente di una giovane bambina a cui erano sempre presenti, e che era costantemente circondata da tutto ciò che poteva mantenere tali pensieri in un’azione senza requie!

Eppure, agli occhi del vecchio, Nell era sempre la stessa. Quando riusciva a distogliere per un momento il pensiero dallo spettro che lo ossessionava e gli gravava addosso senza tregua, ecco lì la sua giovane compagna con lo stesso sorriso per lui, le stesse parole sincere, la stessa risata allegra, lo stesso amore e cura che, penetrando in profondità nella sua anima, sembravano essergli stati accanto durante tutta la vita. E così continuava, contento di leggere il libro del suo cuore dalla prima pagina che gli era stata presentata, senza sospettare minimamente della storia nascosta nelle altre pagine, e mormorando tra sé che almeno la bambina era felice.

C’era stata una volta. Era passata cantando per le stanze buie e si era mossa con un passo allegro e leggero tra i loro polverosi tesori, rendendoli più vecchi con la sua giovane vita e più severi e tetri con la sua allegra e gioiosa presenza. Ma ora le camere erano fredde e cupe, e quando lasciava la sua piccola stanza per ingannare le ore noiose e si sedeva in una di esse, era immobile come i loro occupanti inanimati e non aveva il coraggio di svegliare gli echi - rauchi dopo il loro lungo silenzio - con la sua voce.

In una di queste stanze c’era una finestra che dava sulla strada, dove il bambino sedeva molte lunghe sere e spesso fino a notte fonda, solo e pensieroso. Nessuno è così ansioso come coloro che vegliano e aspettano; in questi momenti, tristi fantasie accorrevano in folla nella sua mente.

Si sarebbe messa qui al crepuscolo e avrebbe osservato la gente mentre passava su e giù per la strada o appariva alle finestre delle case di fronte; si chiedeva se quelle stanze fossero altrettanto solitarie quanto quella in cui sedeva, e se a quelli facesse compagnia vederla lì seduta come a lei faceva solo vederli affacciarsi e ritirare la testa. C’era una fila di comignoli storti su uno dei tetti, nei quali, guardandoli spesso, aveva immaginato facce brutte che le si arricciavano contro e cercavano di scrutarle nella stanza; e si sentiva contenta quando diventava troppo buio per distinguerli, anche se le dispiaceva quando l’uomo veniva ad accendere i lampioni in strada—perché allora era tardi, e dentro molto noioso. Allora ritirava la testa per guardarsi intorno nella stanza e vedere che tutto fosse al suo posto e non si fosse mosso; e guardando di nuovo fuori in strada, forse vedeva un uomo passare con una bara sulle spalle, seguito silenziosamente da due o tre altri verso una casa dove qualcuno giaceva morto; il che la faceva rabbrividire e pensare a tali cose fino a quando non le suggerivano di nuovo il volto e i modi mutati del vecchio, e un nuovo corso di paure e congetture. Se dovesse morire—se gli fosse capitata una malattia improvvisa, e non dovesse mai più tornare a casa vivo—se, una notte, dovesse venire a casa, e baciarla e benedirla come al solito, e dopo che lei fosse andata a letto e si fosse addormentata e forse stesse sognando piacevolmente, e sorridesse nel suo sonno, lui si uccidesse e il suo sangue venisse strisciando, strisciando, per terra fino alla sua porta della camera da letto! Questi pensieri erano troppo terribili per soffermarsi su di essi, e ancora lei avrebbe fatto ricorso alla strada, ora percorsa da meno piedi, più buia e silenziosa che prima. I negozi si stavano chiudendo in fretta, e le luci cominciavano a brillare dalle finestre superiori, mentre i vicini andavano a letto. A poco a poco queste diminuivano e scomparivano o venivano sostituite, qua e là, da una debole candela di canna che doveva bruciare tutta notte. Tuttavia c’era un negozio aperto fino a tardi non lontano che mandava ancora fuori un bagliore rosso sul marciapiede, e sembrava luminoso e amichevole. Ma dopo poco, questo chiuse, la luce si spense, e tutto era cupo e tranquillo, tranne quando qualche passo smarrito risuonava sul marciapiede, o un vicino, fuori più tardi del solito, bussava con vigore alla sua porta di casa per svegliare gli inquilini addormentati.

Quando la notte era trascorsa fino a quel punto (e ormai raramente accadeva prima) il bambino chiudeva la finestra e scendeva furtivamente le scale, pensando che se uno di quei volti mostruosi sottostanti, che spesso si mescolavano ai suoi sogni, lo avesse incontrato per strada, rendendosi visibile attraverso una strana luce propria, quanto sarebbe stato terrorizzato. Ma queste paure svanivano davanti a una lampada ben accesa e all’aspetto familiare della sua stanza. Dopo aver pregato ferventemente, con molte lacrime che sgorgavano, per il vecchio uomo e il ripristino della sua pace interiore e la felicità di cui un tempo godevano, si metteva a letto e piangeva fino ad addormentarsi: spesso svegliandosi ancora prima dell’alba, per ascoltare le campane e rispondere alla convocazione immaginaria che l’aveva strappata al sonno.

One night, the third after Nelly’s interview with Mrs Quilp, the old man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not leave home. The child’s eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her joy subsided when they reverted to his worn and sickly face.

‘Two days,’ he said, ‘two whole, clear, days have passed, and there is no reply. What did he tell thee, Nell?’

‘Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.’

‘True,’ said the old man, faintly. ‘Yes. But tell me again, Nell. My head fails me. What was it that he told thee? Nothing more than that he would see me to-morrow or next day? That was in the note.’

‘Nothing more,’ said the child. ‘Shall I go to him again to-morrow, dear grandfather? Very early? I will be there and back, before breakfast.’

The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her towards him.

‘’Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use. But if he deserts me, Nell, at this moment—if he deserts me now, when I should, with his assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I have lost, and all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes me what you see, I am ruined, and—worse, far worse than that—have ruined thee, for whom I ventured all. If we are beggars—!’

‘What if we are?’ said the child boldly. ‘Let us be beggars, and be happy.’

‘Beggars—and happy!’ said the old man. ‘Poor child!’

‘Dear grandfather,’ cried the girl with an energy which shone in her flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, ‘I am not a child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that we may beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty living, rather than live as we do now.’

‘Nelly!’ said the old man.

‘Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,’ the child repeated, more earnestly than before. ‘If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with you; do not let me see such change and not know why, or I shall break my heart and die. Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg our way from door to door.’

The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow of the couch on which he lay.

‘Let us be beggars,’ said the child passing an arm round his neck, ‘I have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall. Let us walk through country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank God together! Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses, any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and beg for both.’

The child’s voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man’s neck; nor did she weep alone.

These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other eyes. And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in all that passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no less a person than Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when the child first placed herself at the old man’s side, refrained—actuated, no doubt, by motives of the purest delicacy—from interrupting the conversation, and stood looking on with his accustomed grin. Standing, however, being a tiresome attitude to a gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the dwarf being one of that kind of persons who usually make themselves at home, he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon the seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for doing something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions had strong possession of him. Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked carelessly over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent grimace. And in this position the old man, happening in course of time to look that way, at length chanced to see him: to his unbounded astonishment.

The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not knowing what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked shrinkingly at it. Not at all disconcerted by this reception, Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude, merely nodding twice or thrice with great condescension. At length, the old man pronounced his name, and inquired how he came there.

‘Through the door,’ said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘I’m not quite small enough to get through key-holes. I wish I was. I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in private. With nobody present, neighbour. Good-bye, little Nelly.’

Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed her cheek.

‘Ah!’ said the dwarf, smacking his lips, ‘what a nice kiss that was—just upon the rosy part. What a capital kiss!’

Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark. Quilp looked after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the door, fell to complimenting the old man upon her charms.

‘Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,’ said Quilp, nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; ‘such a chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!’

The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience. It was not lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody else, when he could.

Una notte, la terza dopo l’incontro di Nelly con la signora Quilp, l’anziano, che era stato debole e malato tutto il giorno, disse che non sarebbe uscito da casa. Gli occhi del bambino brillarono per quella notizia, ma la sua gioia svanì quando tornò a guardare il suo volto stanco e malaticcio.

«Sono passati due giorni», disse «due interi e lunghi giorni senza alcuna risposta. Cosa ti ha detto lui, Nell?»

‘Esattamente quello che ti ho detto, caro nonno.’

«È vero», disse il vecchio con voce debole. «Sì. Ma dimmelo di nuovo, Nell. La mia testa non funziona più bene. Cosa ti ha detto? Null’altro che avrebbe voluto vedermi domani o dopodomani? Era quello che c’era nella lettera».

«Nulla di più», disse il bambino. «Tornerò da lui domani, nonno caro? Molto presto? Sarò lì e tornerò prima della colazione.»

Il vecchio scosse la testa e sospirando malinconicamente l’attirò a sé.

«Non servirebbe a nulla, mia cara, non servirebbe assolutamente a nulla. Ma se mi abbandona, Nell, in questo momento — se mi abbandona ora, quando con il suo aiuto sarei ripagata di tutto il tempo e i soldi che ho sprecato, e di tutta l’angoscia mentale che ho patito, che mi ha ridotta come vedi, sono rovinata, e — peggio ancora, molto peggio di così — ti ho rovinata anche te, per la quale ho rischiato tutto. Se diventiamo mendicanti —!»

«E se lo siamo?» disse il bambino con coraggio. «Facciamo i mendicanti e siamo felici».

«Mendicanti — e felici!» disse il vecchio uomo. «Povero bambino!»

«Caro nonno», esclamò la ragazza con un’energia che si manifestava nel suo viso arrossato, nella voce tremante e nei gesti appassionati, «non sono più una bambina in quanto a pensiero, ma anche se lo fossi, ti prego ascoltami: supplichiamo o lavoriamo sulle strade aperte o nei campi per guadagnarci da vivere con poco, piuttosto che vivere come facciamo ora».

«Nell!» disse il vecchio.

«Sì, sì, piuttosto che vivere come facciamo ora», ripeté il bambino, più seriamente di prima. «Se sei triste, fammi sapere perché e lascia che io sia triste anch’io; se ti consumi e diventi ogni giorno più pallido e debole, permettimi di essere la tua infermiera e cerca di consolarti. Se sei povero, siamo poveri insieme; ma lascia che io sia con te, per favore, lascia che io sia con te; non farmi vedere un tale cambiamento senza sapere perché, altrimenti mi spezzerò il cuore e morirò. Caro nonno, andiamocene da questo triste posto domani e chiediamo l’elemosina di porta in porta».

Il vecchio si coprì il volto con le mani e lo nascose nel cuscino del divano su cui giaceva.

«Diventiamo mendicanti», disse il bambino passando un braccio intorno al suo collo, «non ho alcuna paura che non avremo abbastanza, sono sicuro di sì. Camminiamo per i luoghi della campagna e dormiamo nei campi e sotto gli alberi, e non pensiamo più ai soldi o a qualsiasi cosa possa renderti triste, ma riposiamoci la notte, e lasciamo che il sole e il vento ci accarezzino i volti di giorno, e ringraziamo Dio insieme! Non mettiamo mai più piede in stanze buie o case malinconiche, ma vaghiamo su e giù dove vogliamo andare; e quando sarai stanco, ti fermerai a riposare nel posto più piacevole che potremo trovare, e io andrò a elemosinare per entrambi».

La voce del bambino si perse tra i singhiozzi mentre cadeva sul collo dell’anziano uomo, e non piangeva da sola.

Queste non erano parole per altre orecchie, né era una scena per altri occhi. Eppure altre orecchie e occhi c’erano lì e ingordamente assorbivano tutto ciò che avveniva, ed inoltre appartenevano a niente meno di una persona come il signor Daniel Quilp, che, entrato senza essere visto quando la bambina si era messa per la prima volta al fianco del vecchio, si astenne - spinto, senza dubbio, da motivi di purissima delicatezza - dall’interrompere la conversazione e rimase a guardare con il suo solito ghigno. Tuttavia, stare in piedi era un atteggiamento stancante per un gentiluomo già affaticato dalla camminata, e dato che il nanerottolo era di quel tipo di persone che di solito si sentono a casa, presto posò gli occhi su una sedia in cui saltò con un’agilità straordinaria, e appollaiandosi sullo schienale con i piedi sulla seduta, poté così guardare e ascoltare con maggiore comodità, oltre a soddisfare nello stesso tempo quel gusto per fare qualcosa di fantastico e scimmiesco che in ogni occasione lo aveva fortemente posseduto. Ecco quindi come si sedette, una gamba accavallata con disinvoltura sull’altra, il mento appoggiato sul palmo della mano, la testa leggermente inclinata da un lato e i suoi tratti brutti contorti in una smorfia compiaciuta. E in questa posizione il vecchio, capitando nel corso del tempo di guardare in quella direzione, alla fine riuscì a vederlo: con suo immenso stupore.

Il bambino emise un urlo soffocato alla vista di quella figura piacevole; nella loro prima sorpresa sia lui che il vecchio, non sapendo cosa dire e dubitando della sua realtà, lo guardarono con timidezza. Affatto non sconcertato da questo benvenuto, Daniel Quilp mantenne la stessa posizione, limitandosi ad annuire due o tre volte con grande condiscendenza. Alla fine, il vecchio pronunciò il suo nome e chiese come fosse arrivato lì.

«Attraverso la porta», disse Quilp indicando con il pollice dietro le spalle. «Non sono abbastanza piccolo da passare attraverso le serrature. Vorrei esserlo. Voglio parlarti un po’, in particolare, e in privato. Senza nessuno presente, vicino. Arrivederci, piccola Nell’.»

Nell guardò il vecchio che le fece cenno di ritirarsi e la baciò sulla guancia.

«Ah!» disse il nanerottolo, schioccando le labbra «che bacio delizioso è stato — proprio sulla parte rosea. Che bacio perfetto!»

Nell non si affrettò di meno ad andarsene per questo commento. Quilp la seguì con uno sguardo ammirato e quando lei ebbe chiuso la porta, iniziò a fare i complimenti al vecchio sui suoi fascini.

«Un germoglio così fresco, fiorente e modesto, vicino», disse Quilp, accarezzando la sua gamba corta e facendo brillare molto i suoi occhi; «una bambina così paffuta, rosea, accogliente, piccola Nell!»

Il vecchio rispose con un sorriso forzato e si vedeva che lottava contro una sensazione di impazienza acutissima ed estrema. Non sfuggì a Quilp, che provava piacere nel torturarlo, o del resto chiunque altro, quando poteva.

‘She’s so,’ said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite absorbed in the subject, ‘so small, so compact, so beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways—but bless me, you’re nervous! Why neighbour, what’s the matter? I swear to you,’ continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, ‘I swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite cool. I am pretty sure it ought to be. Yours must be out of order, neighbour.’

‘I believe it is,’ groaned the old man, clasping his head with both hands. ‘There’s burning fever here, and something now and then to which I fear to give a name.’

The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat. Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time, and then suddenly raising it, said,

‘Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?’

‘No!’ returned Quilp.

‘Then,’ said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking upwards, ‘the child and I are lost!’

‘Neighbour,’ said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention, ‘let me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more. You have no secret from me now.’

The old man looked up, trembling.

‘You are surprised,’ said Quilp. ‘Well, perhaps that’s natural. You have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one. For now, I know, that all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies that you have had from me, have found their way to—shall I say the word?’

‘Aye!’ replied the old man, ‘say it, if you will.’

‘To the gaming-table,’ rejoined Quilp, ‘your nightly haunt. This was the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the secret certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money (if I had been the fool you took me for); this was your inexhaustible mine of gold, your El Dorado, eh?’

‘Yes,’ cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, ‘it was. It is. It will be, till I die.’

‘That I should have been blinded,’ said Quilp looking contemptuously at him, ‘by a mere shallow gambler!’

‘I am no gambler,’ cried the old man fiercely. ‘I call Heaven to witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that at every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan’s name and called on Heaven to bless the venture;—which it never did. Whom did it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill, and propagating vice and evil. My winnings would have been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed to the last farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy. What would they have contracted? The means of corruption, wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have hoped in such a cause? Tell me that! Who would not have hoped as I did?’

‘When did you first begin this mad career?’ asked Quilp, his taunting inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man’s grief and wildness.

‘When did I first begin?’ he rejoined, passing his hand across his brow. ‘When was it, that I first began? When should it be, but when I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty; then it was that I began to think about it.’

‘After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to sea?’ said Quilp.

‘Shortly after that,’ replied the old man. ‘I thought of it a long time, and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no pleasure in it, I expected none. What has it ever brought me but anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!’

‘You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me. While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were) you were making yourself a beggar, eh? Dear me! And so it comes to pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a bill of sale upon the—upon the stock and property,’ said Quilp standing up and looking about him, as if to assure himself that none of it had been taken away. ‘But did you never win?’

‘Never!’ groaned the old man. ‘Never won back my loss!’

‘I thought,’ sneered the dwarf, ‘that if a man played long enough he was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a loser.’

‘And so he is,’ cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent excitement, ‘so he is; I have felt that from the first, I have always known it, I’ve seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now. Quilp, I have dreamed, three nights, of winning the same large sum, I never could dream that dream before, though I have often tried. Do not desert me, now I have this chance. I have no resource but you, give me some help, let me try this one last hope.’

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

‘See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,’ said the old man, drawing some scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the dwarf’s arm, ‘only see here. Look at these figures, the result of long calculation, and painful and hard experience. I MUST win. I only want a little help once more, a few pounds, but two score pounds, dear Quilp.’

«È così», disse Quilp, parlando molto lentamente e fingendo di essere completamente assorbito dall’argomento, «così piccola, così compatta, così bellissimamente modellata, così chiara, con quelle vene blu e quella pelle trasparente, e quei piedini così piccoli, e quel modo così affascinante di fare, ma, accidenti a me, sei nervoso! Perché vicino, che succede? Lo giuro», continuò il nanerottolo scendendo dalla sedia e sedendosi su di essa con una lentezza di gesti molto diversa dalla rapidità con cui era balzato in piedi senza farsi sentire, «lo giuro che non avevo idea che il vecchio sangue scorresse così veloce o si mantenesse così caldo. Pensavo fosse lento nel suo corso e freddo, proprio freddo. Sono abbastanza sicuro che dovrebbe esserlo. Il tuo deve essere fuori uso, vicino».

«Io credo che lo sia», gemette il vecchio, stringendosi la testa con entrambe le mani. «C’è una febbre ardente qui e qualcosa di cui ho paura nel dare un nome».

Il nanerottolo non disse mai una parola, ma osservò il suo compagno mentre camminava irrequieto su e giù per la stanza, e poco dopo tornò al suo posto. Rimase lì con la testa china sul petto per qualche tempo, poi all’improvviso la sollevò e disse:

«Una volta sola, mi hai portato dei soldi?»

«No!» rispose Quilp.

«Allora», disse il vecchio stringendo disperatamente le mani e guardando in alto, «la bambina ed io siamo perduti!»

«Vicino», disse Quilp guardandolo severamente e battendo due o tre volte la mano sul tavolo per attirare la sua attenzione distratta, «sii franco con me e gioca una partita più leale di quando tu avevi tutte le carte in mano e io vedevo solo i retro e nient’altro. Ora non hai segreti per me».

Il vecchio alzò lo sguardo tremando.

«Siete sorpreso», disse Quilp. «Beh, forse è naturale. Non avete più segreti per me, dico; no, neanche uno. Per ora so che tutte quelle somme di denaro, tutti quei prestiti, anticipi e forniture che avete ricevuto da me hanno trovato la loro strada verso, devo dire il nome?»

“Sì!” rispose il vecchio uomo, “dillo pure.”

«Al tavolo da gioco», ribatté Quilp, «il tuo ritrovo notturno. Questa era la preziosa idea per fare fortuna, vero; questa era la segreta e sicura fonte di ricchezza in cui avrei dovuto investire i miei soldi (se fossi stato il pazzo che tu credevi io fossi); questo era il tuo inesauribile giacimento d’oro, il tuo El Dorado, eh?»

«Sì», gridò il vecchio, voltandosi verso di lui con gli occhi che brillavano, «lo era. Lo è. Lo sarà fino alla mia morte».

«Che io sia stato accecato», disse Quilp guardandolo con disprezzo, «da un semplice e superficiale giocatore d’azzardo!»

«Non sono un giocatore d’azzardo», gridò il vecchio con foga. «Chiamo il Cielo a testimone che non ho mai giocato per guadagno personale o per amore del gioco; che ad ogni pezzo che mettevo in palio, sussurravo tra me quel nome di orfano e invocavo il Cielo perché benedicesse l’impresa;—cosa che non ha mai fatto. A chi è andata a vantaggio? Chi erano quelli con cui giocavo? Uomini che vivevano di saccheggio, dissolutezza e disordine; sprecando il loro oro nel fare il male e propagando vizio e iniquità. Le mie vincite sarebbero state prese da loro, le mie vincite sarebbero state elargite fino all’ultimo centesimo a un giovane bambino innocente la cui vita avrebbero reso dolce e felice. Cosa avrebbero contratto? I mezzi per corrompersi, l’infelicità e la miseria. Chi non avrebbe sperato in una causa del genere? Dimmelo! Chi non avrebbe sperato come ho fatto io?»

«Quando hai iniziato per la prima volta questa folle carriera?» chiese Quilp, il cui istinto di scherno fu represso, per un momento, dal dolore e dalla disperazione del vecchio.

«Quando ho iniziato?» riprese, passandosi la mano sulla fronte. «Quando è stato che ho iniziato? Quando se non quando mi sono reso conto di quanto poco avessi messo da parte, di quanto tempo ci volesse per risparmiare qualcosa, di quanto breve fosse il tempo che a quell’età potevo avere davanti a me e di come lei sarebbe stata abbandonata alla dura mercé del mondo, con appena quel tanto da tenerla lontana dai dolori che accompagnano la povertà; allora è stato che ho iniziato a pensarci.»

«Dopo che veniste da me la prima volta per mandare il vostro prezioso nipote in mare?» disse Quilp.

«Poco dopo», rispose il vecchio uomo. «Ci ho pensato a lungo e l’ho sognato per mesi. Poi ho iniziato. Non ci trovavo alcun piacere, non ne aspettavo nessuno. Cosa mi ha mai portato se non giorni di ansia e notti insonni; perdita di salute e pace mentale, e guadagno di debolezza e dolore!»

«Avete perso i pochi soldi che avevate messo da parte e poi siete venuto da me. Mentre io pensavo steste facendo fortuna (come dicevate di fare) vi stavate riducendo in miseria, eh? Caro mio! E così è successo che ho preso tutti i beni che avete potuto raccogliere e un atto di vendita sul—sullo stock e sulla proprietà», disse Quilp alzandosi e guardandosi intorno come per assicurarsi che nulla fosse stato portato via. «Ma non avete mai vinto?»

‘Non lo farò mai!’ gemette il vecchio uomo. ‘Non recupererò mai la mia perdita!’

«Pensavo», ghignò il nanerottolo, «che se un uomo giocava abbastanza a lungo alla fine era sicuro di vincere o, nella peggiore delle ipotesi, non avrebbe perso.»

«E così è», gridò il vecchio, risvegliandosi improvvisamente dal suo stato di disperazione e scagliandosi nel più violento eccitamento, «così è; l’ho sentito fin dall’inizio, lo ho sempre saputo, l’ho visto, non l’ho mai sentito così forte come lo sento ora. Quilp, ho sognato per tre notti di vincere la stessa grossa somma, non avrei mai potuto fare quel sogno prima, anche se ci ho spesso provato. Non abbandonarmi, ora che ho questa possibilità. Non ho altra risorsa che te, dammi un po’ di aiuto, lascia che io tenti quest’ultima speranza.»

Il nanerottolo alzò le spalle e scosse la testa.

«Vedi, Quilp, buon Quilp dal cuore tenero», disse il vecchio tirando fuori alcuni pezzi di carta dalla tasca con mano tremante e stringendo il braccio del nanerottolo, «basta che tu guardi qui. Guarda questi numeri, frutto di lunghi calcoli e di una dura ed estenuante esperienza. DEVO vincere. Mi serve solo un piccolo aiuto ancora una volta, poche sterline, ma quaranta sterline, caro Quilp».

‘The last advance was seventy,’ said the dwarf; ‘and it went in one night.’

‘I know it did,’ answered the old man, ‘but that was the very worst fortune of all, and the time had not come then. Quilp, consider, consider,’ the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind, ‘that orphan child! If I were alone, I could die with gladness—perhaps even anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally: coming, as it does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and shunning the needy and afflicted, and all who court it in their despair—but what I have done, has been for her. Help me for her sake I implore you; not for mine; for hers!’

‘I’m sorry I’ve got an appointment in the city,’ said Quilp, looking at his watch with perfect self-possession, ‘or I should have been very glad to have spent half an hour with you while you composed yourself, very glad.’

‘Nay, Quilp, good Quilp,’ gasped the old man, catching at his skirts, ‘you and I have talked together, more than once, of her poor mother’s story. The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps been bred in me by that. Do not be hard upon me, but take that into account. You are a great gainer by me. Oh spare me the money for this one last hope!’

‘I couldn’t do it really,’ said Quilp with unusual politeness, ‘though I tell you what—and this is a circumstance worth bearing in mind as showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in sometimes—I was so deceived by the penurious way in which you lived, alone with Nelly—’

‘All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her triumph greater,’ cried the old man.

‘Yes, yes, I understand that now,’ said Quilp; ‘but I was going to say, I was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation you had among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated assurances that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple the interest you paid me, that I’d have advanced you, even now, what you want, on your simple note of hand, if I hadn’t unexpectedly become acquainted with your secret way of life.’

‘Who is it,’ retorted the old man desperately, ‘that, notwithstanding all my caution, told you? Come. Let me know the name—the person.’

The crafty dwarf, bethinking himself that his giving up the child would lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed, which, as nothing was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal, stopped short in his answer and said, ‘Now, who do you think?’

‘It was Kit, it must have been the boy; he played the spy, and you tampered with him?’ said the old man.

‘How came you to think of him?’ said the dwarf in a tone of great commiseration. ‘Yes, it was Kit. Poor Kit!’

So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave: stopping when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with extraordinary delight.

‘Poor Kit!’ muttered Quilp. ‘I think it was Kit who said I was an uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn’t it. Ha ha ha! Poor Kit!’

And with that he went his way, still chuckling as he went.

«L’ultimo anticipo era di settanta», disse il nanerottolo; «e se ne è andato in una sola notte.»

«Lo so», rispose il vecchio, «ma è stata proprio la peggior disgrazia di tutte e allora non era ancora giunto il tempo. Quilp, rifletti, rifletti!» gridò il vecchio tremando così tanto che i fogli tra le sue mani svolazzavano come se fossero agitati dal vento, «quel orfano bambino! Se fossi solo, potrei morire felice, forse anche anticipare quel destino che viene distribuito così inegualmente: colpendo i superbi e i felici nel loro vigore e evitando gli indigenti e gli afflitti, tutti coloro che lo invocano nella loro disperazione. Ma tutto ciò che ho fatto è stato per lei. Aiutami per amore di lei ti prego; non per me, ma per lei!»

«Mi dispiace ma ho un appuntamento in città», disse Quilp guardando l’orologio con perfetta auto-possedenza, «altrimenti sarei stato molto felice di passare mezz’ora con voi mentre vi riprendete, molto felice».

«No, Quilp, buon Quilp», ansimò il vecchio, afferrando la sua gonna, «tu ed io abbiamo parlato insieme più di una volta della storia della povera madre. La paura che lei possa cadere nella povertà forse è nata in me per questo. Non essere duro con me, ma tieni conto di ciò. Tu sei un grande beneficiario grazie a me. Oh, risparmiami i soldi per questa ultima speranza!»

«In realtà non avrei potuto farlo», disse Quilp con insolita cortesia, «anche se vi dico una cosa: e questa è una circostanza che vale la pena di tenere a mente per mostrare come anche i più astuti tra noi possano talvolta essere ingannati - fui così tratto in inganno dal modo parsimonioso con cui vivevate, solo con Nelly, »

«Tutto fatto per risparmiare denaro e tentare la fortuna, e per rendere il suo trionfo più grande», gridò il vecchio.

«Sì, sì, ora capisco», disse Quilp; «ma stavo per dire che ero così ingannato da questo tuo modo avaro di fare, dalla reputazione che avevi tra coloro che ti conoscevano di essere ricco e dalle tue ripetute assicurazioni che avresti reso i miei prestiti triplicando e quadruplicando gli interessi che mi pagavi, che ti avrei anticipato anche ora quello che vuoi, sulla semplice tua nota di mano, se non fossi venuto inaspettatamente a conoscenza del tuo segreto modo di vivere.»

«Chi è stato», ribatté il vecchio disperatamente, «che nonostante tutta la mia cautela vi ha detto? Venite. Fatemi sapere il nome, la persona».

Il furbo nano, pensando che rinunciare al bambino avrebbe portato alla rivelazione dell’artificio da lui usato, e poiché non c’era nulla da guadagnare in questo modo era meglio nasconderlo, si fermò a metà della sua risposta e disse: «Allora, chi pensate che sia?»

«Era Kit, deve essere stato quel ragazzo; ha fatto lo spione e tu l’hai corrotto?» disse il vecchio.

«Come vi è venuto in mente di pensare a lui?» disse il nanerottolo con un tono pieno di grande compassione. «Sì, era Kit. Povero Kit!»

Così dicendo, annuì in modo amichevole e prese congedo; si fermò dopo aver superato la porta esterna di un po’, e ghignò con straordinaria soddisfazione.

«Povero Kit!» mormorò Quilp. «Mi pare che sia stato Kit a dire che ero un nano più brutto di quelli che si possono vedere in giro per un penny, no? Ah ah ah! Povero Kit!»

E con ciò se ne andò per la sua strada, continuando a ridacchiare mentre camminava.

CHAPTER 10

Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man’s house, unobserved. In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to one of the many passages which diverged from the main street, there lingered one, who, having taken up his position when the twilight first came on, still maintained it with undiminished patience, and leaning against the wall with the manner of a person who had a long time to wait, and being well used to it was quite resigned, scarcely changed his attitude for the hour together.

This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those who passed, and bestowed as little upon them. His eyes were constantly directed towards one object; the window at which the child was accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his sight once more in the old quarter with increased earnestness and attention.

It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was. But as the time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the clock more frequently and at the window less hopefully than before. At length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter past, and then the conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use tarrying there any longer.

That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no means willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to quit the spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it, still looking over his shoulder at the same window; and from the precipitation with which he as often returned, when a fancied noise or the changing and imperfect light induced him to suppose it had been softly raised. At length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless for that night, and suddenly breaking into a run as though to force himself away, scampered off at his utmost speed, nor once ventured to look behind him lest he should be tempted back again.

Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this mysterious individual dashed on through a great many alleys and narrow ways until he at length arrived in a square paved court, when he subsided into a walk, and making for a small house from the window of which a light was shining, lifted the latch of the door and passed in.

‘Bless us!’ cried a woman turning sharply round, ‘who’s that? Oh! It’s you, Kit!’

‘Yes, mother, it’s me.’

‘Why, how tired you look, my dear!’

‘Old master an’t gone out to-night,’ said Kit; ‘and so she hasn’t been at the window at all.’ With which words, he sat down by the fire and looked very mournful and discontented.

The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, nevertheless, which—or the spot must be a wretched one indeed—cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown very much too small for him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes, and looking as if he had thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep any more; which, as he had already declined to take his natural rest and had been brought out of bed in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and friends. It was rather a queer-looking family: Kit, his mother, and the children, being all strongly alike.

Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too often—but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping soundly, and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him to their mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured. So he rocked the cradle with his foot; made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him in high good-humour directly; and stoutly determined to be talkative and make himself agreeable.

‘Ah, mother!’ said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling upon a great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for him, hours before, ‘what a one you are! There an’t many such as you, I know.’

‘I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,’ said Mrs Nubbles; ‘and that there are, or ought to be, accordin’ to what the parson at chapel says.’

‘Much he knows about it,’ returned Kit contemptuously. ‘Wait till he’s a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does as much, and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I’ll ask him what’s o’clock and trust him for being right to half a second.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, ‘your beer’s down there by the fender, Kit.’

‘I see,’ replied her son, taking up the porter pot, ‘my love to you, mother. And the parson’s health too if you like. I don’t bear him any malice, not I!’

‘Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn’t gone out to-night?’ inquired Mrs Nubbles.

‘Yes,’ said Kit, ‘worse luck!’

‘You should say better luck, I think,’ returned his mother, ‘because Miss Nelly won’t have been left alone.’

‘Ah!’ said Kit, ‘I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I’ve been watching ever since eight o’clock, and seen nothing of her.’

‘I wonder what she’d say,’ cried his mother, stopping in her work and looking round, ‘if she knew that every night, when she—poor thing—is sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place or come home to your bed though you’re ever so tired, till such time as you think she’s safe in hers.’

CAPITOLO 10

Daniel Quilp né entrò né uscì dalla vecchia casa del vecchio senza essere visto. Nella penombra di un portone quasi di fronte, che conduceva a uno dei tanti passaggi che si diramavano dalla strada principale, se ne stava in disparte uno che, dopo essersi messo lì quando era calata la penombra serale, vi rimaneva ancora con immutata pazienza, appoggiato al muro con l’aria di chi ha molto tempo da aspettare e, abituandosi bene a questa situazione, si è rassegnato, non cambiò quasi mai atteggiamento per un’ora intera.

Questo paziente oziatore attirava poca attenzione da parte di chiunque lo incrociasse e ne concedeva altrettanto a loro. I suoi occhi erano costantemente puntati su un solo oggetto: la finestra presso cui era solito sedersi il bambino. Se li distoglieva per un momento, lo faceva solo per dare una rapida occhiata a una clessidra in qualche negozio vicino e poi tornava a scrutare con ancora più fervore e attenzione la solita zona.

Si era notato che questo personaggio non mostrava affatto stanchezza nel suo nascondiglio; e infatti non ne dimostrava, per quanto lunga fosse la sua attesa. Ma col passare del tempo egli manifestò un certo disagio e sorpresa, lanciando sguardi all’orologio più frequentemente e alla finestra con meno speranza di prima. Alla fine l’orologio fu nascosto dalla sua vista da qualche invidiosa persiana, poi i campanili delle chiese annunciarono le undici di notte, quindi il quarto d’ora successivo e allora la convinzione sembrò imporsi alla sua mente che non servisse più a nulla rimanere lì.

Era evidente che la convinzione era spiacevole e che non aveva affatto voglia di cedervi, dal suo riluttare ad allontanarsi da quel luogo; dai passi lenti con cui spesso lo lasciava, continuando a guardare oltre le sue spalle verso la stessa finestra; e dalla precipitazione con cui altrettanto spesso vi tornava, quando un rumore immaginario o la luce mutevole ed imperfetta lo induceva a supporre che fosse stata dolcemente alzata. Alla fine rinunciò all’impresa, come senza speranza per quella notte, e improvvisamente mettendosi a correre come se volesse costringersi ad andarsene, scappò via alla massima velocità possibile, non osando neppure voltarsi indietro per paura di essere tentato di tornare.

Senza rallentare il passo o fermarsi per riprendere fiato, questo misterioso individuo si precipitò attraverso molti vicoli e stradine strette fino ad arrivare infine a un cortile lastricato, dove rallentò l’andatura; dirigendosi verso una piccola casa da cui brillava una luce alla finestra, sollevò il chiavistello della porta ed entrò.

‘Che ci benedica!’ esclamò una donna girandosi di scatto, ‘chi è?’ Oh! Sei tu, Kit!

‘Sì, mamma, sono io.’

‘Com’è che sembri così stanca, mia cara!’

«Il vecchio padrone non è uscito stasera», disse Kit; «e così lei non si è affacciata alla finestra.» Con queste parole, si sedette accanto al fuoco e sembrava molto triste e insoddisfatto.

La stanza nella quale Kit si sedette era un luogo estremamente povero e modesto, ma con quell’aria di comfort che - o il posto doveva essere davvero misero - la pulizia e l’ordine possono sempre conferire in qualche modo. Nonostante fosse tardi come indicava l’orologio olandese, la povera donna era ancora al lavoro su un tavolo da stiro; un giovane bambino dormiva in una culla vicino al fuoco; e un altro, un robusto ragazzo di due o tre anni, molto sveglio, con un pigia-mamma molto stretto sulla testa e un pigia-mamma molto piccolo per lui sul suo corpo, era seduto dritto come un fuso in un cesto della biancheria, fissando oltre il bordo con i suoi grandi occhi rotondi, e sembrava che si fosse fermamente deciso a non andare mai più a dormire; il che, dato che aveva già rifiutato di riposarsi naturalmente ed era stato quindi tirato fuori dal letto, apriva una prospettiva allegra per i suoi parenti e amici. Era una famiglia piuttosto strana: Kit, sua madre e i bambini erano tutti molto simili tra loro.

Kit era incline ad essere di cattivo umore, come capita troppo spesso anche ai migliori tra noi — ma guardò il più piccolo bambino che dormiva profondamente, e poi l’altro fratellino nel canestro della biancheria, e infine la madre, che aveva lavorato senza lamentarsi dalla mattina, e pensò che sarebbe stato meglio e più gentile essere di buon umore. Così dondolò la culla con il piede; fece una smorfia al ribelle nel canestro della biancheria, che lo mise immediatamente in alta buona-mood; e decise fermamente di essere loquace e rendere piacevole la sua presenza.

«Oh, mamma!» disse Kit tirando fuori il suo coltellino a serramanico e attaccandosi ad un grande pezzo di pane e carne che lei gli aveva preparato ore prima «che donna sei! Non ce ne sono molte come te, lo so.»

«Spero che ce ne siano molti di molto migliori, Kit», disse la signora Nubbles, «e che ci sono o dovrebbero essere, secondo quanto dice il pastore in chiesa.»

«Ne sa un sacco lui», rispose Kit con disprezzo. «Aspettate che sia vedovo e lavori come fate voi, guadagnando poco e facendo tanto, mantenendo lo stesso il morale alto; allora gli chiederò che ora è e mi fiderò del suo orologio fino al mezzo secondo».

«Bene», disse la signora Nubbles, eludendo il punto, «la tua birra è lì accanto al parafuoco, Kit.»

«Va bene», rispose il figlio, prendendo la brocca del portatore, «i miei saluti a te, madre. E anche alla salute del parroco se ti va. Non gli voglio alcun male, no di certo!»

«Mi ha appena detto che il suo padrone non è uscito questa sera?» chiese la signora Nubbles.

‘Sì,’ disse Kit, ‘peccato!’

«Dovresti dire buona fortuna, credo», replicò sua madre, «perché la signorina Nelly non sarà rimasta sola.»

«Ah!» disse Kit «me n’ero dimenticato. Ho detto peggio perché l’ho cercata da quando sono le otto e non ho visto nulla di lei».

«Mi chiedo cosa direbbe», esclamò sua madre, interrompendo il suo lavoro e guardandosi intorno, «se sapesse che ogni notte, quando lei — poverina — è seduta sola a quella finestra, tu la sorvegli in strada aperta per paura che le accada qualcosa, e che non lasci il posto né torni a casa nel tuo letto anche se sei stanchissimo, finché non pensi che lei sia al sicuro nel suo.»

‘Never mind what she’d say,’ replied Kit, with something like a blush on his uncouth face; ‘she’ll never know nothing, and consequently, she’ll never say nothing.’

Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing until she had returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and looking round with a smile, she observed:

‘I know what some people would say, Kit—’

‘Nonsense,’ interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to follow.

‘No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you’d fallen in love with her, I know they would.’

To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother ‘get out,’ and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the porter; by which artificial aids he choked himself and effected a diversion of the subject.

‘Speaking seriously though, Kit,’ said his mother, taking up the theme afresh, after a time, ‘for of course I was only in joke just now, it’s very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to know it, for I’m sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it very much. It’s a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there. I don’t wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.’

‘He don’t think it’s cruel, bless you,’ said Kit, ‘and don’t mean it to be so, or he wouldn’t do it—I do consider, mother, that he wouldn’t do it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no, that he wouldn’t. I know him better than that.’

‘Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from you?’ said Mrs Nubbles.

‘That I don’t know,’ returned her son. ‘If he hadn’t tried to keep it so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was his getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on. Hark! what’s that?’

‘It’s only somebody outside.’

‘It’s somebody crossing over here,’ said Kit, standing up to listen, ‘and coming very fast too. He can’t have gone out after I left, and the house caught fire, mother!’

The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried into the room.

‘Miss Nelly! What is the matter!’ cried mother and son together.

‘I must not stay a moment,’ she returned, ‘grandfather has been taken very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor—’

‘I’ll run for a doctor’—said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. ‘I’ll be there directly, I’ll—’

‘No, no,’ cried Nell, ‘there is one there, you’re not wanted, you—you—must never come near us any more!’

‘What!’ roared Kit.

‘Never again,’ said the child. ‘Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know. Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry, pray don’t be vexed with me! I have nothing to do with it indeed!’

Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut his mouth a great many times; but couldn’t get out one word.

‘He complains and raves of you,’ said the child, ‘I don’t know what you have done, but I hope it’s nothing very bad.’

‘I done!’ roared Kit.

‘He cried that you’re the cause of all his misery,’ returned the child with tearful eyes; ‘he screamed and called for you; they say you must not come near him or he will die. You must not return to us any more. I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should come than somebody quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you done? You, in whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend I had!’

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and silent.

‘I have brought his money for the week,’ said the child, looking to the woman and laying it on the table—‘and—and—a little more, for he was always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be done. Good night!’

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had received, the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his defence. Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery; and of the nightly absences from home for which he had accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit; flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit made no attempt to comfort her and remained quite bewildered. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket upon him, and was seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.

«Non importa quello che direbbe», rispose Kit con qualcosa di simile ad un rossore sul suo volto rustico; «non saprà mai nulla e quindi non dirà mai nulla.»

La signora Nubbles stirò in silenzio per un minuto o due e poi, andando al caminetto per prendere un altro ferro da stiro, lanciò uno sguardo furtivo a Kit mentre lo strofinava su una tavola e lo spolverava con uno straccetto; ma non disse nulla finché non fu tornata al suo tavolo: allora, tenendo il ferro a una distanza allarmantemente breve dal viso per testarne la temperatura, e guardandosi intorno con un sorriso, osservò:

‘So che cosa direbbero alcune persone, Kit, ’

«Sciocchezze», intervenne Kit con una perfetta comprensione di ciò che sarebbe seguito.

«No, ma lo direbbero davvero. Alcune persone direbbero che ti sei innamorato di lei, so che lo direbbero».

Kit rispose solo con un timido invito alla madre di “andarsene”, e formando varie strane figure con le gambe e le braccia, accompagnate da contorsioni simpatetiche del suo volto. Non ottenendo da questi mezzi il sollievo che cercava, si mise in bocca un immenso boccone di pane e carne, e bevve velocemente una sorsata di birra scura; con l’aiuto di questi artifici si strozzò e riuscì a cambiare argomento.

«Parlando seriamente, però, Kit», disse sua madre riprendendo il discorso dopo un po’, «perché naturalmente stavo scherzando poco fa, è molto gentile e premuroso da parte tua fare questo e non farlo sapere a nessuno, anche se un giorno spero che lei possa venire a saperlo, perché sono sicura che ti sarebbe molto grata e lo apprezzerebbe moltissimo. È una cosa crudele tenere la cara bambina rinchiusa lì. Non mi stupisco che il vecchio signore voglia tenerla nascosta a te».

«Non pensa che sia crudele, vi benedica», disse Kit, «e non vuole esserlo, altrimenti non lo farebbe. Io credo, mamma, che non lo farebbe per tutto l’oro e l’argento del mondo. No, no, proprio no. Lo conosco meglio di così».

«Allora perché lo fa e perché lo tiene così nascosto da voi?» disse la signora Nubbles.

«Non lo so», rispose il figlio. «Ma se non avesse cercato di tenerlo così segreto, non l’avrei mai scoperto, perché fu proprio il fatto che mi portava via a notte e mi mandava via molto prima del solito, che per primo suscitò in me la curiosità di sapere cosa stesse succedendo. Ascolta! Cosa è stato?»

‘È solo qualcuno fuori.’

«C’è qualcuno che sta attraversando qui», disse Kit alzandosi in piedi per ascoltare, «e sta venendo molto velocemente. Non può essere uscito dopo che me ne sono andato, e la casa ha preso fuoco, mamma!»

Il ragazzo rimase per un momento davvero impotente, privato dal timore che aveva evocato della capacità di muoversi. I passi si avvicinarono, la porta fu aperta con fretta e la bambina stessa, pallida e senza fiato, avvolta in pochi indumenti disordinati, entrò precipitosamente nella stanza.

«Signorina Nelly! Che cosa succede?» gridarono madre e figlio insieme.

«Non posso rimanere un momento di più», rispose lei, «mio nonno è stato colto da una grave malattia. L’ho trovato per terra in preda ad un attacco, »

«Corro a chiamare un dottore» — disse Kit afferrando il suo cappello senza tesa. «Sarò lì subito, io, »

«No, no», gridò Nell, «ce n’è uno lì, non sei desiderato, tu, tu, non devi più avvicinarti a noi!»

«Cosa!» ruggì Kit.

«Mai più», disse il bambino. «Non chiedetemi perché, perché non lo so. Vi prego di non chiedermi perché, vi prego di non dispiacervene, vi prego di non arrabbiarvi con me! In verità non c’entro per nulla!»

Kit la guardò con gli occhi sbarrati e aprì e chiuse la bocca molte volte, ma non riuscì a dire una parola.

«Si lamenta e si sfoga contro di voi», disse il bambino, «non so cosa abbiate fatto, ma spero che non sia niente di molto grave.»

«L’ho fatto!» ruggì Kit.

«Ha detto che sei la causa di tutta la sua miseria», rispose il bambino con gli occhi pieni di lacrime; «ha urlato e ti ha chiamato; dicono che non devi avvicinarti a lui, altrimenti morirà. Non devi più tornare da noi. Sono venuto per dirtelo. Ho pensato che sarebbe stato meglio che ci venissi io piuttosto che qualcuno del tutto estraneo. Oh, Kit, cosa hai fatto? Tu, in cui confidavo così tanto, e che eri quasi l’unico amico che avevo!»

Il povero Kit guardava sempre più intensamente la sua giovane padrona, con gli occhi che si spalancavano sempre di più, ma rimase perfettamente immobile e silenzioso.

«Ho portato i suoi soldi per la settimana», disse il bambino, rivolgendosi alla donna e posandoli sul tavolo, «e—e—un po’ di più, perché lui è sempre stato buono e gentile con me. Io spero che si pentirà e farà bene da qualche altra parte e non prenderà troppo a cuore questa cosa. Mi addolora molto separarmi da lui in questo modo, ma non c’è niente da fare. Deve essere fatto. Buona notte!»

Con le lacrime che le scorrevano lungo il viso e la sua esile figura tremante per l’agitazione della scena da cui era appena uscita, lo shock ricevuto, l’incarico appena portato a termine e mille sentimenti dolorosi e affettuosi, la bambina si diresse in fretta verso la porta e scomparve con la stessa rapidità con cui era arrivata.

La povera donna, che non aveva alcun motivo di dubitare di suo figlio, ma ogni ragione per fidarsi della sua onestà e della sua verità, fu nondimeno sconvolta dal fatto che non avesse pronunciato una sola parola in sua difesa. Visioni di coraggio, furbizia, rapina; e delle assenze notturne da casa per le quali aveva dato spiegazioni così strane, causate da qualche attività illegale; le affollarono la mente e la resero troppo spaventata per interrogarlo. Si dondolava su una sedia, torcendosi le mani e piangendo amaramente, ma Kit non fece alcun tentativo di consolarla e rimase del tutto smarrito. Il bambino nella culla si svegliò e piangeva; il ragazzo nel panierino cadde sulla schiena con il paniere sopra di lui, e non fu più visto; la madre piangeva ancora più forte e si dondolava più velocemente; ma Kit, insensibile a tutto il trambusto e il tumulto, rimase in uno stato di totale stupore.

CHAPTER 11

Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no longer, beneath the roof that sheltered the child. Next morning, the old man was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium; and sinking under the influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks in imminent peril of his life. There was watching enough, now, but it was the watching of strangers who made a greedy trade of it, and who, in the intervals in their attendance upon the sick man huddled together with a ghastly good-fellowship, and ate and drank and made merry; for disease and death were their ordinary household gods.

Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was more alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in her devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed; alone in her unfeigned sorrow, and her unpurchased sympathy. Day after day, and night after night, found her still by the pillow of the unconscious sufferer, still anticipating his every want, still listening to those repetitions of her name and those anxieties and cares for her, which were ever uppermost among his feverish wanderings.

The house was no longer theirs. Even the sick chamber seemed to be retained, on the uncertain tenure of Mr Quilp’s favour. The old man’s illness had not lasted many days when he took formal possession of the premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain legal powers to that effect, which few understood and none presumed to call in question. This important step secured, with the assistance of a man of law whom he brought with him for the purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish himself and his coadjutor in the house, as an assertion of his claim against all comers; and then set about making his quarters comfortable, after his own fashion.

To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first put an effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop. Having looked out, from among the old furniture, the handsomest and most commodious chair he could possibly find (which he reserved for his own use) and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one (which he considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend) he caused them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in great state. The apartment was very far removed from the old man’s chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it prudent, as a precaution against infection from fever, and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to smoke, himself, without cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal friend did the like. Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the tumbling boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit himself down in another chair just inside the door, continually to smoke a great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for one minute at a time, if he dared. These arrangements completed, Mr Quilp looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked that he called that comfort.

The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he could by no exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard, angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that tobacco-smoke always caused him great internal discomposure and annoyance. But as he was quite a creature of Mr Quilp’s and had a thousand reasons for conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile, and nodded his acquiescence with the best grace he could assume.

This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey. He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.

Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking very much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered when he happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly fanned the smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee.

‘Smoke away, you dog,’ said Quilp, turning to the boy; ‘fill your pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I’ll put the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon your tongue.’

Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small lime-kiln if anybody had treated him with it. Wherefore, he only muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered.

‘Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like the Grand Turk?’ said Quilp.

Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk’s feelings were by no means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no doubt he felt very like that Potentate.

‘This is the way to keep off fever,’ said Quilp, ‘this is the way to keep off every calamity of life! We’ll never leave off, all the time we stop here—smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the pipe!’

‘Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?’ inquired his legal friend, when the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition.

‘We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is dead,’ returned Quilp.

‘He he he!’ laughed Mr Brass, ‘oh! very good!’

‘Smoke away!’ cried Quilp. ‘Never stop! You can talk as you smoke. Don’t lose time.’

‘He he he!’ cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the odious pipe. ‘But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?’

CAPITOLO 11

Il silenzio e la solitudine non erano più destinate a regnare ininterrottamente sotto il tetto che ospitava il bambino. La mattina seguente, il vecchio era in preda a una febbre furiosa accompagnata da delirio; e, cedendo all’influenza di questo disturbo, giacque per molte settimane in pericolo imminente di vita. Ora c’era abbastanza veglia, ma era la veglia di estranei che ne facevano un commercio avido, e che, negli intervalli della loro assistenza al malato, si accalcavano insieme con una spettrale cordialità, mangiavano, bevevano e si divertivano; poiché la malattia e la morte erano i loro comuni dei domestici.

Eppure, in tutta la fretta e la confusione di un periodo del genere, la bambina era più sola di quanto non fosse mai stata prima; sola nello spirito, sola nel suo affetto per colui che si consumava sul suo letto ardente; sola nel suo dolore sincero e nella sua compassione disinteressata. Giorno dopo giorno, e notte dopo notte, la si trovava ancora accanto al cuscino del sofferente inconscio, ancora prevenendo ogni suo bisogno, ancora ascoltando quelle ripetizioni del suo nome e quelle ansie e preoccupazioni per lei, che erano sempre in primo piano tra le sue vagheggiamenti febbrili.

La casa non era più loro. Anche la stanza del malato sembrava essere conservata, in base al favore incerto di Mr Quilp. La malattia del vecchio non era durata molti giorni quando egli prese possesso formale dei locali e di tutto ciò che contenevano, in virtù di certi poteri legali a tal effetto, che pochi comprendevano e nessuno osava mettere in dubbio. Questo passo importante assicurato, con l’assistenza di un uomo di legge che aveva portato con sé a tale scopo, il nanerottolo procedette a stabilirsi lui e il suo coadiutore nella casa, come affermazione della sua pretesa contro tutti i venuti; e poi si mise a rendere confortevole la sua sistemazione, a modo suo.

A questo scopo, il signor Quilp si accampò nel salottino sul retro, dopo aver prima messo un freno efficace a qualsiasi ulteriore attività chiudendo il negozio. Dopo aver scelto, tra i vecchi mobili, la sedia più bella e comoda che potesse trovare (che riservò per il suo uso personale) e una particolarmente orribile e scomoda (che con grande considerazione destinò all’uso del suo amico), fece trasportare le due sedie in questa stanza e vi prese posto con grande solennità. L’appartamento era molto lontano dalla camera del vecchio, ma il signor Quilp ritenne prudente, come precauzione contro l’infezione da febbre e come mezzo di salutare fumigazione, non solo fumare lui stesso senza sosta, ma anche insistere affinché il suo amico legale facesse altrettanto. Inoltre, inviò un messaggero al molo per il ragazzo acrobata, che arrivò con tutta fretta e gli fu ordinato di sedersi in un’altra sedia appena dentro la porta, continuando a fumare una grande pipa che il nanerottolo aveva procurato a tal fine, e di togliersela dalle labbra per qualsiasi pretesto, anche solo per un minuto alla volta, se osava. Con questi preparativi completati, il signor Quilp si guardò intorno con soddisfazione e osservò che questo lo chiamava comfort.

Il signor Brass, così suonava il suo melodioso nome, avrebbe potuto chiamarla comodità, se non fosse stato per due inconvenienti: uno era che, per quanto si sforzasse, non riusciva a stare comodo sulla sua sedia, la cui seduta era molto dura, angolare, scivolosa e inclinata; l’altro, che il fumo di tabacco gli causava sempre grande disagio e fastidio. Ma poiché era una creatura del signor Quilp e aveva mille ragioni per conciliare la sua buona opinione, cercò di sorridere e annuì con la migliore grazia che poté assumere.

Questo Brass era un avvocato di non molto buona reputazione, di Bevis Marks nella città di Londra; era un uomo alto e magro, con un naso a forma di verruca, una fronte sporgente, occhi infossati e capelli di un rosso intenso. Indossava un lungo soprabito nero che arrivava quasi alle caviglie, pantaloni neri corti, scarpe alte e calze di cotone di un grigio bluastro. Aveva un atteggiamento servile, ma una voce molto dura; e i suoi sorrisi più blandi erano così estremamente sgradevoli, che per averlo come compagno anche nelle circostanze meno repellenti, si sarebbe desiderato che fosse di cattivo umore perché almeno si arrabbiasse.

Quilp guardò il suo consulente legale e, vedendo che faceva molti ammiccamenti per il tormento della pipa, che a volte rabbrividiva quando per caso inalava il suo sapore pieno, e che continuamente si ventilava via il fumo, fu davvero felice e si strofinò le mani per la gioia.

«Fuma, cane», disse Quilp, rivolgendosi al ragazzo, «riempi di nuovo la pipa e fumala in fretta, fino all’ultimo tiro, o metterò la punta sigillata nella fiamma e la strofinerò rovente sulla tua lingua.»

Per fortuna il ragazzo era incallito e avrebbe fumato un piccolo forno per la calce se qualcuno gliel’avesse offerto. Pertanto, si limitò a borbottare una breve sfida al suo padrone e fece come gli era stato ordinato.

«È buono, Brass, è piacevole, è profumato, ti senti come il Gran Turco?» disse Quilp.

Il signor Brass pensò che se lo avesse fatto, i sentimenti del Gran Turco non erano affatto da invidiare, ma disse che era famoso e non aveva dubbio che si sentisse molto simile a quel Potentato.

«Questo è il modo per tenere lontana la febbre», disse Quilp, «questo è il modo per tenere lontana ogni calamità della vita! Non ci fermeremo mai, tutto il tempo che ci fermiamo qui — fuma, cane, o dovrai ingoiare la pipa!»

«Resteremo qui a lungo, signor Quilp?» chiese il suo amico avvocato, quando il nanerottolo ebbe dato al ragazzo questo gentile ammonimento.

«Dovremo fermarci, immagino, finché il vecchio signore di sopra non sarà morto», rispose Quilp.

“Ah ah ah!” rise Mr Brass, “oh! bravissimo!”

«Fumate pure!» gridò Quilp. «Non fermatevi mai! Potete parlare mentre fumate. Non perdete tempo.»

«Eh eh eh!» esclamò Brass con voce debole, mentre tornava a portare alla bocca la disgustosa pipa. «Ma se dovesse guarire, signor Quilp?»

‘Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,’ returned the dwarf.

‘How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!’ said Brass. ‘Some people, Sir, would have sold or removed the goods—oh dear, the very instant the law allowed ‘em. Some people, Sir, would have been all flintiness and granite. Some people, sir, would have—’

‘Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a parrot as you,’ interposed the dwarf.

‘He he he!’ cried Brass. ‘You have such spirits!’

The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without taking his pipe from his lips, growled,

‘Here’s the gal a comin’ down.’

‘The what, you dog?’ said Quilp.

‘The gal,’ returned the boy. ‘Are you deaf?’

‘Oh!’ said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he were taking soup, ‘you and I will have such a settling presently; there’s such a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear young friend! Aha! Nelly! How is he now, my duck of diamonds?’

‘He’s very bad,’ replied the weeping child.

‘What a pretty little Nell!’ cried Quilp.

‘Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,’ said Brass. ‘Quite charming.’

‘Has she come to sit upon Quilp’s knee,’ said the dwarf, in what he meant to be a soothing tone, ‘or is she going to bed in her own little room inside here? Which is poor Nelly going to do?’

‘What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!’ muttered Brass, as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; ‘upon my word it’s quite a treat to hear him.’

‘I’m not going to stay at all,’ faltered Nell. ‘I want a few things out of that room, and then I—I—won’t come down here any more.’

‘And a very nice little room it is!’ said the dwarf looking into it as the child entered. ‘Quite a bower! You’re sure you’re not going to use it; you’re sure you’re not coming back, Nelly?’

‘No,’ replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of dress she had come to remove; ‘never again! Never again.’

‘She’s very sensitive,’ said Quilp, looking after her. ‘Very sensitive; that’s a pity. The bedstead is much about my size. I think I shall make it MY little room.’

Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any other emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try the effect. This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the bed with his pipe in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and smoking violently. Mr Brass applauding this picture very much, and the bed being soft and comfortable, Mr Quilp determined to use it, both as a sleeping place by night and as a kind of Divan by day; and in order that it might be converted to the latter purpose at once, remained where he was, and smoked his pipe out. The legal gentleman being by this time rather giddy and perplexed in his ideas (for this was one of the operations of the tobacco on his nervous system), took the opportunity of slinking away into the open air, where, in course of time, he recovered sufficiently to return with a countenance of tolerable composure. He was soon led on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into a relapse, and in that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning.

Such were Mr Quilp’s first proceedings on entering upon his new property. He was, for some days, restrained by business from performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well occupied between taking, with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute inventory of all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his other concerns which happily engaged him for several hours at a time. His avarice and caution being, now, thoroughly awakened, however, he was never absent from the house one night; and his eagerness for some termination, good or bad, to the old man’s disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time passed by, soon began to vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations of impatience.

Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf’s advances towards conversation, and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were the lawyer’s smiles less terrible to her than Quilp’s grimaces. She lived in such continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them on the stairs or in the passages if she stirred from her grandfather’s chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment, until late at night, when the silence encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer air of some empty room.

One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting there very sorrowfully—for the old man had been worse that day—when she thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the street. Looking down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to attract her attention had roused her from her sad reflections.

‘Miss Nell!’ said the boy in a low voice.

‘Yes,’ replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old favourite still; ‘what do you want?’

‘I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,’ the boy replied, ‘but the people below have driven me away and wouldn’t let me see you. You don’t believe—I hope you don’t really believe—that I deserve to be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?’

‘I must believe it,’ returned the child. ‘Or why would grandfather have been so angry with you?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Kit. ‘I’m sure I never deserved it from him, no, nor from you. I can say that, with a true and honest heart, any way. And then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how old master was—!’

‘They never told me that,’ said the child. ‘I didn’t know it indeed. I wouldn’t have had them do it for the world.’

‘Thank’ee, miss,’ returned Kit, ‘it’s comfortable to hear you say that. I said I never would believe that it was your doing.’

«Allora ci fermeremo finché non lo farà lui, e non più a lungo», rispose il nanerottolo.

«Com’è gentile da parte sua, signore, aspettare fino a quel momento!» disse Brass. «Alcune persone, signore, avrebbero venduto o portato via le merci - oh, santo cielo, proprio nel momento in cui la legge glielo avrebbe permesso. Alcune persone, signore, sarebbero state tutte durezza e freddezza. Alcune persone, signore, avrebbero, »

«Alcune persone si sarebbero risparmiate il chiacchiericcio di un pappagallo come te», intervenne il nanerottolo.

“He he he!” esclamò Brass. “Che allegria!”

Il sentinella fumatore alla porta si intromise in questo momento, e senza togliersi la pipa dalle labbra, brontolò,

‘Ecco la ragazza che scende.’

«Il che cosa, cane?» disse Quilp.

«La ragazza», rispose il ragazzo. «Sei sordo?»

«Oh!» disse Quilp, aspirando il respiro con grande gusto come se stesse prendendo la zuppa, «tra poco tu e io avremo una bella sistemazione; c’è tanto grattare e percuotere in serbo per te, mio caro giovane amico! Aha! Nelly! Come sta ora, la mia colomba di diamanti?»

«È molto malato», rispose il bambino piangente.

«Che bella piccola Nell!» esclamò Quilp.

“Oh, bellissimo, signore, davvero bellissimo,” disse Brass. “Proprio incantevole.”

«È venuta a sedersi sulle ginocchia di Quilp», disse il nanerottolo, con quello che intendeva essere un tono rassicurante, «o andrà a letto nella sua stanzina qui dentro? Cosa farà la povera Nelly?»

«Che modo così notevole e piacevole ha con i bambini!» mormorò Brass, come se confidasse al soffitto; «davvero, è una vera delizia ascoltarlo.»

«Non rimarrò affatto», balbettò Nell. «Voglio prendere alcune cose da quella stanza, e poi non—non—scenderò più qui.»

«E che bella stanzina è!» disse il nanerottolo guardandola mentre la bambina entrava. «Un vero boudoir! Sei sicura di non volerla usare; sei sicura di non tornare, Nelly?»

‘No,’ rispose la bambina, affrettandosi via, con i pochi indumenti che era venuta a prendere; ‘mai più! Mai più.’

«È molto sensibile», disse Quilp, guardandola allontanarsi. «Molto sensibile; peccato. Il letto è più o meno della mia misura. Penso che lo renderò la MIA cameretta.»

Il signor Brass incoraggiando questa idea, come avrebbe incoraggiato qualsiasi altra emanata dalla stessa fonte, il nanerottolo entrò per provare l’effetto. Questo lo fece, gettandosi sulla schiena sul letto con la pipa in bocca, e poi alzando le gambe e fumando violentemente. Il signor Brass applaudì molto questo quadro, e il letto essendo morbido e comodo, il signor Quilp decise di usarlo, sia come posto per dormire di notte che come una specie di divano di giorno; e affinché potesse essere convertito a quest’ultimo scopo subito, rimase dov’era e fumò la sua pipa. Il gentiluomo legale, a questo punto, era piuttosto goffo e confuso nelle sue idee (perché questo era uno degli effetti del tabacco sul suo sistema nervoso), colse l’occasione per sgattaiolare all’aria aperta, dove, col passare del tempo, si riprese abbastanza da tornare con un contegno di composta tollerabilità. Fu presto spinto dal malizioso nanerottolo a fumare fino a ricadere, e in quello stato inciampò su un divano dove dormì fino al mattino.

Tali furono le prime azioni di Mr Quilp nel prendere possesso della sua nuova proprietà. Fu trattenuto dagli affari per alcuni giorni, senza poter compiere alcun particolare scherzo, poiché il suo tempo era piuttosto bene occupato tra l’inventario minuzioso, con l’aiuto di Mr Brass, di tutti i beni del luogo, e le sue altre faccende che lo tenevano fortunatamente impegnato per diverse ore alla volta. Tuttavia, ora che la sua avarizia e la sua prudenza erano state completamente risvegliate, non si allontanò mai dalla casa neanche per una notte; e la sua impazienza per una conclusione, buona o cattiva, del disturbo del vecchio, aumentando rapidamente col passare del tempo, presto iniziò a manifestarsi in aperti mormorii ed esclamazioni di impazienza.

Nell si ritraeva timidamente da ogni avance del nano verso la conversazione, e fuggiva dal solo suono della sua voce; né i sorrisi dell’avvocato erano meno terribili per lei delle smorfie di Quilp. Viveva in tale continuo timore e apprensione di incontrare uno o l’altro di loro sulle scale o nei corridoi se si muoveva dalla camera di suo nonno, che raramente la lasciava, per un momento, fino a tarda notte, quando il silenzio la incoraggiava ad avventurarsi fuori e respirare l’aria più pura di qualche stanza vuota.

Una notte, era sgusciata alla sua solita finestra e stava seduta lì molto tristemente — perché il vecchio era stato peggio quel giorno — quando le parve di sentire il suo nome pronunciato da una voce in strada. Guardando giù, riconobbe Kit, i cui sforzi per attirare la sua attenzione l’avevano risvegliata dalle sue tristi riflessioni.

«Signorina Nell!» disse il ragazzo a bassa voce.

«Sì», rispose la bambina, dubbiosa se dovesse intrattenere qualunque comunicazione con il presunto colpevole, ma ancora incline al suo vecchio preferito; «cosa vuoi?»

«Volevo dirle una parola da un bel po’ di tempo», rispose il ragazzo, «ma la gente di sotto mi ha scacciato e non mi ha lasciato vederla. Non crede—spero che non crede davvero—che io meriti di essere respinto come sono stato; vero, signorina?»

«Devo crederci», rispose il bambino. «Altrimenti perché il nonno sarebbe stato così arrabbiato con te?»

«Non lo so», rispose Kit. «Sono sicuro di non averlo mai meritato da lui, no, né da voi. Posso dirlo con un cuore vero e onesto, comunque sia. E poi essere cacciato via, quando sono venuto solo a chiedere come stava il vecchio padrone—!»

«Non me l’hanno mai detto», disse il bambino. «Non lo sapevo davvero. Non li avrei mai voluti farlo per tutto il mondo.»

«Grazie, signorina», rispose Kit, «è confortante sentirglielo dire. Io ho detto che non avrei mai creduto che fosse opera sua.»

‘That was right!’ said the child eagerly.

‘Miss Nell,’ cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in a lower tone, ‘there are new masters down stairs. It’s a change for you.’

‘It is indeed,’ replied the child.

‘And so it will be for him when he gets better,’ said the boy, pointing towards the sick room.

‘—If he ever does,’ added the child, unable to restrain her tears.

‘Oh, he’ll do that, he’ll do that,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sure he will. You mustn’t be cast down, Miss Nell. Now don’t be, pray!’

These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said, but they affected the child and made her, for the moment, weep the more.

‘He’ll be sure to get better now,’ said the boy anxiously, ‘if you don’t give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would make him worse and throw him back, just as he was recovering. When he does, say a good word—say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!’

‘They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time,’ rejoined the child, ‘I dare not; and even if I might, what good would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor. We shall scarcely have bread to eat.’

‘It’s not that I may be taken back,’ said the boy, ‘that I ask the favour of you. It isn’t for the sake of food and wages that I’ve been waiting about so long in hopes to see you. Don’t think that I’d come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.’

The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he might speak again.

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Kit hesitating, ‘it’s something very different from that. I haven’t got much sense, I know, but if he could be brought to believe that I’d been a faithful servant to him, doing the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn’t—’

Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out, and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window.

‘Perhaps he mightn’t think it over venturesome of me to say—well then, to say this,’ cried Kit with sudden boldness. ‘This home is gone from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, but that’s better than this with all these people here; and why not come there, till he’s had time to look about, and find a better!’

The child did not speak. Kit, in the relief of having made his proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour with his utmost eloquence.

‘You think,’ said the boy, ‘that it’s very small and inconvenient. So it is, but it’s very clean. Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but there’s not a quieter court than ours in all the town. Don’t be afraid of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very good—besides, I’d mind ‘em. They wouldn’t vex you much, I’m sure. Do try, Miss Nell, do try. The little front room up stairs is very pleasant. You can see a piece of the church-clock, through the chimneys, and almost tell the time; mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would, and you’d have her to wait upon you both, and me to run of errands. We don’t mean money, bless you; you’re not to think of that! Will you try him, Miss Nell? Only say you’ll try him. Do try to make old master come, and ask him first what I have done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?’

Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the street-door opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped head called in a surly voice, ‘Who’s there!’ Kit immediately glided away, and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room.

Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the house, from the opposite side. Finding that there was nobody in sight, he presently returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting (as the child heard from the staircase), that there was a league and plot against him; that he was in danger of being robbed and plundered by a band of conspirators who prowled about the house at all seasons; and that he would delay no longer but take immediate steps for disposing of the property and returning to his own peaceful roof. Having growled forth these, and a great many other threats of the same nature, he coiled himself once more in the child’s little bed, and Nell crept softly up the stairs.

It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with Kit should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her dreams that night and her recollections for a long, long time. Surrounded by unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little regard or sympathy even from the women about her, it is not surprising that the affectionate heart of the child should have been touched to the quick by one kind and generous spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it dwelt. Thank Heaven that the temples of such spirits are not made with hands, and that they may be even more worthily hung with poor patch-work than with purple and fine linen!

«Questo era giusto!» disse il bambino con entusiasmo.

«Signorina Nell», gridò il ragazzo avvicinandosi alla finestra e parlando a voce più bassa, «ci sono nuovi padroni al piano di sotto. È un cambiamento per voi».

«È proprio così», rispose il bambino.

«E così sarà per lui quando starà meglio», disse il ragazzo, indicando la stanza dove giaceva il malato.

«—Se mai lo farà», aggiunse la bambina, incapace di trattenere le lacrime.

«Oh, lo farà, lo farà», disse Kit. «Ne sono sicuro. Non dovete abbattervi, Miss Nell. Per favore, non dovete!»

Queste parole di incoraggiamento e consolazione erano poche e dette in modo brusco, ma colpirono la bambina e la fecero piangere ancora di più, almeno per il momento.

«Sarà sicuro di guarire adesso», disse il ragazzo con ansia, «se non vi abbandonerete al cattivo umore e non vi ammalate anche voi, il che lo farebbe peggiorare e lo getterebbe indietro, proprio mentre stava per guarire. Quando lo farà, dite una buona parola, dite una parola gentile per me, Miss Nell!»

«Mi hanno detto che non devo nemmeno menzionare il tuo nome a lui per un lungo, lungo periodo,» rispose il bambino, «non oso; e anche se potessi, che bene ti farebbe una parola gentile, Kit? Saremo molto poveri. Avremo a malapena il pane da mangiare.»

«Non è perché temo di essere riportato indietro», disse il ragazzo, «che vi chiedo questo favore. Non è per il cibo e lo stipendio che ho aspettato tanto a lungo nella speranza di vedervi. Non pensate che io venga in un momento di difficoltà a parlarvi di cose del genere».

Il bambino lo guardò con gratitudine e gentilezza, ma attese che potesse parlare di nuovo.

«No, non è questo», disse Kit esitante, «è qualcosa di molto diverso. Non ho molto senno, lo so, ma se potesse essere convinto che gli sono stato un servo fedele, facendo del mio meglio, e senza mai voler male, forse non, »

Qui Kit esitò così a lungo che il bambino lo pregò di parlare, e in fretta, perché era molto tardi, e ora di chiudere la finestra.

«Forse non penserebbe che sia troppo audace da parte mia dire. beh, allora, di dire questo», esclamò Kit con improvvisa audacia. «Questa casa è andata per voi due. Mia madre ed io ne abbiamo una povera, ma è meglio di questa con tutte queste persone qui; e perché non venite lì, finché lui non avrà avuto tempo di guardarsi intorno e trovare di meglio!»

Il bambino non parlò. Kit, sollevato per aver fatto la sua proposta, si sentì la lingua sciolta e parlò a suo favore con la massima eloquenza.

«Pensate», disse il ragazzo, «che sia molto piccolo e scomodo. E lo è, ma è molto pulito. Forse pensate che sia rumoroso, ma non c’è un vicolo più tranquillo del nostro in tutta la città. Non temete i bambini; il piccolo quasi non piange mai, e l’altro è molto buono, inoltre, me ne occuperei io. Non vi darebbero troppo fastidio, ve lo assicuro. Provate, Miss Nell, provate. La piccola stanza davanti al piano di sopra è molto piacevole. Si può vedere un pezzo del campanile della chiesa, tra i camini, e quasi dire l’ora; mia madre dice che sarebbe proprio la cosa giusta per voi, e lo sarebbe davvero, e avreste lei a servirvi entrambi, e me a fare le commissioni. Non parliamo di soldi, vi prego; non dovete pensarci! Proverete, Miss Nell? Dite solo che proverete. Provate a far venire il vecchio padrone, e chiedetegli prima cosa ho fatto. Promettetemi solo questo, Miss Nell?»

Prima che il bambino potesse rispondere a questa sollecita richiesta, la porta di strada si aprì e il signor Brass, sporgendo la testa coperta dal berretto da notte, chiamò con voce sgarbata: «Chi è?» Kit si allontanò immediatamente e Nell, chiudendo dolcemente la finestra, si ritirò nella stanza.

Prima che il signor Brass avesse ripetuto la sua domanda molte volte, il signor Quilp, anch’egli adornato con un berretto da notte, emerse dalla stessa porta e guardò attentamente su e giù per la strada, e su tutti i finestrini della casa, dal lato opposto. Scoprendo che non c’era nessuno in vista, poco dopo tornò nella casa con il suo amico legale, protestando (come sentì il bambino dalle scale), che c’era una lega e un complotto contro di lui; che era in pericolo di essere derubato e saccheggiato da una banda di cospiratori che si aggiravano intorno alla casa in tutte le stagioni; e che non avrebbe più ritardato ma avrebbe preso immediatamente provvedimenti per disporre della proprietà e tornare al suo tetto pacifico. Dopo aver ringhiato queste, e molte altre minacce della stessa natura, si arrotolò ancora una volta nel piccolo letto del bambino, e Nell si arrampicò dolcemente su per le scale.

Era del tutto naturale che il suo breve e incompleto dialogo con Kit lasciasse una forte impressione nella sua mente, e influenzasse i suoi sogni quella notte e i suoi ricordi per un lungo, lungo periodo. Circondata da creditori insensibili e da assistenti mercenari dei malati, e incontrando nel culmine della sua ansia e del suo dolore poca considerazione o simpatia anche da parte delle donne intorno a lei, non sorprende che il cuore affettuoso del bambino sia stato toccato nel profondo da un’anima gentile e generosa, per quanto rozza fosse la dimora in cui essa risiedeva. Grazie a Dio che i templi di tali spiriti non sono fatti con le mani, e che possono essere addirittura più degnamente adornati con poveri stracci che con porpora e lino fine!

CHAPTER 12

At length, the crisis of the old man’s disorder was past, and he began to mend. By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness came back; but the mind was weakened and its functions were impaired. He was patient, and quiet; often sat brooding, but not despondently, for a long space; was easily amused, even by a sun-beam on the wall or ceiling; made no complaint that the days were long, or the nights tedious; and appeared indeed to have lost all count of time, and every sense of care or weariness. He would sit, for hours together, with Nell’s small hand in his, playing with the fingers and stopping sometimes to smooth her hair or kiss her brow; and, when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes, would look, amazed, about him for the cause, and forget his wonder even while he looked.

The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and the child beside him. They were hand in hand as usual. The noise and motion in the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was not surprised, or curious, or pleased, or irritated. He was asked if he remembered this, or that. ‘O yes,’ he said, ‘quite well—why not?’ Sometimes he turned his head, and looked, with earnest gaze and outstretched neck, after some stranger in the crowd, until he disappeared from sight; but, to the question why he did this, he answered not a word.

He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool beside him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter. ‘Yes,’ he said without emotion, ‘it was Quilp, he knew. Quilp was master there. Of course he might come in.’ And so he did.

‘I’m glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, sitting down opposite him. ‘You’re quite strong now?’

‘Yes,’ said the old man feebly, ‘yes.’

‘I don’t want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, raising his voice, for the old man’s senses were duller than they had been; ‘but, as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings, the better.’

‘Surely,’ said the old man. ‘The better for all parties.’

‘You see,’ pursued Quilp after a short pause, ‘the goods being once removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.’

‘You say true,’ returned the old man. ‘Poor Nell too, what would she do?’

‘Exactly,’ bawled the dwarf nodding his head; ‘that’s very well observed. Then will you consider about it, neighbour?’

‘I will, certainly,’ replied the old man. ‘We shall not stop here.’

‘So I supposed,’ said the dwarf. ‘I have sold the things. They have not yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty well—pretty well. To-day’s Tuesday. When shall they be moved? There’s no hurry—shall we say this afternoon?’

‘Say Friday morning,’ returned the old man.

‘Very good,’ said the dwarf. ‘So be it—with the understanding that I can’t go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.’

‘Good,’ returned the old man. ‘I shall remember it.’

Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way in which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and repeated ‘on Friday morning. I shall remember it,’ he had no excuse for dwelling on the subject any further, and so took a friendly leave with many expressions of good-will and many compliments to his friend on his looking so remarkably well; and went below stairs to report progress to Mr Brass.

All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state. He wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various rooms, as if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he referred neither by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the interview of the morning or the necessity of finding some other shelter. An indistinct idea he had, that the child was desolate and in want of help; for he often drew her to his bosom and bade her be of good cheer, saying that they would not desert each other; but he seemed unable to contemplate their real position more distinctly, and was still the listless, passionless creature that suffering of mind and body had left him.

We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come? Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man. But a change came upon him that evening as he and the child sat silently together.

In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree—green and flourishing enough, for such a place—and as the air stirred among its leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall. The old man sat watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of light, until the sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon was slowly rising, he still sat in the same spot.

To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these few green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished among chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things. They suggested quiet places afar off, and rest, and peace. The child thought, more than once that he was moved: and had forborne to speak. But now he shed tears—tears that it lightened her aching heart to see—and making as though he would fall upon his knees, besought her to forgive him.

CAPITOLO 12

Alla fine, la crisi del disturbo del vecchio era passata, e lui cominciò a migliorare. A poco a poco, con grande lentezza e debolezza, la sua coscienza tornò; ma la mente era indebolita e le sue funzioni erano compromesse. Era paziente e tranquillo; spesso sedeva meditando, ma non in modo disperato, per un lungo periodo; si divertiva facilmente, anche con un raggio di sole sul muro o sul soffitto; non si lamentava che i giorni fossero lunghi, o le notti noiose; e sembrava davvero aver perso ogni nozione del tempo, e ogni senso di preoccupazione o stanchezza. Sedeva per ore, con la piccola mano di Nell nella sua, giocando con le dita e fermandosi a volte per lisciare i suoi capelli o baciarle la fronte; e, quando vedeva che le lacrime brillavano nei suoi occhi, guardava, stupito, intorno a lui per la causa, e dimenticava il suo stupore anche mentre guardava.

Il bambino e lui uscirono a cavallo; il vecchio sostenuto da cuscini, e il bambino al suo fianco. Erano mano nella mano come al solito. Il rumore e il movimento nelle strade affaticarono il suo cervello all’inizio, ma non era sorpreso, né curioso, né contento, né irritato. Gli fu chiesto se ricordava questo o quello. ‘O sì,’ disse, ‘benissimo —perché no?’ A volte girava la testa e guardava, con sguardo intenso e collo proteso, qualche sconosciuto nella folla, finché non scompariva alla vista; ma, alla domanda perché lo facesse, non rispondeva una parola.

Un giorno era seduto nella sua poltrona, e Nell su uno sgabello accanto a lui, quando un uomo fuori dalla porta chiese se poteva entrare. ‘Sì,’ disse senza emozione, ‘era Quilp, lo sapeva. Quilp era il padrone lì. Naturalmente poteva entrare.’ E così fece.

«Sono felice di vedervi finalmente di nuovo in salute, vicino», disse il nanerottolo, sedendosi di fronte a lui. «Siete completamente guarito?»

‘Sì,’ disse debolmente il vecchio, ‘sì.’

«Non voglio affrettarvi, sapete, vicino», disse il nanerottolo, alzando la voce, perché i sensi del vecchio erano più ottusi di quanto fossero stati; «ma, appena potrete organizzare le vostre future mosse, tanto meglio».

“Certamente,” disse il vecchio. “È meglio per tutti.”

«Vedete», proseguì Quilp dopo una breve pausa, «una volta rimosse le merci, questa casa sarebbe scomoda; in pratica, inabitabile».

«Hai ragione», rispose il vecchio. «Anche la povera Nell, cosa farebbe?»

«Esattamente», ruggì il nanerottolo annuendo; «questo è stato osservato molto bene. Allora ci penserai, vicino?»

«Lo farò, certo», rispose il vecchio. «Non ci fermeremo qui.»

«Così ho pensato», disse il nanerottolo. «Ho venduto le cose. Non hanno fruttato proprio quanto avrebbero potuto, ma abbastanza bene—abbastanza bene. Oggi è martedì. Quando le sposteremo? Non c’è fretta—che ne dite di questa sera?»

«Diciamo venerdì mattina», rispose il vecchio.

«Molto bene», disse il nanerottolo. «Sia come vuoi, ma con la condizione che non posso andare oltre quel giorno, vicino, in nessun caso.»

“Va bene,” rispose il vecchio. “Me lo ricorderò.”

Mr Quilp sembrava piuttosto perplesso per il modo strano, addirittura inespressivo, in cui tutto ciò era stato detto; ma poiché il vecchio annuiva e ripeteva “venerdì mattina. Me lo ricorderò”, non aveva scuse per soffermarsi ulteriormente sull’argomento, e così prese congedo in modo amichevole con molte espressioni di buona volontà e molti complimenti al suo amico per il suo aspetto così notevolmente in forma; e scese al piano inferiore per riferire i progressi a Mr Brass.

Per tutto quel giorno e per tutto il giorno successivo, il vecchio rimase in questo stato. Girava su e giù per la casa e dentro e fuori dalle varie stanze, come se avesse l’intenzione vaga di salutarle, ma non fece riferimento né con allusioni dirette né in alcun altro modo all’incontro del mattino o alla necessità di trovare un altro rifugio. Aveva un’idea vaga che il bambino fosse desolato e avesse bisogno di aiuto; infatti spesso lo attirava al suo petto e lo esortava a stare di buon animo, dicendo che non si sarebbero abbandonati a vicenda; ma sembrava incapace di contemplare la loro vera posizione più distintamente, ed era ancora la creatura apatica e senza passione che la sofferenza di mente e corpo lo aveva lasciato.

Chiamiamo questo uno stato di infantilità, ma è la stessa povera e vuota parodia, che la morte è del sonno. Dove, negli occhi opachi degli uomini senili, sono la luce e la vita ridenti dell’infanzia, la gaiezza che non ha mai conosciuto ostacoli, la schiettezza che non ha mai provato freddo, la speranza che non è mai appassita, le gioie che sbocciano per poi appassire? Dove, nei tratti affilati della rigida e sgradevole morte, è la calma bellezza del sonno, che racconta di riposo per le ore di veglia che sono passate, e di dolci speranze e amori per quelle che verranno? Mettete giù la morte e il sonno, fianco a fianco, e dite chi troverà i due simili. Mandate via insieme il bambino e l’uomo infantile, e arrossite per la superbia che calunnia il nostro vecchio stato felice, e gli dà il titolo di un’immagine brutta e deformata.

Giovedì arrivò, e non c’era alcun cambiamento nel vecchio. Ma quella sera avvenne un cambiamento mentre lui e il bambino sedevano insieme in silenzio.

Nel piccolo e squallido cortile sotto la sua finestra, c’era un albero — verde e rigoglioso, per quel posto — e mentre l’aria si muoveva tra le sue foglie, proiettava un’ondulante ombra sul muro bianco. Il vecchio sedeva osservando le ombre mentre tremolavano in quella macchia di luce, finché il sole non tramontò; e quando fu notte e la luna stava sorgendo lentamente, lui era ancora seduto nello stesso posto.

Per chi aveva tanto a lungo giacito su un letto inquieto, anche quelle poche verdi foglie e quella luce tranquilla, sebbene languisse tra camini e tetti, erano cose piacevoli. Suggerivano luoghi tranquilli lontani, e riposo, e pace. Il bambino pensò, più di una volta, che fosse mosso: e si era trattenuto dal parlare. Ma ora versò lacrime—lacrime che alleggerivano il suo cuore dolente nel vederle—e facendo come se volesse cadere in ginocchio, la supplicò di perdonarlo.

‘Forgive you—what?’ said Nell, interposing to prevent his purpose. ‘Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?’

‘All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was done in that uneasy dream,’ returned the old man.

‘Do not talk so,’ said the child. ‘Pray do not. Let us speak of something else.’

‘Yes, yes, we will,’ he rejoined. ‘And it shall be of what we talked of long ago—many months—months is it, or weeks, or days? which is it Nell?’

‘I do not understand you,’ said the child.

‘It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we have been sitting here. I bless thee for it, Nell!’

‘For what, dear grandfather?’

‘For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell. Let us speak softly. Hush! for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they would cry that I was mad and take thee from me. We will not stop here another day. We will go far away from here.’

‘Yes, let us go,’ said the child earnestly. ‘Let us begone from this place, and never turn back or think of it again. Let us wander barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.’

‘We will,’ answered the old man, ‘we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God in the places where He dwells. It is far better to lie down at night beneath an open sky like that yonder—see how bright it is—than to rest in close rooms which are always full of care and weary dreams. Thou and I together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy yet, and learn to forget this time, as if it had never been.’

‘We will be happy,’ cried the child. ‘We never can be here.’

‘No, we never can again—never again—that’s truly said,’ rejoined the old man. ‘Let us steal away to-morrow morning—early and softly, that we may not be seen or heard—and leave no trace or track for them to follow by. Poor Nell! Thy cheek is pale, and thy eyes are heavy with watching and weeping for me—I know—for me; but thou wilt be well again, and merry too, when we are far away. To-morrow morning, dear, we’ll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds.’

And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in a few broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up and down together, and never part more until Death took one or other of the twain.

The child’s heart beat high with hope and confidence. She had no thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. She saw in this, but a return of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed, a relief from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape from the heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her late time of trial, the restoration of the old man’s health and peace, and a life of tranquil happiness. Sun, and stream, and meadow, and summer days, shone brightly in her view, and there was no dark tint in all the sparkling picture.

The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she was yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight. There were a few articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him; old garments, such as became their fallen fortunes, laid out to wear; and a staff to support his feeble steps, put ready for his use. But this was not all her task; for now she must visit the old rooms for the last time.

And how different the parting with them was, from any she had expected, and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured to herself. How could she ever have thought of bidding them farewell in triumph, when the recollection of the many hours she had passed among them rose to her swelling heart, and made her feel the wish a cruelty: lonely and sad though many of those hours had been! She sat down at the window where she had spent so many evenings—darker far than this—and every thought of hope or cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place came vividly upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful associations in an instant.

Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and prayed at night—prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning now—the little room where she had slept so peacefully, and dreamed such pleasant dreams! It was hard not to be able to glance round it once more, and to be forced to leave it without one kind look or grateful tear. There were some trifles there—poor useless things—that she would have liked to take away; but that was impossible.

This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet. She wept bitterly for the loss of this little creature—until the idea occurred to her—she did not know how, or why, it came into her head—that it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit who would keep it for her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had left it behind in the hope that he might have it, and as an assurance that she was grateful to him. She was calmed and comforted by the thought, and went to rest with a lighter heart.

From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but with some vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through them all, she awoke to find that it was yet night, and that the stars were shining brightly in the sky. At length, the day began to glimmer, and the stars to grow pale and dim. As soon as she was sure of this, she arose, and dressed herself for the journey.

The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb him, she left him to slumber on, until the sun rose. He was anxious that they should leave the house without a minute’s loss of time, and was soon ready.

The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and cautiously down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and often stopping to listen. The old man had forgotten a kind of wallet which contained the light burden he had to carry; and the going back a few steps to fetch it seemed an interminable delay.

«Perdonarti, cosa?» disse Nell, interponendosi per impedire il suo proposito. «Oh, nonno, cosa dovrei perdonare?»

«Tutto ciò è passato, tutto ciò che ti è accaduto, Nell, tutto ciò che è stato fatto in quel sogno inquieto», rispose il vecchio.

«Non parlare così», disse il bambino. «Ti prego, non farlo. Parliamo d’altro.»

«Sì, sì, lo faremo», rispose. «E sarà di quello di cui parlavamo tanto tempo fa, molti mesi fa, ma erano mesi, o settimane, o giorni? Quanti erano, Nell?»

«Non ti capisco», disse il bambino.

«Mi è tornato tutto oggi, mi è tornato tutto da quando siamo seduti qui. Ti benedico per questo, Nell!»

‘Per cosa, caro nonno?’

«Per quello che hai detto quando siamo diventati mendicanti, Nell. Parliamo piano. Ssst! perché se sapessero il nostro piano al piano di sotto, direbbero che sono pazzo e ti porterebbero via da me. Non resteremo qui un altro giorno. Andremo lontano da qui.»

«Sì, andiamocene», disse il bambino con fervore. «Andiamocene da questo posto e non torniamo mai indietro né ci ripensiamo. Giriamo scalzi per il mondo, piuttosto che restare qui.»

«Lo faremo», rispose il vecchio, «cammineremo a piedi attraverso i campi e i boschi, e lungo i fiumi, e ci affideremo a Dio nei luoghi dove Egli dimora. È molto meglio coricarsi alla notte sotto un cielo aperto come quello là in lontananza — guarda com’è luminoso — che riposare in stanze chiuse che sono sempre piene di preoccupazioni e stancanti sogni. Tu ed io insieme, Nell, possiamo ancora essere allegri e felici, e imparare a dimenticare questo tempo, come se non fosse mai esistito.»

«Saremo felici», esclamò il bambino. «Non potremo mai essere qui.»

‘No, non potremo mai più—mai più—è veramente così,’ rispose il vecchio. ‘Andiamocene domani mattina—presto e in silenzio, così non ci vedranno né ci sentiranno—e non lasciamo traccia né segno che possano seguire. Povera Nell! La tua guancia è pallida e i tuoi occhi sono pesanti per la veglia e il pianto per me—lo so—per me; ma tu starai di nuovo bene e sarai allegra anche, quando saremo lontani. Domani mattina, cara, volgeremo le spalle a questa scena di dolore e saremo liberi e felici come gli uccelli.’

E poi il vecchio si strinse le mani sopra la sua testa e disse, con poche parole spezzate, che da quel tempo in poi avrebbero vagato insieme, su e giù, e non si sarebbero più separati fino a quando Morte non avesse preso l’uno o l’altro dei due.

Il cuore del bambino batteva forte di speranza e fiducia. Non aveva alcun pensiero di fame, freddo, sete o sofferenza. Vedeva in questo solo un ritorno dei semplici piaceri che avevano una volta goduto, un sollievo dalla cupa solitudine in cui aveva vissuto, una fuga dalle persone senza cuore con cui era stata circondata nel suo recente periodo di prova, il ripristino della salute e della pace del vecchio, e una vita di felicità tranquilla. Sole, ruscello, prato e giorni d’estate, splendevano luminosi nella sua visione, e non c’era alcuna tinta scura in tutto il quadro scintillante.

Il vecchio aveva dormito per alcune ore, profondamente nel suo letto, e lei era ancora impegnata a preparare la loro fuga. C’erano alcuni indumenti da portare per sé e alcuni per lui; vecchi abiti, come si conveniva alle loro cadute fortune, pronti da indossare; e un bastone per sostenere i suoi passi deboli, preparato per il suo uso. Ma questo non era tutto il suo compito; perché ora doveva visitare le vecchie stanze per l’ultima volta.

E quanto diverso era stato il congedo da loro, da quello che si era aspettata, e soprattutto da quello che più spesso si era immaginata. Come aveva mai potuto pensare di salutarli trionfalmente, quando il ricordo delle molte ore che aveva trascorso tra loro sorgeva al suo cuore gonfio, e le faceva sentire il desiderio come una crudeltà: anche se molte di quelle ore erano state solitarie e tristi! Si sedette alla finestra dove aveva trascorso tante sere—molto più buie di questa—e ogni pensiero di speranza o allegria che le era venuto in quel luogo le tornò vivacemente alla mente, e cancellò tutte le sue associazioni opache e luttuose in un istante.

Anche la sua piccola stanza, dove si era così spesso inginocchiata e aveva pregato di notte—pregando per il tempo che sperava stesse sorgendo ora—la piccola stanza dove aveva dormito così tranquillamente, e sognato sogni così piacevoli! Era difficile non poter dare un’ultima occhiata, e doverla lasciare senza uno sguardo gentile o una lacrima di gratitudine. C’erano alcuni oggetti di poco conto—povere cose inutili—che avrebbe voluto portare via; ma era impossibile.

Questo le fece pensare al suo uccellino, al suo povero uccellino, che era ancora appeso lì. Pianse amaramente per la perdita di quella piccola creatura, finché le venne in mente - non sapeva come né perché le fosse balenata in testa - che forse, in qualche modo, l’uccellino sarebbe potuto cadere nelle mani di Kit, che lo avrebbe tenuto per lei, e forse avrebbe pensato che lo aveva lasciato lì nella speranza che lui lo trovasse, e come garanzia che gli era grata. Questo pensiero la calmò e la confortò, e andò a riposare con il cuore più leggero.

Da molti sogni di vagabondare per luoghi luminosi e soleggiati, ma con qualche vago obiettivo irraggiungibile che correva indistintamente attraverso tutti, si svegliò per scoprire che era ancora notte, e che le stelle erano brillanti nel cielo. Alla fine, il giorno iniziò a brillare, e le stelle a diventare pallide e fioche. Non appena ne fu sicura, si alzò e si vestì per il viaggio.

Il vecchio era ancora addormentato, e poiché non voleva disturbarlo, lo lasciò dormire fino a quando il sole sorse. Era ansioso che lasciassero la casa senza perdere un minuto di tempo, e fu presto pronto.

Il bambino prese allora il vecchio per mano, e scesero le scale con passo leggero e cauto, tremando ogni volta che una tavola scricchiolava, e spesso si fermavano ad ascoltare. Il vecchio aveva dimenticato una specie di borsellino che conteneva il leggero fardello che doveva portare; e il tornare indietro di qualche passo per prenderlo sembrava un ritardo interminabile.

At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the snoring of Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in their ears than the roars of lions. The bolts of the door were rusty, and difficult to unfasten without noise. When they were all drawn back, it was found to be locked, and worst of all, the key was gone. Then the child remembered, for the first time, one of the nurses having told her that Quilp always locked both the house-doors at night, and kept the keys on the table in his bedroom.

It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell slipped off her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old curiosities, where Mr Brass—the ugliest piece of goods in all the stock—lay sleeping on a mattress, passed into her own little chamber.

Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at the sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he almost seemed to be standing on his head, and who, either from the uneasiness of this posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was gasping and growling with his mouth wide open, and the whites (or rather the dirty yellows) of his eyes distinctly visible. It was no time, however, to ask whether anything ailed him; so, possessing herself of the key after one hasty glance about the room, and repassing the prostrate Mr Brass, she rejoined the old man in safety. They got the door open without noise, and passing into the street, stood still.

‘Which way?’ said the child.

The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then to the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head. It was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. The child felt it, but had no doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in his, led him gently away.

It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. The streets were, as yet, nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping town.

The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate with hope and pleasure. They were alone together, once again; every object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind; church towers and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now shone in the sun; each humble nook and corner rejoiced in light; and the sky, dimmed only by excessive distance, shed its placid smile on everything beneath.

Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.

Alla fine raggiunsero il passaggio al piano terra, dove il russare di Quilp e del suo amico legale suonava più terribile alle loro orecchie dei ruggiti dei leoni. I chiavistelli della porta erano arrugginiti e difficili da aprire senza far rumore. Quando furono tutti tirati indietro, si scoprì che era chiusa a chiave, e peggio ancora, la chiave era sparita. Allora la bambina ricordò, per la prima volta, che una delle balie le aveva detto che Quilp chiudeva sempre a chiave entrambe le porte della casa di notte, e teneva le chiavi sul tavolo nella sua camera da letto.

Non senza grande paura e trepidazione, la piccola Nell si tolse le scarpe e, scivolando attraverso la dispensa di vecchie curiosità, dove il signor Brass - il pezzo di merce più brutto di tutto l’assortimento - dormiva su un materasso, entrò nella sua piccola camera.

Ecco che rimase lì per qualche istante, completamente paralizzata dalla paura alla vista di Quilp, che era così fuori dal letto da sembrare quasi in piedi sulla testa, e che, o per il disagio di quella posizione, o per una delle sue simpatiche abitudini, ansimava e ringhiava con la bocca spalancata, e il bianco (o meglio, il giallo sporco) dei suoi occhi ben visibile. Non era però il momento di chiedere se qualcosa lo disturbasse; così, dopo aver dato un’occhiata veloce in giro per la stanza e aver ripreso il prostrato signor Brass, si riunì in sicurezza al vecchio. Aprirono la porta senza far rumore e, usciti in strada, si fermarono.

«Quale strada?» disse il bambino.

Il vecchio guardò, irresoluto e impotente, prima lei, poi a destra e a sinistra, poi di nuovo lei, e scosse la testa. Era chiaro che da quel momento in poi lei sarebbe stata la sua guida e la sua leader. La bambina lo sentiva, ma non aveva dubbi né timori, e mettendogli la mano nella sua, lo condusse dolcemente via.

Era l’inizio di una giornata di giugno; il cielo azzurro intenso, senza una nuvola, e pieno di luce brillante. Le strade erano ancora quasi deserte, le case e i negozi erano chiusi, e l’aria sana del mattino cadeva come un alito di angeli sulla città addormentata.

Il vecchio e il bambino proseguirono attraverso il lieto silenzio, esaltati da speranza e piacere. Erano soli insieme, ancora una volta; ogni oggetto era luminoso e fresco; nulla li ricordava, se non per contrasto, la monotonia e la costrizione che avevano lasciato alle spalle; torri e campanili di chiese, cupi e scuri in altri momenti, ora brillavano al sole; ogni umile angolo si rallegrava di luce; e il cielo, offuscato solo dall’eccessiva distanza, riversava il suo placido sorriso su tutto ciò che era sotto.

Fuori dalla città, mentre ancora dormiva, uscirono i due poveri avventurieri, vagando senza sapere dove andare.

CHAPTER 13

Daniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the city of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty’s attornies of the Courts of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious and unsuspicious of any mischance, until a knocking on the street door, often repeated and gradually mounting up from a modest single rap to a perfect battery of knocks, fired in long discharges with a very short interval between, caused the said Daniel Quilp to struggle into a horizontal position, and to stare at the ceiling with a drowsy indifference, betokening that he heard the noise and rather wondered at the same, and couldn’t be at the trouble of bestowing any further thought upon the subject.

As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his lazy state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if in earnest remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that he had once opened his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to comprehend the possibility of there being somebody at the door; and thus he gradually came to recollect that it was Friday morning, and he had ordered Mrs Quilp to be in waiting upon him at an early hour.

Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes, and often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that which is usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the season, was by this time awake also. Seeing that Mr Quilp invested himself in his every-day garments, he hastened to do the like, putting on his shoes before his stockings, and thrusting his legs into his coat sleeves, and making such other small mistakes in his toilet as are not uncommon to those who dress in a hurry, and labour under the agitation of having been suddenly roused.

While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was groping under the table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and mankind in general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to Mr Brass the question, ‘what’s the matter?’

‘The key,’ said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, ‘the door-key—that’s the matter. D’ye know anything of it?’

‘How should I know anything of it, sir?’ returned Mr Brass.

‘How should you?’ repeated Quilp with a sneer. ‘You’re a nice lawyer, an’t you? Ugh, you idiot!’

Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that the loss of a key by another person could scarcely be said to affect his (Brass’s) legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr Brass humbly suggested that it must have been forgotten over night, and was, doubtless, at that moment in its native key-hole. Notwithstanding that Mr Quilp had a strong conviction to the contrary, founded on his recollection of having carefully taken it out, he was fain to admit that this was possible, and therefore went grumbling to the door where, sure enough, he found it.

Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with great astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking came again with the most irritating violence, and the daylight which had been shining through the key-hole was intercepted on the outside by a human eye. The dwarf was very much exasperated, and wanting somebody to wreak his ill-humour upon, determined to dart out suddenly, and favour Mrs Quilp with a gentle acknowledgment of her attention in making that hideous uproar.

With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the other side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another application, and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his hands and feet together, and biting the air in the fulness of his malice.

So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no resistance and implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the arms of the individual whom he had taken for his wife than he found himself complimented with two staggering blows on the head, and two more, of the same quality, in the chest; and closing with his assailant, such a shower of buffets rained down upon his person as sufficed to convince him that he was in skilful and experienced hands. Nothing daunted by this reception, he clung tight to his opponent, and bit and hammered away with such good-will and heartiness, that it was at least a couple of minutes before he was dislodged. Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp found himself, all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the street, with Mr Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him and requiring to know ‘whether he wanted any more?’

‘There’s plenty more of it at the same shop,’ said Mr Swiveller, by turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, ‘a large and extensive assortment always on hand—country orders executed with promptitude and despatch—will you have a little more, Sir—don’t say no, if you’d rather not.’

‘I thought it was somebody else,’ said Quilp, rubbing his shoulders, ‘why didn’t you say who you were?’

‘Why didn’t you say who YOU were?’ returned Dick, ‘instead of flying out of the house like a Bedlamite?’

‘It was you that—that knocked,’ said the dwarf, getting up with a short groan, ‘was it?’

‘Yes, I am the man,’ replied Dick. ‘That lady had begun when I came, but she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.’ As he said this, he pointed towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little distance.

‘Humph!’ muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, ‘I thought it was your fault! And you, sir—don’t you know there has been somebody ill here, that you knock as if you’d beat the door down?’

‘Damme!’ answered Dick, ‘that’s why I did it. I thought there was somebody dead here.’

‘You came for some purpose, I suppose,’ said Quilp. ‘What is it you want?’

CAPITOLO 13

Daniel Quilp di Tower Hill e Sampson Brass di Bevis Marks nella città di Londra, gentiluomo, uno degli avvocati di Sua Maestà presso i tribunali della King’s Bench e Common Pleas a Westminster e procuratore della High Court di Chancery, dormivano ignari e inconsapevoli di qualsiasi disgrazia, finché un bussare alla porta di strada, spesso ripetuto e che gradualmente aumentava da un modesto singolo colpo a una vera e propria batteria di colpi, sparati a lunghe raffiche con un intervallo molto breve tra l’uno e l’altro, fece sì che il suddetto Daniel Quilp si mettesse in una posizione semi-seduta e fissasse il soffitto con una sonnolenta indifferenza, che indicava che sentiva il rumore e ne era piuttosto sorpreso, ma non si dava la pena di pensarci ulteriormente.

Tuttavia, poiché i colpi, anziché adeguarsi al suo stato di pigrizia, aumentavano di vigore e diventavano più insistenti, come se volessero seriamente rimproverarlo per essersi addormentato di nuovo, ora che aveva aperto gli occhi, Daniel Quilp cominciò a poco a poco a comprendere la possibilità che ci fosse qualcuno alla porta; e così, gradualmente, gli tornò in mente che era venerdì mattina e aveva ordinato a Mrs Quilp di essere in attesa di lui a un’ora mattutina.

Il signor Brass, dopo essersi contorto in molte strane posizioni e aver spesso contratto il viso e gli occhi in un’espressione simile a quella che di solito si ha mangiando uva spina all’inizio della stagione, era ormai anche lui sveglio. Vedendo che il signor Quilp si vestiva con i suoi abiti di tutti i giorni, si affrettò a fare altrettanto, indossando le scarpe prima dei calzini, infilando le gambe nelle maniche del cappotto e commettendo altri piccoli errori nel suo abbigliamento, cosa non rara per chi si veste di fretta e sotto l’agitazione di essere stato svegliato all’improvviso.

Mentre l’avvocato era così impegnato, il nanerottolo frugava sotto il tavolo, borbottando disperate imprecazioni contro se stesso, l’umanità in generale e, per di più, contro tutti gli oggetti inanimati, il che suggerì a Mr Brass la domanda: «Che succede?»

«La chiave», disse il nanerottolo, guardandosi intorno con cattiveria, «la chiave della porta, ecco il problema. Ne sapete qualcosa?»

«Come potrei saperne qualcosa, signore?» rispose il signor Brass.

«Come potresti?» ripeté Quilp con disprezzo. «Sei un avvocato davvero in gamba, eh? Ugh, idiota!»

Non volendo far notare al nanerottolo nel suo attuale umore che la perdita di una chiave da parte di un’altra persona non poteva essere considerata un fattore che influenzasse in modo significativo la sua (di Brass) conoscenza giuridica, il signor Brass suggerì umilmente che doveva essere stata dimenticata durante la notte e che, senza dubbio, in quel momento si trovava nella sua serratura. Nonostante il signor Quilp avesse una forte convinzione contraria, fondata sul suo ricordo di averla accuratamente tolta, fu costretto ad ammettere che ciò era possibile, e quindi andò brontolando alla porta dove, infatti, la trovò.

Proprio mentre il signor Quilp stava per posare la mano sulla serratura e vide con grande stupore che i fermi erano aperti, il bussare si ripeté con la più irritante violenza, e la luce del giorno che aveva brillato attraverso la toppa della serratura fu intercettata dall’esterno da un occhio umano. Lo gnomo era molto esasperato e, volendo trovare qualcuno su cui sfogare il suo malumore, decise di uscire all’improvviso e di ringraziare gentilmente la signora Quilp per la sua attenzione nel fare quel terribile baccano.

Con questo proposito, tirò indietro la serratura molto silenziosamente e dolcemente, e aprendo la porta tutta in una volta, si avventò sulla persona dall’altra parte, che in quel momento aveva alzato il battente per un altro colpo, e contro la quale il nanerottolo corse a testa bassa: gettando fuori mani e piedi insieme, e mordendo l’aria per la pienezza del suo malanimo.

Fin qui, tuttavia, dall’assalire qualcuno che non offriva resistenza e implorava la sua pietà, non appena Mr Quilp si trovò tra le braccia dell’individuo che aveva scambiato per sua moglie, si ritrovò complimentato con due colpi sbalorditivi in testa, e altri due, della stessa qualità, sul petto; e, avvinghiandosi al suo aggressore, una pioggia di percosse si abbatté sul suo corpo, sufficiente a convincerlo che si trovava tra mani esperte e avvezze. Non scoraggiato da questo benvenuto, si aggrappò saldamente al suo avversario, e morse e picchiò con tale buona volontà e cordialità, che ci vollero almeno un paio di minuti prima che fosse allontanato. Allora, e solo allora, Daniel Quilp si ritrovò, tutto arrossato e scompigliato, in mezzo alla strada, con il signor Richard Swiveller che eseguiva una specie di danza intorno a lui e chiedendo se “voleva ancora qualcosa?”.

«Ce n’è ancora parecchio nello stesso negozio», disse il signor Swiveller, avanzando e ritirandosi a turno in atteggiamento minaccioso, «una vasta e ampia assortimento sempre disponibile, ordini per la campagna eseguiti con prontezza e celerità, ne vuole un po’ di più, signore, non dica di no, se preferisce di no.»

«Pensavo fosse qualcun altro», disse Quilp strofinandosi le spalle, «perché non hai detto chi eri?»

«Perché non hai detto chi eri?» ribatté Dick, «invece di uscire di casa come un pazzo?»

«È stato lei che—che ha bussato», disse il nanerottolo, alzandosi con un breve gemito, «vero?»

«Sì, sono io», rispose Dick. «Quella signora aveva cominciato quando sono arrivato, ma bussava troppo piano, così l’ho sostituita.» Mentre diceva questo, indicò la signora Quilp, che stava tremando a poca distanza.

‘Humph!’ borbottò il nano, lanciando uno sguardo furioso alla moglie, ‘credevo fosse colpa tua! E tu, signore, non sai che qui c’è stato qualcuno malato, che bussi come se volessi sfondare la porta?’

«Dammi!» rispose Dick «è per questo che l’ho fatto. Pensavo che ci fosse qualcuno morto qui.

“Sei venuto per qualche motivo, immagino”, disse Quilp. “Cosa vuoi?”

‘I want to know how the old gentleman is,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller, ‘and to hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a little talk. I’m a friend of the family, sir—at least I’m the friend of one of the family, and that’s the same thing.’

‘You’d better walk in then,’ said the dwarf. ‘Go on, sir, go on. Now, Mrs Quilp—after you, ma’am.’

Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted. And it was not a contest of politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she knew very well that her husband wished to enter the house in this order, that he might have a favourable opportunity of inflicting a few pinches on her arms, which were seldom free from impressions of his fingers in black and blue colours. Mr Swiveller, who was not in the secret, was a little surprised to hear a suppressed scream, and, looking round, to see Mrs Quilp following him with a sudden jerk; but he did not remark on these appearances, and soon forgot them.

‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf when they had entered the shop, ‘go you up stairs, if you please, to Nelly’s room, and tell her that she’s wanted.’

‘You seem to make yourself at home here,’ said Dick, who was unacquainted with Mr Quilp’s authority.

‘I AM at home, young gentleman,’ returned the dwarf.

Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what the presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying down stairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty.

‘Empty, you fool!’ said the dwarf.

‘I give you my word, Quilp,’ answered his trembling wife, ‘that I have been into every room and there’s not a soul in any of them.’

‘And that,’ said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an emphasis, ‘explains the mystery of the key!’

Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and frowningly at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment from any of them, hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down again, confirming the report which had already been made.

‘It’s a strange way of going,’ he said, glancing at Swiveller, ‘very strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and intimate friend of his! Ah! he’ll write to me no doubt, or he’ll bid Nelly write—yes, yes, that’s what he’ll do. Nelly’s very fond of me. Pretty Nell!’

Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment. Still glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and observed, with assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere with the removal of the goods.

‘For indeed,’ he added, ‘we knew that they’d go away to-day, but not that they’d go so early, or so quietly. But they have their reasons, they have their reasons.’

‘Where in the devil’s name are they gone?’ said the wondering Dick.

Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which implied that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say.

‘And what,’ said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, ‘what do you mean by moving the goods?’

‘That I have bought ‘em, Sir,’ rejoined Quilp. ‘Eh? What then?’

‘Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a tranquil cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing sea?’ said Dick, in great bewilderment.

‘Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be visited too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted friends, eh?’ added the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; ‘I say nothing, but is that your meaning?’

Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration of circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the project in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip his prospects in the bud. Having only received from Frederick Trent, late on the previous night, information of the old man’s illness, he had come upon a visit of condolence and inquiry to Nell, prepared with the first instalment of that long train of fascinations which was to fire her heart at last. And here, when he had been thinking of all kinds of graceful and insinuating approaches, and meditating on the fearful retaliation which was slowly working against Sophy Wackles—here were Nell, the old man, and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he knew not whither, as if with a fore-knowledge of the scheme and a resolution to defeat it in the very outset, before a step was taken.

In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled by the flight which had been made. It had not escaped his keen eye that some indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the fugitives, and knowing the old man’s weak state of mind, he marvelled what that course of proceeding might be in which he had so readily procured the concurrence of the child. It must not be supposed (or it would be a gross injustice to Mr Quilp) that he was tortured by any disinterested anxiety on behalf of either. His uneasiness arose from a misgiving that the old man had some secret store of money which he had not suspected; and the idea of its escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him with mortification and self-reproach.

In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that Richard Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated and disappointed by the same cause. It was plain, thought the dwarf, that he had come there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole or frighten the old man out of some small fraction of that wealth of which they supposed him to have an abundance. Therefore, it was a relief to vex his heart with a picture of the riches the old man hoarded, and to expatiate on his cunning in removing himself even beyond the reach of importunity.

‘Well,’ said Dick, with a blank look, ‘I suppose it’s of no use my staying here.’

‘Not the least in the world,’ rejoined the dwarf.

‘You’ll mention that I called, perhaps?’ said Dick.

Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time he saw them.

«Vorrei sapere come sta il vecchio signore», riprese il signor Swiveller, «e sentire direttamente da Nell, con la quale vorrei fare due chiacchiere. Sono un amico della famiglia, signore, o almeno sono l’amico di uno dei membri della famiglia, e questo è lo stesso.»

«È meglio che entriate», disse il nanerottolo. «Avanti, signore, avanti. Ora, signora Quilp, dopo di voi, signora».

La signora Quilp esitò, ma il signor Quilp insistette. E non fu una questione di cortesia, o tanto meno una formalità, perché lei sapeva benissimo che suo marito voleva entrare in casa in questo ordine, per avere l’opportunità di infliggere qualche pizzicotto sulle sue braccia, che raramente erano prive delle impronte delle sue dita in colori neri e blu. Il signor Swiveller, che non era al corrente del segreto, fu un po’ sorpreso di sentire un urlo soffocato e, guardandosi intorno, di vedere la signora Quilp che lo seguiva con uno scatto improvviso; ma non fece commenti su questi comportamenti e presto li dimenticò.

«Ora, signora Quilp», disse il nanerottolo quando entrarono nel negozio, «salga, per favore, nella stanza di Nelly e dica a lei che la vogliono».

«Sembra che ti senta a casa qui», disse Dick, che non conosceva l’autorità del signor Quilp.

«SONO a casa, giovane signore», rispose il nanerottolo.

Dick stava riflettendo su cosa potessero significare quelle parole, e ancor più su cosa potesse significare la presenza del signor Brass, quando la signora Quilp scese di corsa le scale, dichiarando che le stanze al piano superiore erano vuote.

«Vuoto, tu stupido!» disse il nanerottolo.

«Le do la mia parola, Quilp», rispose sua moglie tremante, «che sono stata in ogni stanza e non c’è anima in nessuna di esse.»

«E questo», disse il signor Brass, battendo una volta le mani con enfasi, «spiega il mistero della chiave!»

Quilp lo guardò con aria torva, e con aria torva guardò sua moglie, e con aria torva guardò Richard Swiveller; ma, non ricevendo alcuna spiegazione da nessuno di loro, salì di corsa le scale, da cui presto scese di nuovo di corsa, confermando la notizia che era già stata data.

«È un modo strano di fare le cose», disse, guardando Swiveller, «molto strano non comunicare con me che sono un amico così intimo e vicino! Ah! mi scriverà senza dubbio, o dirà a Nelly di scrivermi—sì, sì, è quello che farà. Nelly è molto affezionata a me. Bella Nell!»

Il signor Swiveller, come era, aveva un’espressione di stupore a bocca aperta. Quilp, continuando a guardarlo di nascosto, si rivolse al signor Brass e osservò, con un’apparente noncuranza, che ciò non doveva interferire con il trasferimento dei beni.

«Perché, infatti,» aggiunse «sapevamo che se ne sarebbero andati oggi, ma non che sarebbero partiti così presto, o così silenziosamente. Ma hanno le loro ragioni, hanno le loro ragioni.»

«Dove diavolo sono andati?», disse il meravigliato Dick.

Quilp scosse la testa e strinse le labbra in un modo che lasciava intendere che sapeva molto bene, ma non era libero di parlarne.

«E che cosa», disse Dick, guardandosi intorno nella confusione, «che cosa intendete per trasferire le merci?»

«Le ho comprate, signore», rispose Quilp. «Eh? E allora?»

«Quel vecchio volpe astuto ha fatto fortuna, dunque, e se n’è andato a vivere in una casetta tranquilla in un luogo piacevole con una vista lontana sul mare in continuo mutamento?» disse Dick, molto confuso.

«Tenendo il suo luogo di ritiro molto vicino, in modo da non essere visitato troppo spesso da affettuosi nipoti e dai loro devoti amici, eh?» aggiunse il nanerottolo, strofinandosi le mani con forza; «Non dico nulla, ma è questo il tuo pensiero?»

Richard Swiveller era completamente sbigottito da questa inaspettata svolta delle circostanze, che minacciava di mandare completamente all’aria il progetto in cui lui aveva un ruolo così evidente, e sembrava stroncare sul nascere le sue prospettive. Avendo ricevuto da Frederick Trent, la sera precedente, notizie della malattia del vecchio, era venuto a far visita a Nell per esprimere le sue condoglianze e informarsi, preparato con la prima rata di quella lunga serie di fascinazioni che avrebbero infine accarezzato il suo cuore. E ora, mentre aveva pensato a tutti i tipi di approcci eleganti e insinuanti, e meditava sulla terribile rappresaglia che si stava lentamente preparando contro Sophy Wackles, ecco che Nell, il vecchio e tutti i soldi erano spariti, svaniti, fuggiti chissà dove, come se avessero avuto una premonizione dello schema e la risolutezza di sconfiggerlo fin dall’inizio, prima che fosse fatto un passo.

Nel suo cuore segreto, Daniel Quilp era sia sorpreso che turbato dalla fuga che era stata compiuta. Non era sfuggito al suo occhio acuto che alcuni indumenti indispensabili erano spariti con i fuggitivi, e conoscendo lo stato d’animo debole del vecchio, si chiedeva quale potesse essere il corso d’azione che aveva così facilmente ottenuto l’assenso del bambino. Non si deve supporre (o sarebbe una grossa ingiustizia nei confronti del signor Quilp) che fosse tormentato da un’ansia disinteressata per conto di uno dei due. La sua inquietudine derivava dal timore che il vecchio avesse qualche segreto tesoro di denaro che non aveva sospettato; e l’idea che potesse sfuggire alle sue grinfie lo opprimeva di mortificazione e auto-rimprovero.

In questo stato d’animo, fu per lui un certo conforto scoprire che Richard Swiveller era, per ragioni diverse, evidentemente irritato e deluso dalla stessa causa. Era chiaro, pensò il nanerottolo, che era venuto lì, per conto del suo amico, per blandire o spaventare il vecchio per strappargli una piccola frazione di quella ricchezza di cui supponevano avesse in abbondanza. Pertanto, fu un sollievo tormentargli il cuore con un quadro delle ricchezze che il vecchio accumulava, e dilungarsi sulla sua astuzia nel mettersi al riparo anche dalla più insistente importunità.

«Beh,» disse Dick, con uno sguardo vuoto, «immagino che non serva a nulla che io resti qui.»

«Neanche per sogno», rispose il nanerottolo.

«Manderà a dire che sono passato, forse?» disse Dick.

Il signor Quilp annuì e disse che certamente lo avrebbe fatto, la prima volta che li avesse visti.

‘And say,’ added Mr Swiveller, ‘say, sir, that I was wafted here upon the pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake of friendship, the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and to sow in their place, the germs of social harmony. Will you have the goodness to charge yourself with that commission, Sir?’

‘Certainly!’ rejoined Quilp.

‘Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,’ said Dick, producing a very small limp card, ‘that that is my address, and that I am to be found at home every morning. Two distinct knocks, sir, will produce the slavey at any time. My particular friends, Sir, are accustomed to sneeze when the door is opened, to give her to understand that they ARE my friends and have no interested motives in asking if I’m at home. I beg your pardon; will you allow me to look at that card again?’

‘Oh! by all means,’ rejoined Quilp.

‘By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,’ said Dick, substituting another in its stead, ‘I had handed you the pass-ticket of a select convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of which I have the honour to be Perpetual Grand. That is the proper document, Sir. Good morning.’

Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it carelessly on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a flourish.

By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the goods, and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of drawers and other trifles of that nature upon their heads, and performing muscular feats which heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood upon the door-steps to answer all the inquiries of curious neighbours, which was his department. His presence and example diffused such alacrity among the persons employed, that, in a few hours, the house was emptied of everything, but pieces of matting, empty porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw.

Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was prying in at the outer door. Assured that it was Kit, though he saw little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon Kit came in and demanded what he wanted.

‘Come here, you sir,’ said the dwarf. ‘Well, so your old master and young mistress have gone?’

‘Where?’ rejoined Kit, looking round.

‘Do you mean to say you don’t know where?’ answered Quilp sharply. ‘Where have they gone, eh?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kit.

‘Come,’ retorted Quilp, ‘let’s have no more of this! Do you mean to say that you don’t know they went away by stealth, as soon as it was light this morning?’

‘No,’ said the boy, in evident surprise.

‘You don’t know that?’ cried Quilp. ‘Don’t I know that you were hanging about the house the other night, like a thief, eh? Weren’t you told then?’

‘No,’ replied the boy.

‘You were not?’ said Quilp. ‘What were you told then; what were you talking about?’

Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter secret now, related the purpose for which he had come on that occasion, and the proposal he had made.

‘Oh!’ said the dwarf after a little consideration. ‘Then, I think they’ll come to you yet.’

‘Do you think they will?’ cried Kit eagerly.

‘Aye, I think they will,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Now, when they do, let me know; d’ye hear? Let me know, and I’ll give you something. I want to do ‘em a kindness, and I can’t do ‘em a kindness unless I know where they are. You hear what I say?’

Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been agreeable to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf, who had been skulking about the room in search of anything that might have been left about by accident, had not happened to cry, ‘Here’s a bird! What’s to be done with this?’

‘Wring its neck,’ rejoined Quilp.

‘Oh no, don’t do that,’ said Kit, stepping forward. ‘Give it to me.’

‘Oh yes, I dare say,’ cried the other boy. ‘Come! You let the cage alone, and let me wring its neck will you? He said I was to do it. You let the cage alone will you.’

‘Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,’ roared Quilp. ‘Fight for it, you dogs, or I’ll wring its neck myself!’

Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other, tooth and nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and chopping the ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by his taunts and cries to fight more fiercely. They were a pretty equal match, and rolled about together, exchanging blows which were by no means child’s play, until at length Kit, planting a well-directed hit in his adversary’s chest, disengaged himself, sprung nimbly up, and snatching the cage from Quilp’s hands made off with his prize.

He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl dreadfully.

‘Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been doing?’ cried Mrs Nubbles.

‘Never you mind, mother,’ answered her son, wiping his face on the jack-towel behind the door. ‘I’m not hurt, don’t you be afraid for me. I’ve been a fightin’ for a bird and won him, that’s all. Hold your noise, little Jacob. I never see such a naughty boy in all my days!’

‘You have been fighting for a bird!’ exclaimed his mother.

‘Ah! Fightin’ for a bird!’ replied Kit, ‘and here he is—Miss Nelly’s bird, mother, that they was agoin’ to wring the neck of! I stopped that though—ha ha ha! They wouldn’t wring his neck and me by, no, no. It wouldn’t do, mother, it wouldn’t do at all. Ha ha ha!’

Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking out of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother laughed, and then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and then they all laughed in concert: partly because of Kit’s triumph, and partly because they were very fond of each other. When this fit was over, Kit exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and precious rarity—it was only a poor linnet—and looking about the wall for an old nail, made a scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with great exultation.

‘Let me see,’ said the boy, ‘I think I’ll hang him in the winder, because it’s more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there, if he looks up very much. He’s such a one to sing, I can tell you!’

So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the poker for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to the immeasurable delight of the whole family. When it had been adjusted and straightened a great many times, and he had walked backwards into the fire-place in his admiration of it, the arrangement was pronounced to be perfect.

‘And now, mother,’ said the boy, ‘before I rest any more, I’ll go out and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.’

«E dica», aggiunse il signor Swiveller, «dica, signore, che sono stato trasportato qui sulle ali della concordia; che sono venuto a rimuovere, con la rastrelliera dell’amicizia, i semi della violenza reciproca e dell’acrimonia, e a seminare al loro posto i germi dell’armonia sociale. Avrà la gentilezza di incaricarsi di questa commissione, signore?»

«Certamente!» rispose Quilp.

«Avrà la bontà di aggiungere, signore», disse Dick, tirando fuori un biglietto molto piccolo e sgualcito, «che questo è il mio indirizzo, e che mi si può trovare a casa ogni mattina. Due colpi distinti, signore, faranno comparire la servetta a qualsiasi ora. I miei amici intimi, signore, sono soliti starnutire quando si apre la porta, per farle capire che sono miei amici e che non hanno interessi personali nel chiedere se sono a casa. Mi scusi; mi permette di dare un’altra occhiata a quel biglietto?»

«Oh! per tutti i mezzi», rispose Quilp.

«Per un piccolo e non irragionevole errore, signore», disse Dick, sostituendolo con un altro, «le avevo consegnato il biglietto di passaggio di un circolo conviviale selezionato chiamato i Gloriosi Apollari di cui ho l’onore di essere Gran Perpetuo. Questo è il documento corretto, signore. Buongiorno.»

Quilp gli augurò buona giornata; il perenne Gran Maestro degli Apollers Gloriosi, alzando il cappello in onore della signora Quilp, lo lasciò cadere con noncuranza sul lato della testa e scomparve con un gesto plateale.

Entro quel momento, erano arrivate alcune carrozze per il trasporto delle merci, e diversi uomini robusti in berretto stavano bilanciando cassetti e altri oggetti di quel genere sulle loro teste, e compiendo prodezze muscolari che miglioravano notevolmente il loro colorito. Per non rimanere indietro nel trambusto, il signor Quilp si mise al lavoro con sorprendente vigore; spingendo e facendo muovere la gente, come uno spirito maligno; impegnando la signora Quilp in tutti i tipi di compiti ardui e impraticabili; trasportando grandi pesi su e giù, senza apparente sforzo; calciando il ragazzo dal molo, ogni volta che poteva avvicinarsi; e infliggendo, con i suoi carichi, molti colpi e botte furtive sulle spalle del signor Brass, mentre stava sul gradino della porta per rispondere a tutte le domande dei vicini curiosi, che era il suo compito. La sua presenza e il suo esempio diffusero tanta alacrità tra le persone impiegate, che, in poche ore, la casa fu svuotata di tutto, tranne che di pezzi di stuoia, pentole di birra vuote e frammenti sparsi di paglia.

Seduto, come un capo africano, su uno di questi tappetini, il nanerottolo si stava rimpinzando nel salotto con pane, formaggio e birra, quando, senza darlo a vedere, notò che un ragazzo stava sbirciando dalla porta esterna. Pur essendo certo che si trattava di Kit, anche se vedeva poco più del suo naso, il signor Quilp lo chiamò per nome; allora Kit entrò e chiese cosa volesse.

«Avvicinatevi, signore», disse il nanerottolo. «Bene, così il vostro vecchio padrone e la giovane padrona se ne sono andati?»

«Dove?», ripeté Kit, guardandosi intorno.

«Volete dire che non sapete dove?» rispose Quilp in tono brusco. «Dove sono andati, eh?»

«Non lo so», disse Kit.

«Come,» ribatté Quilp, «basta con queste sciocchezze! Vuoi forse dire che non sai che sono scappati di nascosto, appena è spuntata l’alba questa mattina?»

«No», disse il ragazzo, con evidente sorpresa.

«Non lo sapete?» gridò Quilp. «Non sapete che vi ho visto aggirarvi intorno alla casa l’altra sera, come un ladro, eh? Non ve l’hanno detto allora?»

«No», rispose il ragazzo.

“Non lo eri?” disse Quilp. “Cosa ti hanno detto allora? Di cosa stavate parlando?”

Kit, che non aveva alcuna ragione particolare per mantenere il segreto in quel momento, riferì lo scopo per cui era venuto in quell’occasione e la proposta che aveva fatto.

‘Oh!’ disse il nanerottolo dopo un po’ di riflessione. ‘Allora, penso che verranno da te ancora.’

«Credete che lo faranno?» esclamò Kit con entusiasmo.

«Sì, credo che lo faranno», rispose il nanerottolo. «Ora, quando lo faranno, fammelo sapere; mi hai sentito? Fammi sapere, e ti darò qualcosa. Voglio fare loro un favore, e non posso farlo a meno che non sappia dove sono. Mi hai sentito?»

Kit avrebbe potuto rispondere qualcosa che non sarebbe stato gradito al suo interlocutore irascibile, se il ragazzo del molo, che si era aggirato furtivamente per la stanza in cerca di qualcosa che fosse stato lasciato lì per caso, non avesse esclamato: «Ecco un uccello! Cosa ne facciamo?»

«Strozzatelo», rispose Quilp.

“Oh no, non farlo”, disse Kit, facendo un passo avanti. “Dammi quello.”

«Oh, sì, ne sono sicuro», gridò l’altro ragazzo. «Su, lascia in pace la gabbia e fammi torcere il collo, vuoi? Lui ha detto che dovevo farlo. Lascia in pace la gabbia, vuoi.»

«Datemelo, datemelo, voi cani», ruggì Quilp. «Combattete per lui, voi cani, o gli torco il collo io stesso!»

Senza ulteriore persuasione, i due ragazzi si gettarono l’uno sull’altro, con i denti e le unghie, mentre Quilp, tenendo in alto la gabbia con una mano e colpendo il terreno con il coltello in estasi, li incitava con le sue prese in giro e i suoi urli a combattere più ferocemente. Erano una partita abbastanza equa, e rotolavano insieme, scambiandosi colpi che non erano affatto giochi da bambini, finché alla fine Kit, infliggendo un colpo ben diretto al petto del suo avversario, si liberò, saltò agilmente in piedi, strappò la gabbia dalle mani di Quilp e fuggì con il suo bottino.

Non si fermò un solo istante finché non raggiunse casa, dove il suo volto insanguinato provocò grande costernazione e fece sì che il maggiore dei bambini piangesse disperatamente.

«Oh, mio Dio, Kit, che succede, cosa hai fatto?» esclamò la signora Nubbles.

«Non ti preoccupare, mamma», rispose il figlio, asciugandosi il viso con l’asciugamano appeso alla porta. «Non sono ferito, non aver paura per me. Ho combattuto per un uccello e l’ho vinto, ecco tutto. Sta’ zitto, piccolo Giacobbe. Non ho mai visto un ragazzo così dispettoso in tutta la mia vita!»

«Avete combattuto per un uccello!» esclamò sua madre.

«Ah! Combattere per un uccello!» rispose Kit, «e eccolo qui — l’uccello della signorina Nelly, mamma, che stavano per torcere il collo! Io però ho impedito che lo facessero — ah ah ah! Non avrebbero potuto torcergli il collo con me nei paraggi, no, no. Non sarebbe stato possibile, mamma, non sarebbe stato possibile per niente. Ah ah ah!»

Kit rideva così di gusto, con il suo viso gonfio e livido che spuntava fuori dall’asciugamano, che fece ridere anche il piccolo Giacobbe, e poi la madre rise, e poi il bambino rise e scalciò con grande allegria, e poi risero tutti insieme: in parte per il trionfo di Kit, e in parte perché si volevano molto bene. Quando questa crisi fu passata, Kit mostrò l’uccello a entrambi i bambini, come una grande e preziosa rarità — era solo un povero linnetto — e guardandosi attorno sul muro per un vecchio chiodo, fece un’impalcatura con una sedia e un tavolo e lo estrasse con grande esultanza.

«Fammi vedere», disse il ragazzo, «credo che lo appenderò alla finestra, perché è più luminoso e allegro, e lì potrà vedere il cielo, se alza molto lo sguardo. È un gran cantante, ve lo dico io!»

Così, l’impalcatura fu rifatta, e Kit, salendo su con il pugnaletto per fare da martello, inchiodò il chiodo e appese la gabbia, con la massima gioia di tutta la famiglia. Dopo che fu stata sistemata e raddrizzata un gran numero di volte, e lui si fu incamminato all’indietro nel camino ammirandola, l’allestimento fu dichiarato perfetto.

«E ora, mamma», disse il ragazzo, «prima di riposare ancora, uscirò e vedrò se riesco a trovare un cavallo da tenere, e poi potrò comprare del seme per gli uccelli e qualcosa di buono anche per te, per di più.»

CHAPTER 14

As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house was in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his passing it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable necessity, quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he could not choose but yield. It is not uncommon for people who are much better fed and taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been, to make duties of their inclinations in matters of more doubtful propriety, and to take great credit for the self-denial with which they gratify themselves.

There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp’s boy. The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy as if it had been so for months. A rusty padlock was fastened on the door, ends of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily against the half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in the closed shutters below, were black with the darkness of the inside. Some of the glass in the window he had so often watched, had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning, and that room looked more deserted and dull than any. A group of idle urchins had taken possession of the door-steps; some were plying the knocker and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the keyhole, watching half in jest and half in earnest for ‘the ghost,’ which an hour’s gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the late inhabitants, had already raised. Standing all alone in the midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house looked a picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the cheerful fire that used to burn there on a winter’s night and the no less cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite mournfully away.

It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was by no means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that adjective in all his life. He was only a soft-hearted grateful fellow, and had nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently, instead of going home again, in his grief, to kick the children and abuse his mother (for, when your finely strung people are out of sorts, they must have everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned his thoughts to the vulgar expedient of making them more comfortable if he could.

Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding up and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held! A good city speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to a fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of money was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding horses alone. And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one, if only a twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had occasion to alight; but they had not; and it is often an ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most ingenious estimate in the world.

Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now lingering as some rider slackened his horse’s pace and looked about him; and now darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a glimpse of some distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of the road, and promising to stop, at every door. But on they all went, one after another, and there was not a penny stirring. ‘I wonder,’ thought the boy, ‘if one of these gentlemen knew there was nothing in the cupboard at home, whether he’d stop on purpose, and make believe that he wanted to call somewhere, that I might earn a trifle?’

He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest, when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling four-wheeled chaise, drawn by a little obstinate-looking rough-coated pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old gentleman. Beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady, plump and placid like himself, and the pony was coming along at his own pace and doing exactly as he pleased with the whole concern. If the old gentleman remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony replied by shaking his head. It was plain that the utmost the pony would consent to do, was to go in his own way up any street that the old gentleman particularly wished to traverse, but that it was an understanding between them that he must do this after his own fashion or not at all.

As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him. Kit rising and putting his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the pony that he wished to stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom objected to that part of his duty) graciously acceded.

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sorry you stopped, sir. I only meant did you want your horse minded.’

‘I’m going to get down in the next street,’ returned the old gentleman. ‘If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.’

Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed. The pony ran off at a sharp angle to inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and then went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side. Having satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and materials, he came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation.

‘Will you go on, sir,’ said the old gentleman, gravely, ‘or are we to wait here for you till it’s too late for our appointment?’

The pony remained immoveable.

‘Oh you naughty Whisker,’ said the old lady. ‘Fie upon you! I’m ashamed of such conduct.’

The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for he trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no more until he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the words ‘Witherden—Notary.’ Here the old gentleman got out and helped out the old lady, and then took from under the seat a nosegay resembling in shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan with the handle cut short off. This, the old lady carried into the house with a staid and stately air, and the old gentleman (who had a club-foot) followed close upon her.

CAPITOLO 14

Poiché per Kit era molto facile convincersi che la vecchia casa gli stava in mezzo al cammino, e il suo cammino era ovunque, cercò di considerare il passarvi accanto ancora una volta come una questione di necessità imperativa e spiacevole, del tutto indipendente da qualsiasi desiderio suo, al quale non poteva fare a meno di cedere. Non è raro che persone molto più ben nutrite e istruite di quanto lo fosse mai stato Christopher Nubbles trasformino in doveri le proprie inclinazioni in questioni di proprietà più dubbie, e si attribuiscano grande merito per il auto-sacrificio con cui si concedono piaceri.

Questa volta non c’era bisogno di alcuna cautela, né paura di essere trattenuti per dover giocare una partita di ritorno con il ragazzo di Daniel Quilp. Il posto era completamente deserto, e sembrava polveroso e squallido come se lo fosse stato per mesi. Un lucchetto arrugginito era fissato sulla porta, le estremità di tende e tendaggi sbiaditi sventolavano tristemente contro le finestre superiori semi-aperte, e i buchi storti tagliati nelle persiane chiuse erano neri per l’oscurità all’interno. Alcuni dei vetri della finestra che aveva così spesso osservato erano stati rotti nella fretta e nel disordine del mattino, e quella stanza sembrava più deserta e triste di tutte. Un gruppo di ragazzini oziosi aveva preso possesso dei gradini della porta; alcuni stavano usando il battente e ascoltavano con timore deliziato i suoni vuoti che si diffondevano attraverso la smantellata casa; altri erano raggruppati attorno alla serratura, osservando a metà per scherzo e a metà seriamente in attesa del ‘fantasma’, che un’ora di oscurità, aggiunta al mistero che aleggiava attorno agli ex abitanti, aveva già evocato. In piedi, tutto solo in mezzo agli affari e al trambusto della strada, la casa sembrava un quadro di fredda desolazione; e Kit, che ricordava il allegra fiamma che solitamente ardeva lì in una inverno’s notte e la risata non meno allegra che faceva risuonare la piccola stanza, si allontanò del tutto malinconicamente.

Va osservato in particolare, per giustizia verso il povero Kit, che egli non era affatto di temperamento sentimentale e forse non aveva mai sentito quell’aggettivo in tutta la sua vita. Era solo un tipo dal cuore tenero e grato, e non aveva nulla di distinto o di cortese; di conseguenza, invece di tornare a casa di nuovo, nel suo dolore, per dare calci ai bambini e insultare sua madre (perché, quando le persone raffinate sono di cattivo umore, devono rendere infelici anche tutti gli altri), egli rivolse i suoi pensieri al volgare espediente di renderli più comodi, se poteva.

Che Dio ci benedica, che numero di signori a cavallo c’erano a cavalcare avanti e indietro, e quanti pochi di loro volevano che i loro cavalli fossero tenuti! Un buon cittadino speculatore o un commissario parlamentare avrebbe potuto dire a una frazione, dalle folle che stavano galoppando, quale somma di denaro era realizzata a Londra, nel corso di un anno, tenendo i cavalli soli. E senza dubbio sarebbe stata una somma molto grande, se anche solo una ventesima parte dei signori senza stallieri avesse avuto occasione di scendere; ma non l’avevano avuta; e spesso è una circostanza di cattivo carattere come questa, che rovina la stima più ingegnosa del mondo.

Kit camminava, ora con passo svelto e ora con passo lento; ora indugiava mentre qualche cavaliere rallentava l’andatura del suo cavallo e guardava intorno; e ora scattava a tutta velocità su un vicolo quando intravedeva qualche cavaliere lontano che andava pigramente lungo il lato ombroso della strada, e prometteva di fermarsi, a ogni porta. Ma tutti continuarono, uno dopo l’altro, e non c’era un centesimo in circolazione. ‘Mi domando,’ pensò il ragazzo, ‘se uno di questi signori sapesse che non c’era niente nell’armadio a casa, se si fermerebbe apposta, e fingerebbe di voler fare una visita, perché io potessi guadagnare qualcosa?’

Era completamente sfinito per aver girovagato per le strade, senza contare le ripetute delusioni, e si era seduto su un gradino per riposare, quando si avvicinò a lui una piccola carrozza a quattro ruote che tintinnava e sferragliava, trainata da un piccolo pony dal pelo ruvido e dallo sguardo ostinato, e guidata da un piccolo vecchietto grasso e placido. Accanto al piccolo vecchietto sedeva una piccola vecchietta, grassottella e placida come lui, e il pony procedeva al suo passo e faceva esattamente come gli pareva con l’intera carrozza. Se il vecchietto protestava scuotendo le redini, il pony rispondeva scuotendo la testa. Era chiaro che il massimo a cui il pony avrebbe acconsentito era andare per la sua strada su qualsiasi strada che il vecchietto desiderasse particolarmente attraversare, ma che era un accordo tra loro che doveva farlo a modo suo o non farlo affatto.

Mentre passavano accanto a lui, Kit guardò con tanta malinconia la piccola carrozza che il vecchio signore lo notò. Kit si alzò e si toccò il cappello, e il vecchio signore fece capire al pony che desiderava fermarsi, proposta alla quale il pony (che raramente si opponeva a questa parte del suo compito) acconsentì con grazia.

«Chiedo scusa, signore», disse Kit. «Mi dispiace che si sia fermato, signore. Volevo solo sapere se desiderava che mi occupassi del suo cavallo.»

«Scendo alla prossima strada», rispose il vecchio signore. «Se vuole seguirci, potrà avere il lavoro.»

Kit lo ringraziò e obbedì con gioia. Il pony si allontanò a un angolo acuto per ispezionare un lampione sul lato opposto della strada, e poi si diresse a raggiera verso un altro lampione sull’altro lato. Dopo essersi convinto che erano dello stesso modello e materiale, si fermò apparentemente assorto in meditazione.

«Continuerà a camminare, signore», disse il vecchio signore, con gravità, «o dovremo aspettarla qui fino a quando sarà troppo tardi per il nostro appuntamento?»

Il pony rimase immobile.

«Oh, birbante di un Whisker», disse la vecchietta. «Che vergogna! Mi dispiace di un comportamento del genere.»

Il pony sembrò essere toccato da questo appello ai suoi sentimenti, perché trotterellò avanti direttamente, sebbene in modo scontroso, e non si fermò più finché non arrivò a una porta sulla quale c’era una targa di ottone con le parole “Witherden - Notaio”. Qui il vecchio signore scese e aiutò a scendere la vecchia signora, e poi prese da sotto il sedile un mazzo di fiori che assomigliava per forma e dimensioni a una stufa di dimensioni normali con il manico tagliato corto. Questo, la vecchia signora lo portò in casa con un’aria seria e maestosa, e il vecchio signore (che aveva un piede torto) la seguì da vicino.

They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices, into the front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office. The day being very warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were wide open; and it was easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all that passed inside.

At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet, succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed by the listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to exclaim a great many times, ‘oh, delicious!’ ‘oh, fragrant, indeed!’ and a nose, also supposed to be the property of that gentleman, was heard to inhale the scent with a snuffle of exceeding pleasure.

‘I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,’ said the old lady.

‘Ah! an occasion indeed, ma’am, an occasion which does honour to me, ma’am, honour to me,’ rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary. ‘I have had many a gentleman articled to me, ma’am, many a one. Some of them are now rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion and friend, ma’am, others are in the habit of calling upon me to this day and saying, “Mr Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours I ever spent in my life were spent in this office—were spent, Sir, upon this very stool”; but there was never one among the number, ma’am, attached as I have been to many of them, of whom I augured such bright things as I do of your only son.’

‘Oh dear!’ said the old lady. ‘How happy you do make us when you tell us that, to be sure!’

‘I tell you, ma’am,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘what I think as an honest man, which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God. I agree with the poet in every particular, ma’am. The mountainous Alps on the one hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing, in point of workmanship, to an honest man—or woman—or woman.’

‘Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,’ observed a small quiet voice, ‘I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.’

‘It’s a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,’ said the Notary, ‘to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and I hope I know how to appreciate it. I trust, Mr Garland, my dear Sir, that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this auspicious occasion.’

To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might. There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and when it was over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it who should not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort to his parents than Abel Garland had been to his.

‘Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting for a great many years, until we were well enough off—coming together when we were no longer young, and then being blessed with one child who has always been dutiful and affectionate—why, it’s a source of great happiness to us both, sir.’

‘Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,’ returned the Notary in a sympathising voice. ‘It’s the contemplation of this sort of thing, that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor. There was a young lady once, sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of the first respectability—but that’s a weakness. Chuckster, bring in Mr Abel’s articles.’

‘You see, Mr Witherden,’ said the old lady, ‘that Abel has not been brought up like the run of young men. He has always had a pleasure in our society, and always been with us. Abel has never been absent from us, for a day; has he, my dear?’

‘Never, my dear,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘except when he went to Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher at that school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he was very ill after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a dissipation.’

‘He was not used to it, you know,’ said the old lady, ‘and he couldn’t bear it, that’s the truth. Besides he had no comfort in being there without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself with.’

‘That was it, you know,’ interposed the same small quiet voice that had spoken once before. ‘I was quite abroad, mother, quite desolate, and to think that the sea was between us—oh, I never shall forget what I felt when I first thought that the sea was between us!’

‘Very natural under the circumstances,’ observed the Notary. ‘Mr Abel’s feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your nature, ma’am, and his father’s nature, and human nature. I trace the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive proceedings.—I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot of the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my finger upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am constrained to remark in a distinct tone of voice—don’t be alarmed, ma’am, it is merely a form of law—that I deliver this, as my act and deed. Mr Abel will place his name against the other wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is over. Ha ha ha! You see how easily these things are done!’

There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through the prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of feet were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of wine-glasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody. In about a quarter of an hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear and his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and condescending to address Kit by the jocose appellation of ‘Young Snob,’ informed him that the visitors were coming out.

Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby, fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with extreme politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in arm. Mr Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked nearly of the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful resemblance to him in face and figure, though wanting something of his full, round, cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a timid reserve. In all other respects, in the neatness of the dress, and even in the club-foot, he and the old gentleman were precisely alike.

Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little box behind which had evidently been made for his express accommodation, and smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning with his mother and ending with the pony. There was then a great to-do to make the pony hold up his head that the bearing-rein might be fastened; at last even this was effected; and the old gentleman, taking his seat and the reins, put his hand in his pocket to find a sixpence for Kit.

He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the Notary, nor Mr Chuckster. The old gentleman thought a shilling too much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he gave it to the boy.

‘There,’ he said jokingly, ‘I’m coming here again next Monday at the same time, and mind you’re here, my lad, to work it out.’

‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Kit. ‘I’ll be sure to be here.’

He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying so, especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to relish the joke amazingly. As the pony, with a presentiment that he was going home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere else (which was the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had no time to justify himself, and went his way also. Having expended his treasure in such purchases as he knew would be most acceptable at home, not forgetting some seed for the wonderful bird, he hastened back as fast as he could, so elated with his success and great good fortune, that he more than half expected Nell and the old man would have arrived before him.

Entrarono, come si poteva facilmente capire dal suono delle loro voci, nel salotto anteriore, che sembrava essere una specie di ufficio. Il giorno era molto caldo e la strada era tranquilla, le finestre erano spalancate; e attraverso le persiane veneziane si poteva facilmente sentire tutto ciò che accadeva all’interno.

All’inizio ci fu un gran darsi la mano e un gran fruscio di piedi, seguito dalla presentazione del mazzolino; perché una voce, che il presente supponeva essere quella del signor Witherden, notaio, si udì esclamare molte volte: «Oh, delizioso!» «Oh, davvero profumato!» e un naso, che si supponeva appartenere a quel signore, si udì aspirare il profumo con un risucchio di piacere estremo.

«L’ho portato in onore dell’occasione, signore», disse la vecchia signora.

‘Ah! un’occasione davvero, signora, un’occasione che fa onore a me, signora, onore a me’, rispose il signor Witherden, il notaio. ‘Ho avuto molti gentiluomini in articolo con me, signora, molti. Alcuni di loro ora girano in mezzo a ricchezze, senza curarsi del loro vecchio compagno e amico, signora, altri hanno l’abitudine di venire a trovarmi ancora oggi e di dire: “Signor Witherden, alcune delle ore più piacevoli che io abbia mai trascorso nella mia vita le ho passate in questo ufficio—le ho passate, Sir, proprio su questo sgabello”; ma non ce n’è mai stato uno tra tutti, signora, anche se ne ho avuti molti a cui ero affezionato, di cui io abbia augurato cose così brillanti come quelle che auguro al vostro unico figlio.’

«Oh, cara!» disse la vecchia signora. «Come ci rendete felici quando ci dite questo, davvero!»

«Le dico, signora», disse il signor Witherden, «ciò che penso come uomo onesto, che, come osserva il poeta, è l’opera più nobile di Dio. Sono d’accordo con il poeta in ogni particolare, signora. Le montuose Alpi da un lato, o un colibrì dall’altro, non sono nulla, per quanto riguarda la fattura, rispetto a un uomo onesto — o donna — o donna.»

«Qualsiasi cosa che il signor Witherden possa dire di me», osservò una vocina tranquilla, «posso dirlo, con interesse, di lui, ne sono sicuro.»

«È una circostanza felice, una circostanza veramente felice», disse il notaio, «che accade anche nel giorno del suo ventottesimo compleanno, e spero di saperla apprezzare. Confido, signor Garland, mio caro signore, che possiamo congratularci reciprocamente per questa occasione propizia.»

A questo il vecchio signore rispose che era sicuro che potevano. Sembrò che ci fosse un altro scambio di strette di mano di conseguenza, e quando questo fu finito, il vecchio signore disse che, anche se lo diceva chi non dovrebbe, credeva che nessun figlio fosse mai stato un maggior conforto per i suoi genitori di quanto Abel Garland fosse stato per lui.

«Sposandosi come fecero sua madre e io, tardi nella vita, signore, dopo aver atteso per molti anni, fino a quando non fummo abbastanza benestanti, unendoci quando non eravamo più giovani e poi essendo stati benedetti con un figlio che è sempre stato rispettoso e affettuoso, beh, è una fonte di grande felicità per entrambi, signore.»

«Certo che lo è, non ho dubbio al riguardo», rispose il notaio con voce comprensiva. «È la contemplazione di questo genere di cose che mi fa deplorare la mia sorte di scapolo. C’era una giovane signora una volta, signore, la figlia di un magazzino di forniture di prim’ordine, ma questa è una debolezza. Chuckster, porta gli articoli del signor Abel.»

«Vede, signor Witherden», disse la vecchia signora, «che Abel non è stato educato come la maggior parte dei giovani. Ha sempre trovato piacere in compagnia nostra, ed è sempre stato con noi. Abel non si è mai assentato da noi, neanche per un giorno; non è così, caro?»

«Mai, mia cara», rispose il vecchio signore, «tranne quando andò a Margate un sabato con il signor Tomkinley che era stato insegnante a quella scuola dove lui andava, e tornò il lunedì; ma dopo fu molto malato, te lo ricordi, mia cara; fu proprio una dissipazione.»

«Non era abituato a questo, sapete», disse la vecchia signora, «e non poteva sopportarlo, questa è la verità. Inoltre non aveva alcun conforto nel trovarsi lì senza di noi, e non aveva nessuno con cui parlare o con cui divertirsi».

«Ecco, sapete», interpose la stessa piccola voce tranquilla che aveva parlato una volta prima. «Ero completamente all’estero, mamma, completamente desolato, e pensare che il mare era tra noi, oh, non dimenticherò mai cosa ho provato quando ho pensato per la prima volta che il mare era tra noi!»

«Tutto molto naturale, date le circostanze», osservò il notaio. «I sentimenti del signor Abel onorano la sua natura, e onorano la sua natura, signora, e la natura di suo padre, e la natura umana. Scorgo la stessa corrente che scorre attraverso tutti i suoi atti tranquilli e discreti. — Stavo per apporre la mia firma, come vedete, in calce agli articoli che il signor Chuckster attesterà; e appoggiando il dito su questo timbro azzurro con gli angoli festonati, mi sento in dovere di dichiarare con voce distinta — non vi allarmate, signora, è solo una formalità di legge — che consegno questo documento come atto e atto notificato. Il signor Abel apporrà il suo nome sull’altro timbro, ripetendo le stesse parole cabalistiche, e l’affare è concluso. Ha ha ha! Vedete come queste cose si risolvono facilmente!»

Ci fu un breve silenzio, apparentemente, mentre il signor Abel compiva la formalità prescritta, e poi le strette di mano e lo scricchiolio dei piedi ripresero, e poco dopo si sentì il tintinnio dei bicchieri di vino e tutti cominciarono a parlare molto. Circa un quarto d’ora dopo il signor Chuckster (con una penna dietro l’orecchio e il viso arrossato dal vino) apparve sulla porta, e concondiscendendo a rivolgersi a Kit con l’appellativo scherzoso di “Giovanotto Snob”, lo informò che i visitatori stavano uscendo.

Uscirono subito; il signor Witherden, che era basso, paffuto, di carnagione fresca, vivace e pomposo, conduceva la vecchia signora con estrema cortesia, mentre il padre e il figlio li seguivano a braccetto. Il signor Abel, che aveva un’aria antiquata e fuori moda, sembrava quasi della stessa età di suo padre, e gli somigliava in modo straordinario nel viso e nella figura, sebbene gli mancasse un po’ della sua pienezza, rotondità e allegria, sostituendovi al loro posto una timida riservatezza. In tutti gli altri aspetti, nella cura dell’abbigliamento e persino nel piede torto, lui e il vecchio signore erano esattamente uguali.

Dopo aver fatto accomodare la vecchia signora al suo posto e averla aiutata a sistemare il mantello e un piccolo cestino che costituivano una parte indispensabile del suo equipaggio, il signor Abel salì su una piccola scatola dietro che era stata evidentemente fatta appositamente per lui, e sorrise a turno a tutti i presenti, cominciando con sua madre e finendo con il pony. Ci fu poi un gran trambusto per far alzare la testa al pony in modo che la briglia di sostegno potesse essere fissata; alla fine anche questo fu fatto; e il vecchio signore, prendendo posto e le redini, mise la mano in tasca per trovare un mezzo penny per Kit.

Non aveva sei pence, né la vecchia signora, né il signor Abel, né il notaio, né il signor Chuckster. Il vecchio signore pensò che uno scellino fosse troppo, ma non c’era nessun negozio in strada dove cambiare, così lo diede al ragazzo.

«Ecco,» disse scherzando «tornerò qui la prossima settimana allo stesso orario, e bada di essere qui, ragazzo mio, per risolvere la questione.»

‘Grazie, signore’, disse Kit. ‘Sarò sicuramente qui.’

Era assolutamente serio, ma tutti risero di gusto per la sua affermazione, soprattutto il signor Chuckster, che scoppiò in una risata fragorosa e sembrò apprezzare la battuta in modo incredibile. Mentre il pony, con il presentimento di stare andando a casa, o con la determinazione di non andare da nessun’altra parte (che era la stessa cosa) trotterellava via piuttosto svelto, Kit non ebbe tempo di giustificarsi e se ne andò anche lui. Dopo aver speso il suo tesoro in acquisti che sapeva sarebbero stati particolarmente graditi a casa, non dimenticando un po’ di semi per l’uccello meraviglioso, si affrettò a tornare il più velocemente possibile, così entusiasta del suo successo e della sua grande fortuna, che si aspettava più che altro che Nell e il vecchio fossero arrivati prima di lui.

CHAPTER 15

Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on the morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled sensation of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly seen in the clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest Kit. But although she would gladly have given him her hand and thanked him for what he had said at their last meeting, it was always a relief to find, when they came nearer to each other, that the person who approached was not he, but a stranger; for even if she had not dreaded the effect which the sight of him might have wrought upon her fellow-traveller, she felt that to bid farewell to anybody now, and most of all to him who had been so faithful and so true, was more than she could bear. It was enough to leave dumb things behind, and objects that were insensible both to her love and sorrow. To have parted from her only other friend upon the threshold of that wild journey, would have wrung her heart indeed.

Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say it? On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the whole remainder of a life.

The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain before sleepers’ eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the shadows of the night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark, felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside. The nobler beasts confined in dens, stood motionless behind their bars and gazed on fluttering boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed—then trod impatiently the track their prisoned feet had worn—and stopped and gazed again. Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the stone that no bright sky could warm. The flowers that sleep by night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light, creation’s mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power.

The two pilgrims, often pressing each other’s hands, or exchanging a smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence. Bright and happy as it was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted streets, from which, like bodies without souls, all habitual character and expression had departed, leaving but one dead uniform repose, that made them all alike. All was so still at that early hour, that the few pale people whom they met seemed as much unsuited to the scene, as the sickly lamp which had been here and there left burning, was powerless and faint in the full glory of the sun.

Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men’s abodes which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect began to melt away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place. Some straggling carts and coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm, then others came, then others yet more active, then a crowd. The wonder was, at first, to see a tradesman’s window open, but it was a rare thing soon to see one closed; then, smoke rose slowly from the chimneys, and sashes were thrown up to let in air, and doors were opened, and servant girls, looking lazily in all directions but their brooms, scattered brown clouds of dust into the eyes of shrinking passengers, or listened disconsolately to milkmen who spoke of country fairs, and told of waggons in the mews, with awnings and all things complete, and gallant swains to boot, which another hour would see upon their journey.

This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and great traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was already rife. The old man looked about him with a startled and bewildered gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun. He pressed his finger on his lip, and drew the child along by narrow courts and winding ways, nor did he seem at ease until they had left it far behind, often casting a backward look towards it, murmuring that ruin and self-murder were crouching in every street, and would follow if they scented them; and that they could not fly too fast.

Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling neighbourhood, where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and windows patched with rags and paper, told of the populous poverty that sheltered there. The shops sold goods that only poverty could buy, and sellers and buyers were pinched and griped alike. Here were poor streets where faded gentility essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its last feeble stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as elsewhere, and the poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less squalid and manifest than that which had long ago submitted and given up the game.

This was a wide, wide track—for the humble followers of the camp of wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile—but its character was still the same. Damp rotten houses, many to let, many yet building, many half-built and mouldering away—lodgings, where it would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who let or those who came to take—children, scantily fed and clothed, spread over every street, and sprawling in the dust—scolding mothers, stamping their slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the pavement—shabby fathers, hurrying with dispirited looks to the occupation which brought them ‘daily bread’ and little more—mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers, tailors, chandlers, driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and back room and garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same roof—brick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered by the flames—mounds of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusion—small dissenting chapels to teach, with no lack of illustration, the miseries of Earth, and plenty of new churches, erected with a little superfluous wealth, to show the way to Heaven.

CAPITOLO 15

Spesso, mentre ancora percorrevano le silenziose strade della città la mattina della loro partenza, il bambino tremava con una sensazione mista di speranza e paura mentre, in qualche figura lontana, vista imperfettamente in lontananza, la sua fantasia tracciava una somiglianza con l’onesto Kit. Ma, sebbene avrebbe voluto dargli la mano e ringraziarlo per ciò che aveva detto all’ultimo incontro, era sempre un sollievo scoprire, quando si avvicinavano l’uno all’altro, che la persona che si avvicinava non era lui, ma uno sconosciuto; perché, anche se non avesse temuto l’effetto che la vista di lui avrebbe potuto avere sul suo compagno di viaggio, sentiva che salutare qualcuno ora, e soprattutto lui, che era stato così fedele e sincero, era più di quanto potesse sopportare. Era abbastanza lasciare dietro di sé cose muthe e oggetti insensibili sia al suo amore che al suo dolore. Aver dovuto separarsi dal suo unico altro amico sulla soglia di quel selvaggio viaggio le avrebbe davvero spezzato il cuore.

Perché possiamo sopportare meglio di separarci nello spirito che non nel corpo, e mentre abbiamo il coraggio di agire come se ci stessimo salutando, non abbiamo il coraggio di dirlo? Alla vigilia di lunghi viaggi o di un’assenza di molti anni, gli amici che sono teneramente legati si separeranno con lo sguardo abituale, la solita pressione della mano, pianificando un ultimo incontro per il giorno dopo, mentre ogni bene sa che non è altro che un povero stratagemma per evitare il dolore di pronunciare quella parola, e che l’incontro non ci sarà mai. Le possibilità dovrebbero essere peggiori da sopportare delle certezze? Non evitiamo i nostri amici morenti; il fatto di non aver preso chiaramente congedo da uno di loro, che abbiamo lasciato in tutta gentilezza e affetto, spesso amareggerà il resto della vita.

La città si rallegrava con la luce del mattino; i luoghi che erano apparsi brutti e diffidenti per tutta la notte, ora sorridevano; e i raggi di sole scintillanti che danzavano sulle finestre delle camere e brillavano attraverso tende e persiane davanti agli occhi dei dormienti, diffondevano luce persino nei sogni e scacciavano le ombre della notte. Gli uccelli nelle stanze calde, coperti da un panno scuro, sentivano che era mattino e si agitavano irrequieti nelle loro piccole gabbie; i topi dagli occhi lucenti tornavano timidamente ai loro piccoli nidi; la lucida gatta domestica, dimentica della sua preda, sedeva ammiccando ai raggi di sole che filtravano dalla serratura e dalle fessure della porta, e desiderava la sua corsa furtiva e il caldo riposo al sole all’esterno. Le bestie più nobili confinate nelle gabbie, rimanevano immobili dietro le sbarre e fissavano i rami che si agitavano e la luce del sole che filtrava attraverso qualche piccola finestra, con occhi in cui brillavano vecchie foreste — poi calpestavano impazientemente il sentiero che i loro piedi prigionieri avevano consumato — e si fermavano e guardavano di nuovo. Gli uomini nelle loro celle stiravano le membra intorpidite dal freddo e imprecavano contro la pietra che nessun cielo luminoso poteva riscaldare. I fiori che dormono di notte, aprirono i loro dolci occhi e li rivolsero al giorno. La luce, mente della creazione, era ovunque, e tutte le cose riconoscevano il suo potere.

I due pellegrini, spesso stringendosi le mani o scambiandosi un sorriso o uno sguardo allegro, proseguirono il loro cammino nel silenzio. Brillanti e felici com’erano, c’era qualcosa di solenne nelle lunghe strade deserte, dalle quali, come corpi senza anime, tutto il carattere e l’espressione abituali erano scomparsi, lasciando solo una riposante uniformità morta, che le rendeva tutte uguali. Tutto era così tranquillo a quell’ora mattutina, che i pochi pallidi passanti che incontravano sembravano altrettanto inadatti alla scena, quanto la malaticcia lampada che era stata lasciata accesa qua e là, impotente e fioca nella piena gloria del sole.

Prima che avessero penetrato molto a fondo nel labirinto di dimore umane che ancora si frapponeva tra loro e la periferia, questo aspetto cominciò a dileguarsi, e il rumore e l’agitazione a usurparne il posto. Alcuni carri e carrozze che passavano ronzando per primi spezzarono l’incantesimo, poi ne arrivarono altri, poi altri ancora più attivi, poi una folla. La meraviglia era, all’inizio, vedere una vetrina di negozio aperta, ma presto fu raro vederne una chiusa; poi, il fumo saliva lentamente dai camini, e le finestre venivano spalancate per far entrare aria, e le porte venivano aperte, e le cameriere, guardando pigramente in tutte le direzioni tranne che verso le loro scope, spargevano nuvole marroni di polvere negli occhi dei passeggeri che si ritraevano, o ascoltavano disperatamente i lattei che parlavano di sagre di paese, e raccontavano di carri nelle scuderie, con tendoni e tutto l’occorrente, e galanti giovani per giunta, che un’altra ora li avrebbe visti in viaggio.

Trascorso questo quarto d’ora, si trovarono nei luoghi di commercio e di grande traffico, dove molta gente si riversava e gli affari erano già in pieno fermento. Il vecchio guardò intorno con uno sguardo spaventato e smarrito, perché questi erano luoghi che sperava di evitare. Si premette un dito sulle labbra e trascinò il bambino lungo vicoli stretti e strade tortuose, e non sembrò rilassarsi finché non li ebbe lasciati ben lontani, gettando spesso uno sguardo indietro, mormorando che la rovina e l’auto-omicidio si nascondevano in ogni strada, e li avrebbero seguiti se li avessero fiutati; e che non potevano fuggire abbastanza velocemente.

Anche questo trimestre passò, e si trovarono in un quartiere disseminato di case, dove le abitazioni scalcinate divise in stanze e le finestre rattoppate con stracci e carta rivelavano la povertà popolosa che vi trovava rifugio. I negozi vendevano merci che solo la povertà poteva acquistare, e venditori e acquirenti erano ugualmente tirchi e avari. Qui c’erano strade povere dove la gentilezza sbiadita cercava con spazio scarso e mezzi naufragati di fare la sua ultima debole resistenza, ma il riscossore delle tasse e il creditore arrivavano lì come altrove, e la povertà che ancora lottava debolmente non era quasi meno squallida e manifesta di quella che aveva da tempo ceduto e rinunciato al gioco.

Era un ampio, ampio tracciato — poiché i modesti seguaci del campo della ricchezza piantano le loro tende tutto intorno per molti miglia — ma il suo carattere era sempre lo stesso. Case umide e marce, molte in affitto, molte ancora in costruzione, molte mezzo costruite e in via di deterioramento — alloggi, dove sarebbe difficile dire chi ha più bisogno di pietà, chi affitta o chi viene a prendere — bambini, scarsamente nutriti e vestiti, sparsi per ogni strada, e rannicchiati nella polvere — madri che rimproverano, pestando i piedi mal calzati con rumorose minacce sul marciapiede — padri trasandati, che si affrettano con sguardi sconsolati verso l’occupazione che gli portava il “pane quotidiano” e poco altro — donne che stirano, lavandaie, calzolai, sarti, candellai, che esercitano il loro mestiere in salotti, cucine, stanze sul retro e soffitte, e a volte tutti insieme sotto lo stesso tetto — campi di mattoni che bordano giardini recintati con assi di vecchi barili, o legname saccheggiato da case bruciate, annerite e vescicate dalle fiamme — cumuli di erba mazzolina, ortiche, erba grossolana e gusci di ostriche, ammassati in confusa disordinanza — piccole cappelle non conformiste per insegnare, senza mancanza di illustrazioni, le miserie della Terra, e abbondanza di nuove chiese, erette con un po’ di ricchezza superflua, per mostrare la via al Cielo.

At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering the road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of old timber or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough cabbage-stalks that grew about it, and grottoed at the seams with toad-stools and tight-sticking snails. To these succeeded pert cottages, two and two with plots of ground in front, laid out in angular beds with stiff box borders and narrow paths between, where footstep never strayed to make the gravel rough. Then came the public-house, freshly painted in green and white, with tea-gardens and a bowling green, spurning its old neighbour with the horse-trough where the waggons stopped; then, fields; and then, some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns, some even with a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife. Then came a turnpike; then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill, and on the top of that, the traveller might stop, and—looking back at old Saint Paul’s looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above the cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and casting his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he traced it down to the furthest outposts of the invading army of bricks and mortar whose station lay for the present nearly at his feet—might feel at last that he was clear of London.

Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and his little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were bound) sat down to rest. She had had the precaution to furnish her basket with some slices of bread and meat, and here they made their frugal breakfast.

The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air—deep joys to most of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well—sunk into their breasts and made them very glad. The child had repeated her artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her lips again. The old man took off his hat—he had no memory for the words—but he said amen, and that they were very good.

There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress, with strange plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where those distant countries with the curious names might be. As she looked back upon the place they had left, one part of it came strongly on her mind.

‘Dear grandfather,’ she said, ‘only that this place is prettier and a great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like it, I feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this grass all the cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.’

‘No—never to return—never to return’—replied the old man, waving his hand towards the city. ‘Thou and I are free of it now, Nell. They shall never lure us back.’

‘Are you tired?’ said the child, ‘are you sure you don’t feel ill from this long walk?’

‘I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,’ was his reply. ‘Let us be stirring, Nell. We must be further away—a long, long way further. We are too near to stop, and be at rest. Come!’

There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk again. She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her hands, and dried it with her simple dress.

‘I can do nothing for myself, my darling,’ said the grandfather; ‘I don’t know how it is, I could once, but the time’s gone. Don’t leave me, Nell; say that thou’lt not leave me. I loved thee all the while, indeed I did. If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!’

He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously. The time had been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have restrained her tears and must have wept with him. But now she soothed him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking they could ever part, and rallied him cheerfully upon the jest. He was soon calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice, like a little child.

He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey. The road was pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn, about which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled out her happy song. The air came laden with the fragrance it caught upon its way, and the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed forth their drowsy satisfaction as they floated by.

They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and scattered at long intervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put across the open door to keep the scrambling children from the road, others shut up close while all the family were working in the fields. These were often the commencement of a little village: and after an interval came a wheelwright’s shed or perhaps a blacksmith’s forge; then a thriving farm with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall and scampering away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom. There were dull pigs too, turning up the ground in search of dainty food, and grunting their monotonous grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed each other in their quest; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or strutting on the eaves; and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their own conceit, waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing glibly on its surface. The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn; the humbler beer-shop; and the village tradesman’s; then the lawyer’s and the parson’s, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled; the church then peeped out modestly from a clump of trees; then there were a few more cottages; then the cage, and pound, and not unfrequently, on a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty well. Then came the trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road again.

Alla fine queste strade, diventando ancora più disordinate, si assottigliarono e si assottigliarono fino a quando rimasero solo piccoli appezzamenti di giardino lungo la strada, con molte case estive innocenti di vernice e costruite con vecchi tronchi o alcuni frammenti di una barca, verdi come i robusti gambi di cavolo che crescevano intorno, e con grotte alle fessure piene di funghi e lumache che aderivano saldamente. A queste seguivano graziosi cottage, due a due con appezzamenti di terreno davanti, disposti in aiuole angolari con rigidi bordi di bosso e stretti sentieri tra di essi, dove il passo non si smarriva mai per rendere il ghiaietto ruvido. Poi veniva la taverna pubblica, appena dipinta di verde e bianco, con giardini da tè e un prato da bowling, che disprezzava il suo vecchio vicino con la cassetta per cavalli dove si fermavano i carri; poi, campi; e poi, alcune case, una per una, di buone dimensioni con prati, alcune anche con una loggetta dove abitava un portiere e sua moglie. Poi c’era un pedaggio; poi di nuovo campi con alberi e cataste di fieno; poi, una collina, e sulla cima di questa, il viaggiatore poteva fermarsi e—guardando indietro verso l’antico San Paolo che si intravedeva attraverso il fumo, la sua croce che spuntava sopra la nuvola (se la giornata era serena) e scintillava al sole; e gettando i suoi occhi sulla Babilonia da cui era cresciuto fino a quando non la rintracciava fino agli estremi avamposti dell’esercito invasore di mattoni e malta la cui stazione si trovava per il momento quasi ai suoi piedi—poteva finalmente sentirsi libero da Londra.

Pressappoco in un luogo come questo, e in un campo piacevole, il vecchio e la sua piccola guida (se guida era, lei che non sapeva dove erano diretti) si sedettero a riposare. Ella aveva avuto la precauzione di fornire il suo cestino con alcune fette di pane e carne, e qui fecero la loro frugale colazione.

La freschezza del giorno, il canto degli uccelli, la bellezza dell’erba che ondeggia, le foglie di un verde intenso, i fiori selvatici e i mille profumi e suoni squisiti che fluttuavano nell’aria - gioie profonde per la maggior parte di noi, ma soprattutto per coloro la cui vita è in mezzo alla folla o che vivono solitari nelle grandi città come nel secchio di un pozzo umano - penetravano nel loro petto e li rendevano molto felici. La bambina aveva ripetuto le sue semplici preghiere una volta quella mattina, forse più ferventemente di quanto avesse mai fatto in tutta la sua vita, ma mentre sentiva tutto ciò, esse salivano di nuovo alle sue labbra. Il vecchio si tolse il cappello - non aveva alcuna memoria per le parole - ma disse amen, e che erano molto buone.

C’era stata una vecchia copia del Pellegrino in Progresso, con strane illustrazioni, su uno scaffale a casa, su cui spesso aveva spesso passato intere sere a riflettere, chiedendosi se fosse vero in ogni parola, e dove potessero trovarsi quei paesi lontani con i loro nomi curiosi. Mentre guardava indietro al luogo che avevano lasciato, una parte di esso le tornò vivida alla mente.

«Caro nonno», disse, «solo che questo posto è più bello e molto migliore di quello vero, se quello nel libro è come questo, mi sento come se fossimo entrambi cristiani, e avessimo deposto su questo prato tutte le preoccupazioni e le difficoltà che abbiamo portato con noi; per non riprenderle mai più».

«No, mai più, mai più» — rispose il vecchio, gesticolando verso la città. «Tu e io ne siamo liberi ora, Nell. Non ci attireranno mai più indietro.»

«Sei stanco?» disse il bambino, «sei sicuro di non sentirti male per questa lunga passeggiata?»

«Non mi sentirò mai più male, ora che siamo partiti», fu la sua risposta. «Andiamo, Nell. Dobbiamo allontanarci ancora di più, molto, molto più lontano. Siamo troppo vicini per fermarci e riposare. Vieni!»

C’era una pozza di acqua limpida nel campo, nella quale la bambina si lavò le mani e il viso, e si raffreddò i piedi prima di riprendere la camminata. Avrebbe voluto che anche il vecchio si rinfrescasse in questo modo, e facendolo sedere sull’erba, gli gettò addosso l’acqua con le mani, e lo asciugò con il suo semplice abito.

«Non posso fare nulla per me stesso, mia cara», disse il nonno; «non so come sia, una volta potevo, ma il tempo è passato. Non lasciarmi, Nell; promettimi che non mi lascerai. Ti ho sempre amata, davvero. Se ti perdo anche te, mia cara, devo morire!»

Si appoggiò la testa sulla sua spalla e gemette pietosamente. C’era stato un tempo, e non erano passati molti giorni, in cui la bambina non avrebbe potuto trattenere le sue lacrime e avrebbe pianto con lui. Ma ora lo consolava con parole dolci e tenere, sorrideva al pensiero che potessero mai separarsi e lo rincuorava allegramente con la battuta. Ben presto si calmò e si addormentò, cantando tra sé a bassa voce, come un piccolo bambino.

Si svegliò ristorato, e continuarono il loro viaggio. La strada era piacevole, tra pascoli e campi di grano, sopra i quali, librata nel limpido cielo azzurro, la lark intonava il suo felice canto. L’aria arrivava carica del profumo che aveva raccolto lungo il cammino, e le api, sospese sul suo respiro profumato, ronzavano la loro sonnolenta soddisfazione mentre fluttuavano via.

Erano ormai in aperta campagna; le case erano molto poche e sparse a distanze considerevoli, spesso a migliaia di miglia l’una dall’altra. Di tanto in tanto si imbattevano in un gruppo di povere casette, alcune con una sedia o una tavola bassa messa di traverso alla porta aperta per tenere lontani dalla strada i bambini che strisciavano, altre chiuse a chiave mentre tutta la famiglia lavorava nei campi. Queste erano spesso l’inizio di un piccolo villaggio: e dopo un intervallo arrivava un capanno di carrozziere o forse una fucina di fabbro; poi una fattoria fiorente con mucche sonnolente distese nel cortile, e cavalli che sbirciavano oltre il basso muro e scappavano via quando cavalli bardati passavano sulla strada, come se trionfassero della loro libertà. C’erano maiali noiosi anche loro, che rivoltavano il terreno in cerca di cibo prelibato, e grugnivano i loro brontolii monotoni mentre si aggiravano, o si incrociavano nella loro ricerca; colombi grassi che sfrecciavano intorno al tetto o struttavano sulle grondaie; e anatre e oche, molto più graziose nella loro stessa presunzione, che barcollavano goffamente ai bordi dello stagno o navigavano agilmente sulla sua superficie. Passato il cortile della fattoria, poi veniva la piccola locanda; la più umile birreria; e il negozio del commerciante del villaggio; poi quello dell’avvocato e del parroco, al cui nome temuto la birreria tremava; poi la chiesa faceva timidamente capolino da un gruppo di alberi; poi c’erano altre poche casette; poi la gabbia, e il recinto, e non di rado, su un argine lungo il ciglio della strada, un vecchio pozzo profondo e polveroso. Poi venivano i campi con siepi ben tenute su entrambi i lati, e di nuovo la strada aperta.

They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds were let to travellers. Next morning they were afoot again, and though jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long and proceeded briskly forward.

They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time, and still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the morning. It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, when drawing near another cluster of labourers’ huts, the child looked wistfully in each, doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile, and buy a draught of milk.

It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of being repulsed. Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife. In this, the people seemed too poor; in that, too many. At length she stopped at one where the family were seated round the table—chiefly because there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair beside the hearth, and she thought he was a grandfather and would feel for hers.

There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young sturdy children, brown as berries. The request was no sooner preferred, than granted. The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged two stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother’s gown, and looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand.

‘God save you, master,’ said the old cottager in a thin piping voice; ‘are you travelling far?’

‘Yes, Sir, a long way’—replied the child; for her grandfather appealed to her.

‘From London?’ inquired the old man.

The child said yes.

Ah! He had been in London many a time—used to go there often once, with waggons. It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there last, and he did hear say there were great changes. Like enough! He had changed, himself, since then. Two-and-thirty year was a long time and eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that had lived to very hard upon a hundred—and not so hearty as he, neither—no, nothing like it.

‘Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,’ said the old man, knocking his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply. ‘Take a pinch out o’ that box; I don’t take much myself, for it comes dear, but I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye’re but a boy to me. I should have a son pretty nigh as old as you if he’d lived, but they listed him for a so’ger—he come back home though, for all he had but one poor leg. He always said he’d be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb upon when he was a baby, did my poor boy, and his words come true—you can see the place with your own eyes; we’ve kept the turf up, ever since.’

He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said she needn’t be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more. He didn’t wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.

The milk arrived, and the child producing her little basket, and selecting its best fragments for her grandfather, they made a hearty meal. The furniture of the room was very homely of course—a few rough chairs and a table, a corner cupboard with their little stock of crockery and delf, a gaudy tea-tray, representing a lady in bright red, walking out with a very blue parasol, a few common, coloured scripture subjects in frames upon the wall and chimney, an old dwarf clothes-press and an eight-day clock, with a few bright saucepans and a kettle, comprised the whole. But everything was clean and neat, and as the child glanced round, she felt a tranquil air of comfort and content to which she had long been unaccustomed.

‘How far is it to any town or village?’ she asked of the husband.

‘A matter of good five mile, my dear,’ was the reply, ‘but you’re not going on to-night?’

‘Yes, yes, Nell,’ said the old man hastily, urging her too by signs. ‘Further on, further on, darling, further away if we walk till midnight.’

‘There’s a good barn hard by, master,’ said the man, ‘or there’s travellers’ lodging, I know, at the Plow an’ Harrer. Excuse me, but you do seem a little tired, and unless you’re very anxious to get on—’

‘Yes, yes, we are,’ returned the old man fretfully. ‘Further away, dear Nell, pray further away.’

‘We must go on, indeed,’ said the child, yielding to his restless wish. ‘We thank you very much, but we cannot stop so soon. I’m quite ready, grandfather.’

But the woman had observed, from the young wanderer’s gait, that one of her little feet was blistered and sore, and being a woman and a mother too, she would not suffer her to go until she had washed the place and applied some simple remedy, which she did so carefully and with such a gentle hand—rough-grained and hard though it was, with work—that the child’s heart was too full to admit of her saying more than a fervent ‘God bless you!’ nor could she look back nor trust herself to speak, until they had left the cottage some distance behind. When she turned her head, she saw that the whole family, even the old grandfather, were standing in the road watching them as they went, and so, with many waves of the hand, and cheering nods, and on one side at least not without tears, they parted company.

They trudged forward, more slowly and painfully than they had done yet, for another mile or thereabouts, when they heard the sound of wheels behind them, and looking round observed an empty cart approaching pretty briskly. The driver on coming up to them stopped his horse and looked earnestly at Nell.

‘Didn’t you stop to rest at a cottage yonder?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the child.

‘Ah! They asked me to look out for you,’ said the man. ‘I’m going your way. Give me your hand—jump up, master.’

This was a great relief, for they were very much fatigued and could scarcely crawl along. To them the jolting cart was a luxurious carriage, and the ride the most delicious in the world. Nell had scarcely settled herself on a little heap of straw in one corner, when she fell asleep, for the first time that day.

She was awakened by the stopping of the cart, which was about to turn up a bye-lane. The driver kindly got down to help her out, and pointing to some trees at a very short distance before them, said that the town lay there, and that they had better take the path which they would see leading through the churchyard. Accordingly, towards this spot, they directed their weary steps.

Camminarono tutto il giorno e dormirono quella notte in una piccola capanna dove si affittavano letti ai viaggiatori. La mattina seguente erano di nuovo in piedi, e sebbene all’inizio fossero stanchi e molto affaticati, presto si ripresero e proseguirono con vigore.

Si fermavano spesso a riposare, ma solo per poco tempo alla volta, e continuavano a camminare, avendo avuto solo un leggero ristoro da quella mattina. Erano quasi le cinque del pomeriggio quando, avvicinandosi a un altro gruppo di capanne di lavoratori, il bambino guardò con desiderio in ognuna, incerto su quale scegliere per chiedere il permesso di riposare un po’ e comprare un sorso di latte.

Non era facile decidere, perché era timida e temeva di essere respinta. Qui c’era un bambino che piangeva, e là una moglie rumorosa. In questa casa, la gente sembrava troppo povera; in quella, troppo numerosa. Alla fine si fermò davanti a una casa dove la famiglia era seduta attorno al tavolo, soprattutto perché c’era un vecchio seduto su una sedia imbottita accanto al focolare, e pensò che fosse un nonno e avrebbe provato compassione per il suo.

C’erano inoltre il contadino e sua moglie, e tre robusti bambini, bruni come le bacche. La richiesta fu appena formulata che venne accolta. Il ragazzo più grande corse fuori a prendere del latte, il secondo trascinò due sgabelli verso la porta, e il più piccolo si arrampicò sulla gonna della madre, e guardò gli sconosciuti da sotto la sua mano abbronzata.

«Dio vi salvi, signore», disse il vecchio contadino con una voce sottile e acuta, «siete in viaggio per un lungo tragitto?»

«Sì, signore, un lungo viaggio» — rispose la bambina; infatti suo nonno si era rivolto a lei.

«Da Londra?» chiese il vecchio.

Il bambino disse di sì.

Ah! Era stato a Londra molte volte - andava lì spesso una volta, con i carri. Erano quasi trentadue anni che non ci andava più, e aveva sentito dire che c’erano stati grandi cambiamenti. Era probabile! Lui stesso era cambiato da allora. Trentadue anni erano un lungo periodo e ottantaquattro un’età avanzata, anche se conosceva qualcuno che aveva vissuto fino a quasi cent’anni - e non erano così in salute come lui, neanche lontanamente - no, niente di paragonabile.

«Siediti, padroncino, sulla poltrona a braccioli», disse il vecchio, battendo il bastone sul pavimento di mattoni e cercando di farlo con decisione. «Prendi un pizzico da quella scatola; io non ne prendo molto, perché costa caro, ma a volte mi risveglia, e tu sei solo un ragazzo per me. Avrei un figlio quasi della tua età se fosse vissuto, ma lo arruolarono come soldato: tornò a casa però, anche se aveva solo una gamba. Diceva sempre che voleva essere sepolto vicino al quadrante solare su cui saliva da bambino, il mio povero ragazzo, e le sue parole si sono avverate: puoi vedere il posto con i tuoi occhi; abbiamo mantenuto l’erba ben curata, da allora.»

Scosse la testa, e guardando la figlia con occhi umidi, disse che non doveva temere che avrebbe parlato ancora di quella cosa. Non voleva dare fastidio a nessuno, e se aveva dato fastidio a qualcuno con quello che aveva detto, chiedeva scusa, e questo era tutto.

Il latte arrivò, e la bambina, tirando fuori il suo piccolo cestino e scegliendo i pezzi migliori per il nonno, fece con lui un pasto sostanzioso. L’arredamento della stanza era molto semplice, naturalmente: alcune rozze sedie e un tavolo, una credenza angolare con il loro piccolo corredo di stoviglie e porcellane, un vistoso vassoio da tè raffigurante una signora di un rosso acceso che passeggia con un ombrello molto blu, alcuni soggetti biblici comuni e colorati incorniciati alle pareti e sul caminetto, un vecchio armadio a muro per gli abiti da nano e un orologio a carica settimanale, con qualche pentola luccicante e un bollitore, costituivano l’intero corredo. Ma tutto era pulito e ordinato, e mentre la bambina guardava intorno, provava un’aria tranquilla di conforto e contentezza a cui non era più abituata da tempo.

«Quanto dista il più vicino paese o villaggio?» chiese al marito.

«Una bella distanza di cinque miglia, mia cara», fu la risposta, «ma non andrai fino a notte?»

«Sì, sì, Nell», disse l’anziano uomo in fretta, facendole anche cenno di sbrigarsi. «Più avanti, più avanti, tesoro, più lontano, se camminiamo fino a mezzanotte.»

«C’è un buon fienile nelle vicinanze, signore», disse l’uomo, «o c’è un alloggio per viaggiatori, lo so, al Plow an’ Harrer. Scusatemi, ma sembra che siate un po’ stanco, e a meno che non siate molto ansioso di proseguire—»

«Sì, sì, lo siamo», rispose l’anziano con irritazione. «Più lontano, cara Nell, ti prego, più lontano.»

«Dobbiamo andare avanti, infatti», disse il bambino, cedendo al suo desiderio irrequieto. «Vi ringraziamo molto, ma non possiamo fermarci così presto. Sono del tutto pronto, nonno».

Ma la donna aveva notato, dal passo della giovane errante, che uno dei suoi piccoli piedi era vescicato e dolorante, e essendo una donna e anche una madre, non le avrebbe permesso di andarsene finché non avesse lavato la ferita e applicato un semplice rimedio, che fece con tanta cura e con una mano così delicata — anche se ruvida e dura per il lavoro — che il cuore della bambina era troppo colmo per permetterle di dire altro che un fervente ‘Dio vi benedica!’ né poteva voltarsi né fidarsi di parlare, finché non ebbero lasciato la casetta a una certa distanza. Quando si voltò, vide che tutta la famiglia, persino il vecchio nonno, erano in piedi sulla strada a guardarli mentre se ne andavano, e così, con molti cenni della mano, e cenni di saluto, e da almeno un lato non senza lacrime, si separarono.

Procedettero in avanti, più lentamente e dolorosamente di quanto avessero fatto finora, per un altro miglio circa, quando udirono il rumore di ruote alle loro spalle, e guardandosi intorno notarono un carro vuoto che si avvicinava piuttosto velocemente. Il conducente, raggiunti loro, fermò il suo cavallo e guardò con insistenza Nell.

«Non vi siete fermato a riposare in quella casetta laggiù?» disse.

«Sì, signore», rispose il bambino.

«Ah! Mi hanno chiesto di tenervi d’occhio», disse l’uomo. «Vado nella vostra direzione. Datemi la mano, salite su, padroncino».

Questo fu un grande sollievo, perché erano molto stanchi e potevano a malapena strisciare. Per loro il carro traballante era una carrozza di lusso, e il viaggio il più delizioso del mondo. Nell si era appena sistemata su un piccolo mucchio di paglia in un angolo, quando si addormentò, per la prima volta quel giorno.

Fu svegliata dallo stop del carro, che stava per svoltare in un vicolo. Il conducente scese gentilmente per aiutarla a scendere, e indicando alcuni alberi a poca distanza davanti a loro, disse che la città si trovava lì, e che era meglio prendere il sentiero che avrebbero visto attraversare il cimitero. Di conseguenza, verso questo punto, indirizzarono i loro passi stanchi.

CHAPTER 16

The sun was setting when they reached the wicket-gate at which the path began, and, as the rain falls upon the just and unjust alike, it shed its warm tint even upon the resting-places of the dead, and bade them be of good hope for its rising on the morrow. The church was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble men: twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to executors and mourning legatees.

The clergyman’s horse, stumbling with a dull blunt sound among the graves, was cropping the grass; at once deriving orthodox consolation from the dead parishioners, and enforcing last Sunday’s text that this was what all flesh came to; a lean ass who had sought to expound it also, without being qualified and ordained, was pricking his ears in an empty pound hard by, and looking with hungry eyes upon his priestly neighbour.

The old man and the child quitted the gravel path, and strayed among the tombs; for there the ground was soft, and easy to their tired feet. As they passed behind the church, they heard voices near at hand, and presently came on those who had spoken.

They were two men who were seated in easy attitudes upon the grass, and so busily engaged as to be at first unconscious of intruders. It was not difficult to divine that they were of a class of itinerant showmen—exhibitors of the freaks of Punch—for, perched cross-legged upon a tombstone behind them, was a figure of that hero himself, his nose and chin as hooked and his face as beaming as usual. Perhaps his imperturbable character was never more strikingly developed, for he preserved his usual equable smile notwithstanding that his body was dangling in a most uncomfortable position, all loose and limp and shapeless, while his long peaked cap, unequally balanced against his exceedingly slight legs, threatened every instant to bring him toppling down.

In part scattered upon the ground at the feet of the two men, and in part jumbled together in a long flat box, were the other persons of the Drama. The hero’s wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the doctor, the foreign gentleman who not being familiar with the language is unable in the representation to express his ideas otherwise than by the utterance of the word ‘Shallabalah’ three distinct times, the radical neighbour who will by no means admit that a tin bell is an organ, the executioner, and the devil, were all here. Their owners had evidently come to that spot to make some needful repairs in the stage arrangements, for one of them was engaged in binding together a small gallows with thread, while the other was intent upon fixing a new black wig, with the aid of a small hammer and some tacks, upon the head of the radical neighbour, who had been beaten bald.

They raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion were close upon them, and pausing in their work, returned their looks of curiosity. One of them, the actual exhibitor no doubt, was a little merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose, who seemed to have unconsciously imbibed something of his hero’s character. The other—that was he who took the money—had rather a careful and cautious look, which was perhaps inseparable from his occupation also.

The merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod; and following the old man’s eyes, he observed that perhaps that was the first time he had ever seen a Punch off the stage. (Punch, it may be remarked, seemed to be pointing with the tip of his cap to a most flourishing epitaph, and to be chuckling over it with all his heart.)

‘Why do you come here to do this?’ said the old man, sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight.

‘Why you see,’ rejoined the little man, ‘we’re putting up for to-night at the public-house yonder, and it wouldn’t do to let ‘em see the present company undergoing repair.’

‘No!’ cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, ‘why not, eh? why not?’

‘Because it would destroy all the delusion, and take away all the interest, wouldn’t it?’ replied the little man. ‘Would you care a ha’penny for the Lord Chancellor if you know’d him in private and without his wig?—certainly not.’

‘Good!’ said the old man, venturing to touch one of the puppets, and drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh. ‘Are you going to show ‘em to-night? are you?’

‘That is the intention, governor,’ replied the other, ‘and unless I’m much mistaken, Tommy Codlin is a calculating at this minute what we’ve lost through your coming upon us. Cheer up, Tommy, it can’t be much.’

The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink, expressive of the estimate he had formed of the travellers’ finances.

To this Mr Codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied, as he twitched Punch off the tombstone and flung him into the box, ‘I don’t care if we haven’t lost a farden, but you’re too free. If you stood in front of the curtain and see the public’s faces as I do, you’d know human natur’ better.’

‘Ah! it’s been the spoiling of you, Tommy, your taking to that branch,’ rejoined his companion. ‘When you played the ghost in the reg’lar drama in the fairs, you believed in everything—except ghosts. But now you’re a universal mistruster. I never see a man so changed.’

‘Never mind,’ said Mr Codlin, with the air of a discontented philosopher. ‘I know better now, and p’raps I’m sorry for it.’

Turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised them, Mr Codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of his friend:

CAPITOLO 16

Il sole stava tramontando quando raggiunsero il cancelletto in cui il sentiero iniziava, e, come la pioggia cade ugualmente sui giusti e sugli ingiusti, esso spargeva il suo caldo colore anche sui luoghi di riposo dei morti, e li esortava a nutrire buona speranza per la sua levata del mattino. La chiesa era vecchia e grigia, con l’edera che si aggrappava alle mura e intorno al portico. Evitando le tombe, strisciava sui tumuli, sotto i quali dormivano poveri umili uomini: intrecciando per loro le prime ghirlande che avessero mai vinto, ma ghirlande meno soggette ad appassire e molto più durature nel loro genere, di alcune che erano incise profondamente in pietra e marmo, e raccontavano in pomposi termini di virtù umilmente nascoste per molti anni, e rivelate solo alla fine agli esecutori testamentari e ai legatari in lutto.

Il cavallo del prete, inciampando con un suono sordo e smussato tra le tombe, stava brucando l’erba; traeva al contempo una consolazione ortodossa dai parrocchiani defunti e ribadiva il testo della scorsa domenica secondo cui a questo sarebbe giunta tutta la carne; un asino magro che aveva cercato di spiegarlo anche lui, senza essere qualificato e ordinato, stava drizzando le orecchie in un recinto vuoto nelle vicinanze, e guardava con occhi affamati il suo vicino sacerdote.

Il vecchio e il bambino lasciarono il sentiero ghiaioso e si aggirarono tra le tombe; perché lì il terreno era soffice e facile per i loro piedi stanchi. Mentre passavano dietro la chiesa, udirono delle voci vicine e, poco dopo, incontrarono coloro che avevano parlato.

Erano due uomini seduti in posa rilassata sull’erba, così intenti a ciò che facevano da non accorgersi all’inizio degli intrusi. Non era difficile intuire che fossero di quei venditori ambulanti di spettacoli, esibitori delle prodezze di Punch, poiché, appollaiata a gambe incrociate su una lapide dietro di loro, c’era una figura di quel eroe stesso, il naso e il mento altrettanto adunco e il volto altrettanto raggiante del solito. Forse il suo carattere imperturbabile non era mai stato più evidente, poiché manteneva il suo solito sorriso equabile nonostante il suo corpo fosse appeso in una posizione estremamente scomoda, tutto molle e informe, mentre il suo lungo cappello a punta, bilanciato in modo disuguale contro le sue gambe estremamente sottili, minacciava di farlo cadere da un momento all’altro.

In parte sparsi a terra ai piedi dei due uomini, e in parte ammassati insieme in una lunga scatola piatta, c’erano gli altri personaggi del Dramma. La moglie dell’eroe e un bambino, il cavallo di legno, il dottore, il gentiluomo straniero che, non essendo familiare con la lingua, durante la rappresentazione non riesce a esprimere le sue idee se non pronunciando la parola “Shallabalah” tre volte distintamente, il vicino radicale che non ammette assolutamente che una campana di latta sia un organo, il boia e il diavolo, erano tutti lì. I loro proprietari erano evidentemente venuti in quel posto per fare alcune riparazioni necessarie agli allestimenti scenici, poiché uno di loro era impegnato a legare insieme una piccola forca con del filo, mentre l’altro era intento a fissare una nuova parrucca nera, con l’aiuto di un piccolo martello e alcuni chiodini, sulla testa del vicino radicale, che era stato rasato a zero.

Alzavano gli occhi quando il vecchio e il suo giovane compagno si avvicinavano, e, interrompendo il loro lavoro, restituivano i loro sguardi curiosi. Uno di loro, l’espositore vero e proprio senza dubbio, era un uomino di piccola statura dal viso allegra e gli occhi scintillanti e il naso rosso, che sembrava aver assimilato inconsciamente qualcosa del carattere del suo eroe. L’altro, quello che incassava i soldi, aveva un’aria piuttosto attenta e cauta, che forse era inseparabile anche dalla sua occupazione.

L’uomo allegro fu il primo a salutare gli sconosciuti con un cenno del capo; e seguendo lo sguardo dell’anziano, osservò che forse quella era la prima volta che vedeva un Punch fuori dal palcoscenico. (Punch, si può notare, sembrava indicare con la punta del suo cappello una lapide molto fiorita, e ridacchiava di gusto.)

«Perché venite qui a fare questo?» disse il vecchio, sedendosi accanto a loro e guardando le figure con estremo piacere.

«Vedete,» rispose l’omino «stiamo per passare la notte presso la taverna laggiù, e non sarebbe bello far vedere alla gente che la compagnia presente è in riparazione.»

“No!” esclamò il vecchio, facendo segno a Nell di ascoltare, “perché no, eh? perché no?”

«Perché distruggerebbe tutta l’illusione e toglierebbe tutto l’interesse, no?» rispose l’omino. «Vi importerebbe un baiocco del Lord Cancelliere se lo conosceste in privato e senza parrucca? — certamente no.»

«Bene!» disse il vecchio, osando toccare una delle marionette e ritraendo la mano con una risata acuta. «Le mostrerai stasera? le mostrerai?»

«Questo è l’intenzione, governatore», rispose l’altro, «e a meno che non mi sbagli di grosso, Tommy Codlin sta calcolando proprio in questo momento quanto abbiamo perso a causa del tuo arrivo. Coraggio, Tommy, non può essere molto.»

L’omino accompagnò queste ultime parole con un ammiccamento, espressivo della stima che aveva formato sulle finanze dei viaggiatori.

A queste parole, il signor Codlin, che aveva un modo di fare burbero e brontolone, rispose, mentre strappava Punch dalla lapide e lo gettava nella scatola: «Non mi importa se non abbiamo perso un farden, ma sei troppo libero. Se stessi davanti al sipario e vedessi le facce del pubblico come faccio io, conosceresti meglio la natura umana».

«Ah! È stato il viziarti, Tommy, il fatto che tu abbia scelto quel ramo», replicò il suo compagno. «Quando interpretavi lo spettro nella regolare rappresentazione drammatica nelle fiere, credevi in tutto — tranne negli spettri. Ma ora sei un universale sospettoso. Non ho mai visto un uomo così cambiato».

«Non importa», disse il signor Codlin, con l’aria di un filosofo insoddisfatto. «Ora lo so meglio, e forse me ne pento.»

Girando le figurine nella scatola come uno che le conosceva e le disprezzava, il signor Codlin ne tirò fuori una e la sollevò per la valutazione del suo amico:

‘Look here; here’s all this judy’s clothes falling to pieces again. You haven’t got a needle and thread I suppose?’

The little man shook his head, and scratched it ruefully as he contemplated this severe indisposition of a principal performer. Seeing that they were at a loss, the child said timidly:

‘I have a needle, Sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me try to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could.’

Even Mr Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable. Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task, and accomplishing it to a miracle.

While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with an interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced at her helpless companion. When she had finished her work he thanked her, and inquired whither they were travelling.

‘N—no further to-night, I think,’ said the child, looking towards her grandfather.

‘If you’re wanting a place to stop at,’ the man remarked, ‘I should advise you to take up at the same house with us. That’s it. The long, low, white house there. It’s very cheap.’

The old man, notwithstanding his fatigue, would have remained in the churchyard all night if his new acquaintances had remained there too. As he yielded to this suggestion a ready and rapturous assent, they all rose and walked away together; he keeping close to the box of puppets in which he was quite absorbed, the merry little man carrying it slung over his arm by a strap attached to it for the purpose, Nelly having hold of her grandfather’s hand, and Mr Codlin sauntering slowly behind, casting up at the church tower and neighbouring trees such looks as he was accustomed in town-practice to direct to drawing-room and nursery windows, when seeking for a profitable spot on which to plant the show.

The public-house was kept by a fat old landlord and landlady who made no objection to receiving their new guests, but praised Nelly’s beauty and were at once prepossessed in her behalf. There was no other company in the kitchen but the two showmen, and the child felt very thankful that they had fallen upon such good quarters. The landlady was very much astonished to learn that they had come all the way from London, and appeared to have no little curiosity touching their farther destination. The child parried her inquiries as well as she could, and with no great trouble, for finding that they appeared to give her pain, the old lady desisted.

‘These two gentlemen have ordered supper in an hour’s time,’ she said, taking her into the bar; ‘and your best plan will be to sup with them. Meanwhile you shall have a little taste of something that’ll do you good, for I’m sure you must want it after all you’ve gone through to-day. Now, don’t look after the old gentleman, because when you’ve drank that, he shall have some too.’

As nothing could induce the child to leave him alone, however, or to touch anything in which he was not the first and greatest sharer, the old lady was obliged to help him first. When they had been thus refreshed, the whole house hurried away into an empty stable where the show stood, and where, by the light of a few flaring candles stuck round a hoop which hung by a line from the ceiling, it was to be forthwith exhibited.

And now Mr Thomas Codlin, the misanthrope, after blowing away at the Pan’s pipes until he was intensely wretched, took his station on one side of the checked drapery 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 dismal feint of being his most intimate private friend, of believing in him to the fullest and most unlimited extent, of knowing that he enjoyed day and night a merry and glorious existence in that temple, and that he was at all times and under every circumstance the same intelligent and joyful person that the spectators then beheld him. All this Mr Codlin did with the air of a man who had made up his mind for the worst and was quite resigned; his eye slowly wandering about during the briskest repartee to observe the effect upon the audience, and particularly the impression made upon the landlord and landlady, which might be productive of very important results in connexion with the supper.

Upon this head, however, he had no cause for any anxiety, for the whole performance was applauded to the echo, and voluntary contributions 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 participation 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 friend said; and it was not until they retired yawning to their room, that he followed the child up stairs.

It was but a loft partitioned into two compartments, where they were to rest, but they were well pleased with their lodging and had hoped for none so good. The old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many nights. She hastened to him, and sat there till he slept.

There was a little window, hardly more than a chink in the wall, in her room, and when she left him, she opened it, quite wondering at the silence. The sight of the old church, and the graves about it in the moonlight, and the dark trees whispering among themselves, made her more thoughtful than before. She closed the window again, and sitting down upon the bed, thought of the life that was before them.

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 an emergency might come when its worth to them would be increased a hundred fold. It would be best to hide this coin, and never produce it unless their case was absolutely desperate, and no other resource 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.

«Guarda qui; ecco che tutti i vestiti di questa bambola si stanno di nuovo sfasciando. Non hai un ago e filo, immagino?»

L’omino scosse la testa e se la grattò con aria afflitta mentre contemplava questa grave indisposizione di un attore protagonista. Vedendo che erano in difficoltà, il bambino disse timidamente:

«Ho un ago, signore, nel mio cesto, e anche del filo. Mi permette di provare a ripararlo per lei? Penso che potrei farlo meglio di lei.»

Anche il signor Codlin non aveva nulla da obiettare a una proposta così opportuna. Nelly, inginocchiata accanto alla scatola, si mise presto alacremente al lavoro, e lo portò a termine in modo miracoloso.

Mentre era così impegnata, l’omino allegro la guardava con un interesse che non sembrava diminuire quando lanciava un’occhiata al suo indifeso compagno. Quando ebbe finito il suo lavoro, la ringraziò e chiese loro dove fossero diretti.

«N—non più questa sera, credo», disse la bambina, guardando verso suo nonno.

«Se cercate un posto dove fermarvi», osservò l’uomo, «vi consiglierei di alloggiare nella stessa casa con noi. Quella è. La lunga, bassa, bianca casa laggiù. È molto economica.»

Nonostante la fatica, il vecchio sarebbe rimasto nel cimitero tutta notte se i suoi nuovi conoscenti fossero rimasti anche loro. Poiché accettò questa proposta con un pronto e rapito assenso, tutti si alzarono e se ne andarono insieme; lui rimase vicino alla scatola dei burattini, che lo assorbiva completamente, il gioviale omino la portava a tracolla su un braccio con una cinghia attaccata allo scopo, Nelly teneva la mano di suo nonno, e il signor Codlin si aggirava lentamente dietro, gettando al campanile della chiesa e agli alberi vicini sguardi simili a quelli che era solito rivolgere in città alle finestre del salotto e della nursery, quando cercava un posto redditizio su cui piantare lo spettacolo.

La taverna era gestita da un vecchio locandiere e locandiera grassi che non fecero obiezioni a ricevere i loro nuovi ospiti, ma lodarono la bellezza di Nelly e si mostrarono subito ben disposti nei suoi confronti. Non c’era altra compagnia in cucina se non i due artisti itineranti, e il bambino si sentì molto grato per essere capitato in un posto così accogliente. La locandiera fu molto sorpresa di apprendere che erano venuti fin da Londra, e sembrava avere una certa curiosità riguardo alla loro destinazione successiva. Il bambino eluse le sue domande nel modo più abile possibile, e senza grandi difficoltà, perché, vedendo che sembravano causarle dolore, la vecchia signora desistette.

«Questi due signori hanno ordinato la cena tra un’ora», disse, portandola al bar; «e il tuo piano migliore sarà cenare con loro. Nel frattempo ti darò un assaggio di qualcosa che ti farà bene, perché sono sicura che ne hai bisogno dopo tutto quello che hai passato oggi. Ora, non guardare il vecchio signore, perché quando avrai bevuto questo, ne avrà anche lui».

Poiché nulla poteva indurre il bambino a lasciarlo solo, tuttavia, o a toccare qualcosa in cui lui non fosse il primo e il più grande partecipe, la vecchia signora fu costretta ad aiutarlo per prima. Quando furono così riposati, tutta la casa si affrettò verso una stalla vuota dove lo spettacolo era in corso, e dove, alla luce di alcune candele fiammeggianti infisse intorno a un cerchio appeso a una corda dal soffitto, doveva essere esposto immediatamente.

E ora il signor Thomas Codlin, il misantropo, dopo aver suonato il flauto di Pan fino a sentirsi intensamente infelice, prese posto su un lato della draperia a quadri che nascondeva il burattinaio, e mettendo le mani in tasca si preparò a rispondere a tutte le domande e le osservazioni di Punch, e a fare una triste finzione di essere il suo più intimo amico, di credere in lui nel modo più pieno e illimitato, di sapere che egli godeva di giorno e di notte di un’esistenza allegra e gloriosa in quel tempio, e che egli era in ogni momento e in ogni circostanza la stessa persona intelligente e gioiosa che gli spettatori vedevano allora. Tutto ciò il signor Codlin fece con l’aria di un uomo che si era preparato al peggio e che era del tutto rassegnato; il suo sguardo vagava lentamente intorno durante la più vivace battuta per osservare l’effetto sul pubblico, e in particolare l’impressione fatta sul locandiere e sulla locandiera, che poteva produrre risultati molto importanti in relazione alla cena.

Su questo punto, tuttavia, non aveva motivo di preoccuparsi, poiché l’intera rappresentazione fu applaudita a crepapelle e le offerte volontarie piovvero con una generosità che testimoniava ancora più fortemente la gioia generale. Tra le risate, nessuna era più forte e frequente di quella del vecchio. Quella di Nell non si sentiva, perché lei, povera bambina, con la testa che le pendeva sulla sua spalla, si era addormentata e dormiva troppo profondamente per essere svegliata da qualsiasi suo tentativo di coinvolgerla nella sua allegria.

La cena era ottima, ma lei era troppo stanca per mangiare, eppure non voleva lasciare il vecchio finché non lo avesse baciato a letto. Lui, felice di non provare alcuna preoccupazione o ansia, sedeva ascoltando con un sorriso assente e un’espressione ammirata tutto ciò che il suo nuovo amico diceva; e fu solo quando si ritirarono sbadigliando nella loro stanza che seguì la bambina al piano di sopra.

Era solo un sottotetto diviso in due vani, dove avrebbero dovuto riposare, ma erano ben contenti del loro alloggio e non si aspettavano nulla di così buono. Il vecchio era inquieto quando si era coricato, e chiese che Nell venisse a sedergli accanto come aveva fatto per tante notti. Lei si affrettò da lui, e rimase lì fino a quando non si addormentò.

C’era una piccola finestra, a malapena una fessura nel muro, nella sua stanza, e quando lo lasciò, la aprì, stupendosi del silenzio. La vista della vecchia chiesa, e delle tombe intorno ad essa alla luce della luna, e degli alberi scuri che sussurravano tra loro, la rese più pensierosa di prima. Richiuse la finestra, e sedendosi sul letto, pensò alla vita che li attendeva.

Aveva un po’ di denaro, ma era davvero poco, e quando fosse finito avrebbero dovuto cominciare a chiedere l’elemosina. C’era una moneta d’oro, e poteva arrivare un’emergenza in cui il suo valore per loro sarebbe aumentato cento volte. Era meglio nascondere questa moneta e non tirarla fuori se non in caso di disperazione assoluta, senza altra risorsa a disposizione.

Preso il suo proposito, cucì il pezzo d’oro nel suo vestito, e andandosi a letto con un cuore più leggero, cadde in un profondo sonno.

CHAPTER 17

Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and claiming fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her. At sight of the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she started up in alarm, wondering how she had been moved from the familiar chamber in which she seemed to have fallen asleep last night, and whither she had been conveyed. But, another glance around called to her mind all that had lately passed, and she sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.

It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked out into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with her feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer than in others, that she might not tread upon the graves. She felt a curious kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the dead, and read the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a great number of good people were buried there), passing on from one to another with increasing interest.

It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the air. First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as it swung and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance as it would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but talking to himself. Another answered, and he called again, but louder than before; then another spoke and then another; and each time the first, aggravated by contradiction, insisted on his case more strongly. Other voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs lower down and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and from the tree-tops; and others, arriving hastily from the grey church turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamour which rose and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and lighting on fresh branches, and frequent change of place, which satirised the old restlessness of those who lay so still beneath the moss and turf below, and the strife in which they had worn away their lives.

Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came down, and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than perfect silence would have done, the child loitered from grave to grave, now stopping to replace with careful hands the bramble which had started from some green mound it helped to keep in shape, and now peeping through one of the low latticed windows into the church, with its worm-eaten books upon the desks, and baize of whitened-green mouldering from the pew sides and leaving the naked wood to view. There were the seats where the poor old people sat, worn spare, and yellow like themselves; the rugged font where children had their names, the homely altar where they knelt in after life, the plain black tressels that bore their weight on their last visit to the cool old shady church. Everything told of long use and quiet slow decay; the very bell-rope in the porch was frayed into a fringe, and hoary with old age.

She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had died at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she heard a faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble woman bent with the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of that same grave and asked her to read the writing on the stone. The old woman thanked her when she had done, saying that she had had the words by heart for many a long, long year, but could not see them now.

‘Were you his mother?’ said the child.

‘I was his wife, my dear.’

She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty! Ah, true! It was fifty-five years ago.

‘You wonder to hear me say that,’ remarked the old woman, shaking her head. ‘You’re not the first. Older folk than you have wondered at the same thing before now. Yes, I was his wife. Death doesn’t change us more than life, my dear.’

‘Do you come here often?’ asked the child.

‘I sit here very often in the summer time,’ she answered, ‘I used to come here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago, bless God!’

‘I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,’ said the old woman after a short silence. ‘I like no flowers so well as these, and haven’t for five-and-fifty years. It’s a long time, and I’m getting very old.’

Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener though it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and moaned and prayed to die herself, when this happened; and how when she first came to that place, a young creature strong in love and grief, she had hoped that her heart was breaking as it seemed to be. But that time passed by, and although she continued to be sad when she came there, still she could bear to come, and so went on until it was pain no longer, but a solemn pleasure, and a duty she had learned to like. And now that five-and-fifty years were gone, she spoke of the dead man as if he had been her son or grandson, with a kind of pity for his youth, growing out of her own old age, and an exalting of his strength and manly beauty as compared with her own weakness and decay; and yet she spoke about him as her husband too, and thinking of herself in connexion with him, as she used to be and not as she was now, talked of their meeting in another world, as if he were dead but yesterday, and she, separated from her former self, were thinking of the happiness of that comely girl who seemed to have died with him.

The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave, and thoughtfully retraced her steps.

CAPITOLO 17

Un altro giorno luminoso che splendeva attraverso la piccola finestra e reclamava la compagnia degli occhi affini del bambino la svegliò. Al vedere la stanza strana e i suoi oggetti insoliti, si alzò di scatto, allarmata, chiedendosi come fosse stata trasferita dalla camera familiare in cui sembrava essersi addormentata la scorsa notte, e dove fosse stata portata. Ma un altro sguardo intorno le fece ricordare tutto ciò che era accaduto di recente, e lei balzò dal letto, speranzosa e fiduciosa.

Era ancora presto, e il vecchio dormiva ancora, così lei uscì nel cimitero, spazzando la rugiada dall’erba alta con i piedi, e spesso si deviava in luoghi dove cresceva più alta che in altri, per non calpestare le tombe. Prova una strana specie di piacere nel soffermarsi tra queste case dei morti, e legge le iscrizioni sulle tombe delle brave persone (erano sepolte lì un gran numero di brave persone), passando da una all’altra con crescente interesse.

Era un luogo molto tranquillo, come dovrebbe essere un luogo del genere, a parte il gracchiare dei corvi che avevano costruito i loro nidi tra i rami di alcuni vecchi alberi alti, e si chiamavano l’un l’altro, in alto nel cielo. Prima, un uccello lucido, che volteggiava vicino alla sua malandata casa mentre oscillava e penzolava nel vento, emetteva il suo grido rauco, del tutto per caso, come sembrava, e in un tono sobrio come se stesse solo parlando con se stesso. Un altro rispondeva, e lui chiamava di nuovo, ma più forte di prima; poi un altro parlava e poi un altro ancora; e ogni volta il primo, esacerbato dalla contraddizione, insisteva sulla sua posizione più energicamente. Altre voci, silenziose fino ad ora, si univano da rami più in basso e più in alto e a metà strada, e a destra e a sinistra, e dalle cime degli alberi; e altri, arrivando affrettatamente dai grigi campanili della chiesa e dalla vecchia finestra del campanile, si univano al clamore che saliva e scendeva, e si gonfiava e cadeva di nuovo, e continuava ancora; e tutta questa rumorosa contesa in mezzo a un volo avanti e indietro, e atterrando su nuovi rami, e frequenti cambi di posto, che satirizzavano l’antica irrequietezza di coloro che giacevano così immobili sotto il muschio e la terra sottostante, e la lotta in cui avevano consumato le loro vite.

Spesso alzava gli occhi verso gli alberi da cui provenivano quei suoni, e sentiva che rendevano il luogo più tranquillo di quanto non lo sarebbe stato il perfetto silenzio, e così la bambina si soffermava da una tomba all’altra, ora fermandosi per ricollocare con cura la rovo che si era staccata da qualche tumulo verde che aiutava a mantenere in forma, ora sbirciando attraverso una delle basse finestre a grata nella chiesa, con i suoi libri mangiati dai tarli sui banchi, e il feltro di muffa verde-biancastra che si staccava dai lati dei banchi, lasciando a vista il legno nudo. C’erano i posti dove sedevano i poveri vecchi, consumati e gialli come loro; la robusta fonte battesimale dove i bambini ricevevano il loro nome, l’altare semplice dove si inginocchiavano nella vita adulta, i semplici cavalletti neri che sostenevano il loro peso durante l’ultima visita alla fresca e ombrosa chiesa vecchia. Tutto raccontava di lungo uso e lento declino; la stessa corda della campana nel portico era consumata a frange, e canuta per l’età avanzata.

Stava guardando una pietra modesta che raccontava di un giovane morto a ventitré anni, cinquantacinque anni prima, quando udì avvicinarsi un passo incerto e, voltandosi, vide una donna fragile, curva sotto il peso degli anni, che barcollava fino al piede di quella stessa tomba e le chiese di leggere l’iscrizione sulla pietra. La vecchia la ringraziò quando ebbe finito, dicendo che aveva a memoria quelle parole da tanti, tanti anni, ma ora non riusciva più a vederle.

«Era sua madre?» disse il bambino.

‘Ero sua moglie, mia cara.’

Era la moglie di un giovane di ventitré anni! Ah, è vero! Era avvenuto cinquantacinque anni prima.

«Ti meravigli di sentirmi dire questo», osservò la vecchia, scuotendo la testa. «Non sei il primo. Persone più anziane di te si sono meravigliate della stessa cosa in passato. Sì, ero sua moglie. La morte non ci cambia più della vita, mia cara.»

«Viene spesso qui?» chiese il bambino.

«Mi siedo qui spesso in estate», rispose, «venivo qui una volta a piangere e a lamentarmi, ma è passato tanto tempo, grazie a Dio!»

«Colgo i margherite mentre crescono e le porto a casa», disse la vecchia donna dopo un breve silenzio. «Non mi piacciono altri fiori così tanto quanto questi, e non mi piacciono da cinquantacinque anni. È un lungo periodo, e sto diventando molto vecchia.»

Poi, diventando loquace su un tema che era nuovo per un’ascoltatrice, anche se non era che una bambina, le raccontò come avesse pianto e gemuto e pregato di morire lei stessa, quando ciò accadde; e come, quando arrivò per la prima volta in quel luogo, una giovane creatura forte nell’amore e nel dolore, avesse sperato che il suo cuore si stesse spezzando come sembrava. Ma quel tempo passò, e sebbene continuasse a essere triste quando andava lì, riusciva comunque a sopportarlo, e così proseguì finché non fu più dolore, ma un piacere solenne, e un dovere che aveva imparato ad amare. E ora che erano passati cinquantacinque anni, parlava dell’uomo defunto come se fosse stato suo figlio o nipote, con una sorta di pietà per la sua giovinezza, derivante dalla sua stessa vecchiaia, e un’esaltazione della sua forza e della sua virile bellezza rispetto alla sua debolezza e al suo declino; eppure parlava di lui anche come di suo marito, e pensando a se stessa in connessione con lui, come era solita essere e non come era ora, parlava del loro incontro in un altro mondo, come se fosse morto solo ieri, e lei, separata dal suo precedente io, stesse pensando alla felicità di quella graziosa ragazza che sembrava essere morta con lui.

La bambina la lasciò raccogliendo i fiori che crescevano sulla tomba, e riflettendo tornò sui suoi passi.

The old man was by this time up and dressed. Mr Codlin, still doomed to contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing among his linen the candle-ends which had been saved from the previous night’s performance; while his companion received the compliments of all the loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to separate him from the master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in importance to that merry outlaw, and loved him scarcely less. When he had sufficiently acknowledged his popularity he came in to breakfast, at which meal they all sat down together.

‘And where are you going to-day?’ said the little man, addressing himself to Nell.

‘Indeed I hardly know—we have not determined 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 shan’t trouble you.’

‘We’ll go with you,’ said the old man. ‘Nell—with them, with them.’

The child considered for a moment, and reflecting 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 assembled together for purposes of enjoyment and festivity, determined to accompany these men so far. She therefore thanked the little man for his offer, and said, glancing timidly towards his friend, that if there was no objection to their accompanying them as far as the race town—

‘Objection!’ said the little man. ‘Now be gracious for once, Tommy, and say that you’d rather they went with us. I know you would. Be gracious, Tommy.’

‘Trotters,’ said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very greedily, as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes; ‘you’re too free.’

‘Why what harm can it do?’ urged the other.

‘No harm at all in this particular case, perhaps,’ replied Mr Codlin; ‘but the principle’s a dangerous one, and you’re too free I tell you.’

‘Well, are they to go with us or not?’

‘Yes, they are,’ said Mr Codlin; ‘but you might have made a favour of it, mightn’t you?’

The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually merged into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the prefatory adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason of the small size of his legs. Short Trotters however, being a compound name, inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, the gentleman on whom it had been bestowed was known among his intimates either as ‘Short,’ or ‘Trotters,’ and was seldom accosted at full length as Short Trotters, except in formal conversations and on occasions of ceremony.

Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer calculated to turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with great relish to the cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and butter, strongly impressed upon his companions that they should do the like. Mr Codlin indeed required no such persuasion, as he had already eaten as much as he could possibly carry and was now moistening his clay with strong ale, whereof he took deep draughts with a silent relish and invited nobody to partake—thus again strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of mind.

Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and charging the ale to the company generally (a practice also savouring of misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and equal parts, assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the other to Nelly and her grandfather. These being duly discharged and all things ready for their departure, they took farewell of the landlord and landlady and resumed their journey.

And here Mr Codlin’s false position in society and the effect it wrought upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for whereas he had been last night accosted by Mr Punch as ‘master,’ and had by inference left the audience to understand that he maintained that individual for his own luxurious entertainment and delight, here he was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of that same Punch’s temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders on a sultry day and along a dusty road. In place of enlivening his patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and acquaintance, here was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck, and not one of his social qualities remaining.

Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally. Short led the way; with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not extensive) tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his shoulder-blade. Nell and her grandfather walked next him on either hand, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear.

When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house of good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and carolled a fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to Punches and their consorts. If people hurried to the windows, Mr Codlin pitched the temple, and hastily unfurling the drapery and concealing Short therewith, flourished hysterically on the pipes and performed an air. Then the entertainment began as soon as might be; Mr Codlin having the responsibility of deciding on its length and of protracting or expediting the time for the hero’s final triumph over the enemy of mankind, according as he judged that the after-crop of half-pence would be plentiful or scant. When it had been gathered in to the last farthing, he resumed his load and on they went again.

Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and once exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the collector, being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to have it to himself. There was one small place of rich promise in which their hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the play having gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling wooden-headed fellow was held to be a libel on the beadle, for which reason the authorities enforced a quick retreat; but they were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a troop of ragged children shouting at their heels.

Il vecchio si era alzato e vestito entro quel momento. Il signor Codlin, ancora condannato a contemplare le dure realtà dell’esistenza, stava mettendo tra la sua biancheria i mozziconi di candela che erano stati salvati dalla rappresentazione della sera precedente; mentre il suo compagno riceveva i complimenti di tutti i oziosi nel cortile della scuderia, che, incapaci di separarlo dalla mente geniale di Punch, lo consideravano il secondo in importanza dopo quel gaio fuorilegge, e lo amavano quasi altrettanto. Quando ebbe riconosciuto sufficientemente la sua popolarità, entrò a fare colazione, pasto al quale si sedettero tutti insieme.

«E dove andate oggi?» disse l’omino, rivolgendosi a Nell.

«In verità non lo so quasi — non abbiamo ancora deciso», rispose il bambino.

«Stiamo andando alle corse», disse l’omino. «Se è la tua strada e ti piace averci come compagni, viaggiamo insieme. Se preferisci andare da solo, basta che lo dica e vedrai che non ti daremo noia».

«Verremo con te», disse il vecchio. «Nell, con loro, con loro.»

La bambina rifletté per un momento, e considerando che avrebbe dovuto chiedere l’elemosina a breve, e che difficilmente avrebbe potuto farlo in un posto migliore di quello dove si erano radunate folle di ricche signore e signori per godersi la festa, decise di accompagnare quegli uomini fino a quel punto. Per questo ringraziò l’omino per la sua offerta e disse, lanciando uno sguardo timido verso il suo amico, che se non ci fossero state obiezioni, li avrebbero accompagnati fino alla città delle corse —

«Obiezione!» disse l’omino. «Ora, per una volta, sii gentile, Tommy, e di’ che preferiresti che venissero con noi. So che lo vorresti. Sii gentile, Tommy.»

«Trotters», disse il signor Codlin, che parlava molto lentamente e mangiava con grande avidità, come non è raro tra i filosofi e i misantropi, «sei troppo libero».

«Ma quale danno può mai fare?» insistette l’altro.

«Forse in questo caso particolare non c’è alcun danno», rispose il signor Codlin, «ma il principio è pericoloso, e lei è troppo libero, glielo dico io.»

«Bene, vengono con noi o no?»

“Sì, lo sono”, disse il signor Codlin; “ma avresti potuto fare un favore, no?”

Il vero nome del piccolo uomo era Harris, ma si era gradualmente fuso in quello meno armonioso di Trotters, che, con l’aggettivo introduttivo Short, gli era stato conferito a motivo delle piccole dimensioni delle sue gambe. Tuttavia Short Trotters, essendo un nome composto, incomodo da usare nel dialogo amichevole, il gentiluomo a cui era stato conferito era conosciuto tra i suoi intimi o come «Short» o come «Trotters», e raramente veniva apostrofato per intero come Short Trotters, salvo in conversazioni formali e in occasioni di cerimonia.

Short, o Trotters, come preferisce il lettore, rispose con una battuta alla remonstranza del suo amico Mr Thomas Codlin, una battuta calcolata per distogliere il suo malcontento; e dedicandosi con grande gusto alla carne bollita fredda, al tè e al pane burro, insistette fortemente presso i suoi compagni che facessero altrettanto. Mr Codlin non aveva bisogno di alcuna persuasione, in quanto aveva già mangiato quanto poteva portare e ora stava bagnando il suo pane con birra forte, di cui prendeva lunghi sorsi con gusto silenzioso e non invitava nessuno a partecipare, indicando così ancora una volta la sua tendenza misantropica.

La colazione essendo finalmente terminata, il signor Codlin chiese il conto e, addebitando la birra all’intero gruppo (un’usanza che sapeva anch’essa di misanthropia), divise la somma totale in due parti giuste ed uguali, assegnando una metà a sé stesso e al suo amico, e l’altra a Nelly e a suo nonno. Queste essendo state debitamente saldate e tutto essendo pronto per la loro partenza, si congedarono dal padrone e dalla padrona di casa e ripresero il loro viaggio.

E qui la falsa posizione sociale di Mr Codlin e l’effetto che aveva esercitato sul suo spirito ferito, furono fortemente illustrati; poiché mentre la sera prima era stato apostrofato da Mr Punch come ‘padrone’ e aveva per deduzione lasciato intendere al pubblico che manteneva quell’ individuo per il proprio lussuoso divertimento e diletto, eccolo ora camminare dolorosamente sotto il peso del tempio di quel Punch, portandolo fisicamente sulle spalle in una giornata afosa e lungo una polverosa strada. Invece di animare il suo mecenate con un costante fuoco di arguzia o il rallegrante crepitio del suo bastone da quarto sulle teste dei suoi parenti e conoscenti, ecco che quel radioso Punch era del tutto privo di spina dorsale, tutto molle e cadente in una scatola scura, con le gambe ripiegate intorno al collo, e senza più una delle sue qualità sociali.

Il signor Codlin proseguiva faticosamente, scambiando di tanto in tanto qualche parola con Short e fermandosi di quando in quando a riposare e a brontolare. Short apriva la strada; con la scatola piatta, il bagaglio personale (che non era molto) legato in un fagotto, e una tromba di ottone appesa alla spalla. Nell e suo nonno camminavano accanto a lui, uno per lato, e Thomas Codlin chiudeva la fila.

Quando giungevano in una città o in un villaggio, o anche solo presso una casa isolata di buon aspetto, Short suonava un colpo di tromba di bronzo e intonava un frammento di canzone con quel tono esilarante tipico dei Punch e dei loro consorti. Se la gente accorreva alle finestre, il signor Codlin montava il tempio, srotolava in fretta la drappeggiatura e nascondeva Short al suo interno, agitando istericamente le canne e suonando un motivo. Poi lo spettacolo iniziava il prima possibile; al signor Codlin spettava la responsabilità di decidere la sua durata e di prolungare o accelerare il tempo per il trionfo finale dell’eroe sul nemico dell’umanità, a seconda che giudicasse la raccolta di mezzi penny abbondante o scarsa. Quando l’ultima moneta era stata raccolta, riprendeva il suo carico e ripartivano.

A volte rappresentavano la pedagoga su un ponte o un traghetto, e una volta, spinti da un particolare desiderio, in una barriera, dove il riscuotitore, ubriaco nella sua solitudine, pagò uno scellino per averla tutta per sé. C’era un piccolo luogo di ricca promessa in cui le loro speranze furono deluse, perché un personaggio preferito nella rappresentazione, avendo pizzo d’oro sulla giacca e essendo un tipo ficcanaso e testa di legno, fu considerato una libello contro l’usciere, per il quale motivo le autorità imposero una rapida ritirata; ma erano generalmente ben accolti, e raramente lasciavano una città senza un gruppo di bambini straccioni che gridavano alle loro calcagna.

They made a long day’s journey, despite these interruptions, and were yet upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky. Short beguiled the time with songs and jests, and made the best of everything that happened. Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his fate, and all the hollow things of earth (but Punch especially), and limped along with the theatre on his back, a prey to the bitterest chagrin.

They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads met, and Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery and seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal eyes and disdainful of the company of his fellow creatures, when two monstrous shadows were seen stalking towards them from a turning in the road by which they had come. The child was at first quite terrified by the sight of these gaunt giants—for such they looked as they advanced with lofty strides beneath the shadow of the trees—but Short, telling her there was nothing to fear, blew a blast upon the trumpet, which was answered by a cheerful shout.

‘It’s Grinder’s lot, an’t it?’ cried Mr Short in a loud key.

‘Yes,’ replied a couple of shrill voices.

‘Come on then,’ said Short. ‘Let’s have a look at you. I thought it was you.’

Thus invited, ‘Grinder’s lot’ approached with redoubled speed and soon came up with the little party.

Mr Grinder’s company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who used his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his back a drum. The public costume of the young people was of the Highland kind, but the night being damp and cold, the young gentleman wore over his kilt a man’s pea jacket reaching to his ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was muffled in an old cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her head. Their Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr Grinder carried on his instrument.

‘Bound for the races, I see,’ said Mr Grinder coming up out of breath. ‘So are we. How are you, Short?’ With that they shook hands in a very friendly manner. The young people being too high up for the ordinary salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion. The young gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on the shoulder, and the young lady rattled her tambourine.

‘Practice?’ said Short, pointing to the stilts.

‘No,’ returned Grinder. ‘It comes either to walkin’ in ‘em or carryin’ of ‘em, and they like walkin’ in ‘em best. It’s wery pleasant for the prospects. Which road are you takin’? We go the nighest.’

‘Why, the fact is,’ said Short, ‘that we are going the longest way, because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on. But three or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and if you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.’

‘Where’s your partner?’ inquired Grinder.

‘Here he is,’ cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face in the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of countenance not often seen there; ‘and he’ll see his partner boiled alive before he’ll go on to-night. That’s what he says.’

‘Well, don’t say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted to something pleasanter,’ urged Short. ‘Respect associations, Tommy, even if you do cut up rough.’

‘Rough or smooth,’ said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of his legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to exhibit them to popular admiration, ‘rough or smooth, I won’t go further than the mile and a half to-night. I put up at the Jolly Sandboys and nowhere else. If you like to come there, come there. If you like to go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without me if you can.’

So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately presented himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at a jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility.

Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was fain to part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his morose companion. After lingering at the finger-post for a few minutes to see the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the bearer of the drum toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes upon the trumpet as a parting salute, and hastened with all speed to follow Mr Codlin. With this view he gave his unoccupied hand to Nell, and bidding her be of good cheer as they would soon be at the end of their journey for that night, and stimulating the old man with a similar assurance, led them at a pretty swift pace towards their destination, which he was the less unwilling to make for, as the moon was now overcast and the clouds were threatening rain.

Fecero un lungo viaggio di una giornata, nonostante queste interruzioni, e si trovavano ancora sulla strada quando la luna splendeva nel cielo. Short ingannò il tempo con canzoni e scherzi, e fece del suo meglio per tutto ciò che accadeva. D’altra parte, il signor Codlin imprecava contro il suo destino e tutte le cose vane della terra (ma soprattutto contro Punch), e zoppicava lungo la strada con il teatro sulle spalle, preda del più amaro dispiacere.

Si erano fermati a riposare sotto un indicatore stradale dove si incontravano quattro strade, e il signor Codlin, nella sua profonda misanthropia, aveva abbassato la drappeggiatura e si era seduto nella parte inferiore dello spettacolo, invisibile agli occhi mortali e disdegnoso della compagnia dei suoi simili, quando due ombre mostruose furono viste avvicinarsi a loro da una curva nella strada da cui erano venuti. Il bambino fu inizialmente completamente terrorizzato alla vista di questi magri giganti—perché così sembravano mentre avanzavano con passi maestosi sotto l’ombra degli alberi—ma Short, dicendole che non c’era nulla da temere, soffiò un colpo di tromba, che fu risposto da un grido allegro.

«È la sorte di Grinder, no?» gridò il signor Short a gran voce.

«Sì», risposero un paio di voci stridule.

“Avanti”, disse Short. “Fatti vedere. Pensavo fosse tu.”

Così invitati, “i ragazzi di Grinder” si avvicinarono con rinnovata velocità e presto raggiunsero il piccolo gruppo.

La compagnia del signor Grinder, chiamata affettuosamente “un gruppo”, era composta da un giovane signore e da una giovane signorina su dei cavalletti, e dallo stesso signor Grinder, che usava le sue gambe naturali per camminare e portava sulle spalle un tamburo. I costumi pubblici dei giovani erano di tipo highland, ma poiché la notte era umida e fredda, il giovane signore indossava sopra il suo kilt una giacca da uomo che gli arrivava alle caviglie e un cappello impermeabile; anche la giovane signorina era avvolta in un vecchio pastrano di lana e aveva un fazzoletto legato intorno alla testa. I loro cappelli scozzesi, ornati di piume nere come l’ebano, erano portati dal signor Grinder sul suo strumento.

«Direi che siete in partenza per le corse», disse il signor Grinder, che arrivava senza fiato. «Anche noi. Come va, Short?» E con ciò si strinsero la mano in modo molto amichevole. I giovani, che erano troppo in alto per i saluti ordinari, salutarono Short a modo loro. Il giovane signore piegò la sua gamba destra e gli diede una pacca sulla spalla, mentre la giovane signorina fece tintinnare il suo tamburello.

«Pratica?» disse Short, indicando le pertiche.

‘No,’ rispose Grinder. ‘Si tratta o di camminarci dentro o di portarle, e a loro piace di più camminarci dentro. È molto piacevole per le vedute. Quale strada prendi? Noi andiamo per la più vicina.’

«Il fatto è,» disse Short, «che stiamo facendo la strada più lunga, perché così potremmo fermarci per la notte, a un miglio e mezzo da qui. Ma tre o quattro miglia guadagnate stasera sono altrettante risparmiate domani, e se continuiamo, credo che la cosa migliore sia fare lo stesso.»

«Dov’è il suo socio?» chiese Grinder.

«Eccolo qui», gridò il signor Thomas Codlin, presentando la sua testa e il suo viso nel proscenio del palcoscenico, e mostrando un’espressione del volto non spesso vista lì; «e vedrà il suo socio bollire vivo prima di andare avanti fino a stasera. Questo è quello che dice.»

«Beh, non dire cose del genere in un luogo che è dedicato a qualcosa di più piacevole», insistette Short. «Rispetta le associazioni, Tommy, anche se ti comporti in modo grossolano.»

«Rough or smooth», disse il signor Codlin, battendo la mano sul piccolo piedistallo dove Punch, quando improvvisamente colpito dalla simmetria delle sue gambe e dalla loro capacità di indossare calze di seta, è solito esporle all’ammirazione popolare, «rough or smooth, non andrò oltre il miglio e mezzo di-stasera. Mi fermo al Jolly Sandboys e nessun’altra parte. Se ti va di venire lì, vieni lì. Se ti va di andare avanti da solo, vai avanti da solo, e fatti senza di me se puoi».

Detto ciò, il signor Codlin scomparve dalla scena e immediatamente si presentò fuori dal teatro, se lo caricò sulle spalle con uno strattone e se ne andò con un’agilità davvero notevole.

Non essendo ormai possibile alcuna ulteriore controversia, Short fu ben contento di separarsi dal signor Grinder e dai suoi allievi e di seguire il suo compagno moroso. Dopo essersi trattenuto per qualche minuto al bivio per vedere i trampolini frugare nella luce della luna e il portatore del tamburo affannarsi lentamente dietro di loro, suonò qualche nota sulla tromba come saluto finale, e si affrettò con tutta velocità a seguire il signor Codlin. Con questo scopo diede la mano libera a Nell, e invitandola a stare di buon animo poiché presto sarebbero giunti alla fine del loro viaggio per quella notte, e incoraggiando l’anziano con una simile rassicurazione, li condusse a un passo piuttosto svelto verso la loro destinazione, che era meno riluttante a raggiungere, poiché la luna era ormai coperta e le nuvole minacciavano pioggia.

CHAPTER 18

The Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn of pretty ancient date, with a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed that day many indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race town, such as gipsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths and their appurtenances, itinerant showmen of various kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree, all wending their way in the same direction, Mr Codlin was fearful of finding the accommodations forestalled; this fear increasing as he diminished the distance between himself and the hostelry, he quickened his pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had to carry, maintained a round trot until he reached the threshold. Here he had the gratification of finding that his fears were without foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the door-post looking lazily at the rain, which had by this time begun to descend heavily, and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor boisterous shout, nor noisy chorus, gave note of company within.

‘All alone?’ said Mr Codlin, putting down his burden and wiping his forehead.

‘All alone as yet,’ rejoined the landlord, glancing at the sky, ‘but we shall have more company to-night I expect. Here one of you boys, carry that show into the barn. Make haste in out of the wet, Tom; when it came on to rain I told ‘em to make the fire up, and there’s a glorious blaze in the kitchen, I can tell you.’

Mr Codlin followed with a willing mind, and soon found that the landlord had not commended his preparations without good reason. A mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney with a cheerful sound, which a large iron cauldron, bubbling and simmering in the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell. There was a deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the landlord stirred the fire, sending the flames skipping and leaping up—when he took off the lid of the iron pot and there rushed out a savoury smell, while the bubbling sound grew deeper and more rich, and an unctuous steam came floating out, hanging in a delicious mist above their heads—when he did this, Mr Codlin’s heart was touched. He sat down in the chimney-corner and smiled.

Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as with a roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning that his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery, suffered the delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest. The glow of the fire was upon the landlord’s bald head, and upon his twinkling eye, and upon his watering mouth, and upon his pimpled face, and upon his round fat figure. Mr Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips, and said in a murmuring voice, ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord smacking his lips, ‘and cow-heel,’ smacking them again, ‘and bacon,’ smacking them once more, ‘and steak,’ smacking them for the fourth time, ‘and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy.’ Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.

‘At what time will it be ready?’ asked Mr Codlin faintly.

‘It’ll be done to a turn,’ said the landlord looking up to the clock—and the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and looked a clock for jolly Sandboys to consult—‘it’ll be done to a turn at twenty-two minutes before eleven.’

‘Then,’ said Mr Codlin, ‘fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don’t let nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time arrives.’

Nodding his approval of this decisive and manly course of procedure, the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it, applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire and getting at the bright places. This was soon done, and he handed it over to Mr Codlin with that creamy froth upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances attendant on mulled malt.

Greatly softened by this soothing beverage, Mr Codlin now bethought him of his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys that their arrival might be shortly looked for. The rain was rattling against the windows and pouring down in torrents, and such was Mr Codlin’s extreme amiability of mind, that he more than once expressed his earnest hope that they would not be so foolish as to get wet.

At length they arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a most miserable appearance, notwithstanding that Short had sheltered the child as well as he could under the skirts of his own coat, and they were nearly breathless from the haste they had made. But their steps were no sooner heard upon the road than the landlord, who had been at the outer door anxiously watching for their coming, rushed into the kitchen and took the cover off. The effect was electrical. They all came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping from their clothes upon the floor, and Short’s first remark was, ‘What a delicious smell!’

It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a cheerful fire, and in a bright room. They were furnished with slippers and such dry garments as the house or their own bundles afforded, and ensconcing themselves, as Mr Codlin had already done, in the warm chimney-corner, soon forgot their late troubles or only remembered them as enhancing the delights of the present time. Overpowered by the warmth and comfort and the fatigue they had undergone, Nelly and the old man had not long taken their seats here, when they fell asleep.

CAPITOLO 18

Il Jolly Sandboys era una piccola locanda di campagna di piuttosto antica data, con un’insegna che rappresentava tre Sandboys che aumentavano la loro allegria con altrettante brocche di birra e borse d’oro, che scricchiolava e oscillava sul suo palo sul lato opposto della strada. Poiché i viaggiatori avevano notato quel giorno molti segni che li avvicinavano sempre più alla città della corsa, come accampamenti di zingari, carri carichi di banchi da gioco e i loro accessori, esibitori itineranti di vario genere, e mendicanti e vagabondi di ogni tipo, tutti diretti nella stessa direzione, il signor Codlin temeva di trovare le sistemazioni prenotate; questa paura aumentava man mano che diminuiva la distanza tra lui e l’osteria, così accelerò il passo e, nonostante il peso che doveva trasportare, mantenne un trotto sostenuto fino a raggiungere la soglia. Qui ebbe la soddisfazione di scoprire che le sue paure erano infondate, poiché il padrone di casa era appoggiato al montante della porta, guardando pigramente la pioggia, che a quell’ora aveva iniziato a scendere pesantemente, e nessun tintinnio di campanello rotto, né grido rumoroso, né rumoroso coro, dava segno di compagnia all’interno.

«Tutto solo?», disse il signor Codlin, posando il suo carico e asciugandosi la fronte.

«Per ora siamo soli», rispose l’oste, guardando il cielo, «ma stasera aspetto altri ospiti. Ehi, uno di voi ragazzi, portate quella vetrina nel fienile. Sbrigati, Tom, e mettiti al riparo dalla pioggia; quando ha cominciato a piovere ho detto loro di accendere il fuoco, e posso assicurarvi che in cucina c’è un bel focolare.»

Il signor Codlin seguì con animo disposto e ben presto scoprì che l’oste non aveva elogiato i suoi preparativi senza buone ragioni. Un possente fuoco ardeva nel focolare e ruggiva su per l’ampia caminata con un suono allegro, al quale un grande calderone di ferro, ribollente e frusciante nel calore, prestava il suo piacevole contributo. C’era un profondo rossore rubizzo nella stanza, e quando l’oste smosse il fuoco, facendo danzare e saltellare le fiamme in alto—quando tolse il coperchio del calderone di ferro e ne uscì un profumo saporito, mentre il suono del ribollire diventava più profondo e ricco, e un vapore unctuoso veniva fuori fluttuando, sospeso in una deliziosa nebbia sopra le loro teste—quando fece questo, il cuore del signor Codlin fu toccato. Si sedette nell’angolo del caminetto e sorrise.

Il signor Codlin sedeva sorridente nell’angolo del caminetto, osservando il locandiere mentre, con uno sguardo birichino, teneva il coperchio in mano e, fingendo che ciò fosse necessario per il benessere del cibo, lasciava che il delizioso vapore solleticasse le narici del suo ospite. La luce del fuoco illuminava la testa calva del locandiere, il suo occhio scintillante, la sua bocca che si riempiva d’acqua, il suo viso pieno di brufoli e la sua figura rotonda e grassoccia. Il signor Codlin si passò la manica sulle labbra e disse con voce sommessa: «Che cos’è?»

«È uno stufato di trippa», disse l’oste leccandosi le labbra, «e zampa di bue», leccandosele di nuovo, «e pancetta», leccandosele ancora una volta, «e bistecca», leccandosele per la quarta volta, «e piselli, cavolfiori, patate novelle e asparagi, che si mescolano insieme in un delizioso sugo.» Avendo raggiunto il culmine, si leccò le labbra molte volte, e dopo aver fatto un lungo e profondo respiro del profumo che aleggiava nell’aria, rimise il coperchio con l’aria di chi ha finito i suoi travagli sulla terra.

«A che ora sarà pronto?» chiese debolmente il signor Codlin.

«Sarà fatto a puntino», disse l’oste guardando l’orologio—e l’orologio stesso aveva un colore sul suo grasso volto bianco, e sembrava un orologio che i gioviali Sandboys avrebbero consultato—«sarà fatto a puntino alle ventidue minuti prima delle undici».

«Allora», disse il signor Codlin, «portatemi una pinta di birra calda, e non fate entrare in stanza neanche un biscotto finché non arriva il momento.»

Annui approvando questo deciso e virile modo di procedere, il locandiere si ritirò per attingere la birra, e poco dopo tornando con essa, si applicò a riscaldarla in un piccolo recipiente di latta a forma di imbuto, per la comodità di infilarlo ben dentro il fuoco e raggiungere i punti più caldi. Questo fu presto fatto, e la passò al signor Codlin con quella crema spumosa sulla superficie che è una delle felici circostanze che accompagnano il malto mullato.

Molto addolcito da questa bevanda rilassante, il signor Codlin pensò ora ai suoi compagni e comunicò al locandiere del Sandboys che il loro arrivo era imminente. La pioggia tamburellava contro le finestre e cadeva a torrenti, e tale era l’estrema amabilità del signor Codlin che più di una volta espresse il suo sincero desiderio che non fossero così sciocchi da bagnarsi.

Alla fine arrivarono, fradici di pioggia e con un aspetto davvero miserabile, nonostante Short avesse riparato il bambino come meglio poteva sotto le falde del suo cappotto, e erano quasi senza fiato per la fretta che avevano fatto. Ma non appena i loro passi furono uditi sulla strada, il locandiere, che era rimasto sulla porta esterna in ansiosa attesa del loro arrivo, si precipitò in cucina e tolse il coperchio. L’effetto fu elettrico. Entrarono tutti con volti sorridenti, sebbene l’acqua gocciolasse dai loro vestiti sul pavimento, e la prima osservazione di Short fu: «Che profumo delizioso!»

Non è molto difficile dimenticare la pioggia e il fango accanto a un allegro fuoco, e in una stanza luminosa. Erano forniti di pantofole e di vestiti asciutti come quelli che la casa o i loro stessi pacchi potevano offrire, e rifugiandosi, come aveva già fatto il signor Codlin, nell’angolo caldo del camino, presto dimenticarono le loro recenti tribolazioni o le ricordavano solo come un’anticamera dei piaceri del presente momento. Sopraffatti dal calore e dal comfort e dalla fatica che avevano sopportato, Nelly e il vecchio non avevano da molto preso posto qui, quando si addormentarono.

‘Who are they?’ whispered the landlord.

Short shook his head, and wished he knew himself.

‘Don’t you know?’ asked the host, turning to Mr Codlin.

‘Not I,’ he replied. ‘They’re no good, I suppose.’

‘They’re no harm,’ said Short. ‘Depend upon that. I tell you what—it’s plain that the old man an’t in his right mind—’

‘If you haven’t got anything newer than that to say,’ growled Mr Codlin, glancing at the clock, ‘you’d better let us fix our minds upon the supper, and not disturb us.’

‘Hear me out, won’t you?’ retorted his friend. ‘It’s very plain to me, besides, that they’re not used to this way of life. Don’t tell me that that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about as she’s done these last two or three days. I know better.’

‘Well, who DOES tell you she has?’ growled Mr Codlin, again glancing at the clock and from it to the cauldron, ‘can’t you think of anything more suitable to present circumstances than saying things and then contradicting ‘em?’

‘I wish somebody would give you your supper,’ returned Short, ‘for there’ll be no peace till you’ve got it. Have you seen how anxious the old man is to get on—always wanting to be furder away—furder away. Have you seen that?’

‘Ah! what then?’ muttered Thomas Codlin.

‘This, then,’ said Short. ‘He has given his friends the slip. Mind what I say—he has given his friends the slip, and persuaded this delicate young creetur all along of her fondness for him to be his guide and travelling companion—where to, he knows no more than the man in the moon. Now I’m not a going to stand that.’

‘YOU’RE not a going to stand that!’ cried Mr Codlin, glancing at the clock again and pulling his hair with both hands in a kind of frenzy, but whether occasioned by his companion’s observation or the tardy pace of Time, it was difficult to determine. ‘Here’s a world to live in!’

‘I,’ repeated Short emphatically and slowly, ‘am not a-going to stand it. I am not a-going to see this fair young child a falling into bad hands, and getting among people that she’s no more fit for, than they are to get among angels as their ordinary chums. Therefore when they dewelope an intention of parting company from us, I shall take measures for detaining of ‘em, and restoring ‘em to their friends, who I dare say have had their disconsolation pasted up on every wall in London by this time.’

‘Short,’ said Mr Codlin, who with his head upon his hands, and his elbows on his knees, had been shaking himself impatiently from side to side up to this point and occasionally stamping on the ground, but who now looked up with eager eyes; ‘it’s possible that there may be uncommon good sense in what you’ve said. If there is, and there should be a reward, Short, remember that we’re partners in everything!’

His companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this position, for the child awoke at the instant. They had drawn close together during the previous whispering, and now hastily separated and were rather awkwardly endeavouring to exchange some casual remarks in their usual tone, when strange footsteps were heard without, and fresh company entered.

These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in one after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly mournful aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had got as far as the door, erected himself upon his hind legs and looked round at his companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs, in a grave and melancholy row. Nor was this the only remarkable circumstance about these dogs, for each of them wore a kind of little coat of some gaudy colour trimmed with tarnished spangles, and one of them had a cap upon his head, tied very carefully under his chin, which had fallen down upon his nose and completely obscured one eye; add to this, that the gaudy coats were all wet through and discoloured with rain, and that the wearers were splashed and dirty, and some idea may be formed of the unusual appearance of these new visitors to the Jolly Sandboys.

Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in the least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry’s dogs and that Jerry could not be far behind. So there the dogs stood, patiently winking and gaping and looking extremely hard at the boiling pot, until Jerry himself appeared, when they all dropped down at once and walked about the room in their natural manner. This posture it must be confessed did not much improve their appearance, as their own personal tails and their coat tails—both capital things in their way—did not agree together.

Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-whiskered man in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the landlord and his guests and accosted them with great cordiality. Disencumbering himself of a barrel organ which he placed upon a chair, and retaining in his hand a small whip wherewith to awe his company of comedians, he came up to the fire to dry himself, and entered into conversation.

‘Your people don’t usually travel in character, do they?’ said Short, pointing to the dresses of the dogs. ‘It must come expensive if they do?’

‘No,’ replied Jerry, ‘no, it’s not the custom with us. But we’ve been playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a new wardrobe at the races, so I didn’t think it worth while to stop to undress. Down, Pedro!’

This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who being a new member of the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his unobscured eye anxiously on his master, and was perpetually starting upon his hind legs when there was no occasion, and falling down again.

‘I’ve got a animal here,’ said Jerry, putting his hand into the capacious pocket of his coat, and diving into one corner as if he were feeling for a small orange or an apple or some such article, ‘a animal here, wot I think you know something of, Short.’

«Chi sono?» sussurrò l’oste.

Short scosse la testa e avrebbe voluto saperlo lui stesso.

«Non lo sa?» chiese l’oste, rivolgendosi a Mr Codlin.

‘Non sono io,’ rispose. ‘Non sono buoni, immagino.’

«Non sono pericolosi», disse Short. «Può starne certo. Le dico una cosa: è evidente che il vecchio non è in sé, »

«Se non hai niente di più recente da dire», brontolò il signor Codlin, lanciando un’occhiata all’orologio, «è meglio che ci lasci concentrarci sulla cena e non ci disturbi».

«Sentitemi fino in fondo, no?» ribatté il suo amico. «Inoltre, è molto chiaro per me che non sono abituati a questo modo di vivere. Non ditemi che quella bella bambina ha l’abitudine di aggirarsi come ha fatto negli ultimi due o tre giorni. Lo so meglio io.»

«Beh, chi LE ha detto che l’ha fatto?» ringhiò il signor Codlin, lanciando di nuovo un’occhiata all’orologio e poi al calderone, «non riesce a pensare a niente di più adatto alle circostanze presenti che dire cose e poi contraddirle?»

«Vorrei che qualcuno vi desse la vostra cena», rispose Short, «perché non ci sarà pace finché non l’avrete avuta. Avete visto quanto l’anziano è ansioso di andare avanti, sempre desideroso di essere più lontano, più lontano. Avete visto questo?»

«Ah! E allora?» mormorò Thomas Codlin.

«Ecco, dunque», disse Short, «ha dato la scappata ai suoi amici. Tenete presente ciò che dico: ha dato la scappata ai suoi amici e ha persuaso questa delicata giovane creatura, per il suo affetto verso di lui, a farsi sua guida e compagna di viaggio — ma dove, non lo sa più del uomo sulla luna. Ora io non intendo tollerare una cosa del genere.»

«Non starai mica lì impalato!» gridò il signor Codlin, lanciando un’altra occhiata all’orologio e tirandosi i capelli con entrambe le mani in una specie di frenesia, ma se fosse stata provocata dall’osservazione del suo compagno o dal ritardo del Tempo, era difficile da determinare. «Ecco un mondo in cui vivere!»

«Io», ripeté Short con enfasi e lentamente, «non intendo sopportarlo. Non intendo vedere questa giovane e bella bambina cadere in cattive mani, e trovarsi in mezzo a persone per le quali non è più adatta di quanto loro lo siano per stare in mezzo agli angeli come loro amici abituali. Perciò quando dimostreranno l’intenzione di separarsi da noi, prenderò le misure per trattenerli e restituirli ai loro amici, che sono sicuro abbiano affisso la loro disperazione su ogni muro di Londra a quest’ora.»

«Short», disse il signor Codlin, che con la testa tra le mani e i gomiti sulle ginocchia si era agitato impaziente da una parte all’altra fino a quel momento e di tanto in tanto aveva pestato i piedi a terra, ma che ora alzò gli occhi con aria ansiosa; «è possibile che ci sia un senso straordinariamente buono in quello che hai detto. Se c’è, e ci dovesse essere una ricompensa, Short, ricorda che siamo soci in tutto!»

Il suo compagno ebbe solo il tempo di annuire brevemente in segno di assenso a questa affermazione, poiché il bambino si svegliò in quell’istante. Si erano avvicinati durante i precedenti sussurri, e ora si separarono in fretta, cercando piuttosto goffamente di scambiarsi qualche osservazione casuale nel loro tono abituale, quando si udirono strani passi fuori e nuove persone entrarono.

Non erano altri che quattro cani molto tristi, che entrarono uno dopo l’altro, guidati da un vecchio cane zoppo dall’aspetto particolarmente malinconico, che, fermandosi quando l’ultimo dei suoi seguaci era arrivato fino alla porta, si erse sulle zampe posteriori e guardò intorno ai suoi compagni, che immediatamente si alzarono sulle zampe posteriori, in una fila grave e malinconica. E questa non era l’unica circostanza notevole riguardo a questi cani, poiché ognuno di loro indossava una specie di piccolo cappotto di qualche colore sgargiante bordato di lustrini opachi, e uno di loro aveva un cappello sulla testa, legato molto accuratamente sotto il mento, che era caduto sul naso e aveva completamente oscurato un occhio; aggiungete a questo che i cappotti sgargianti erano tutti bagnati e sbiaditi dalla pioggia, e che i portatori erano schizzati e sporchi, e si può farsi un’idea dell’aspetto insolito di questi nuovi visitatori al Jolly Sandboys.

Né Short né il locatore né Thomas Codlin, tuttavia, erano minimamente sorpresi, limitandosi a osservare che si trattava dei cani di Jerry e che Jerry non poteva essere lontano. Così i cani rimasero lì, pazientemente ammiccando e sbadigliando e fissando con estrema intensità la pentola bollente, finché non apparve lo stesso Jerry, quando tutti si lasciarono cadere all’unisono e si misero a camminare per la stanza nel loro modo naturale. Questa postura, va confessato, non migliorava molto il loro aspetto, poiché le loro code personali e le code dei loro cappotti - entrambe cose eccellenti a modo loro - non andavano d’accordo.

Jerry, il domatore di questi danzanti cani, era un uomo alto e con i baffi neri, in un cappotto di velluto, che sembrava ben noto al locandiere e ai suoi ospiti, e si avvicinò a loro con grande cordialità. Liberatosi da un organo di Barberia che posò su una sedia, e tenendo in mano una frustina con cui intimidire la sua compagnia di comici, si avvicinò al fuoco per asciugarsi, e si mise a conversare.

«La vostra gente non viaggia di solito in costume, vero?» disse Short, indicando gli abiti dei cani. «Deve costare caro, se lo fanno?»

‘No,’ rispose Jerry, ‘no, non è nostra abitudine. Ma oggi abbiamo suonato un po’ sulla strada, e usciamo con un guardaroba nuovo alle corse, così non ho pensato che valesse la pena fermarmi per spogliarmi. Giù, Pedro!’

Questo era rivolto al cane con il cappello, che essendo un nuovo membro della compagnia, e non del tutto certo del suo dovere, teneva il suo occhio non coperto ansiosamente fisso sul padrone, e si alzava in continuazione sulle zampe posteriori quando non c’era motivo, e ricadeva di nuovo.

«Ho un animale qui», disse Jerry, mettendo la mano nella capiente tasca del suo cappotto e frugando in un angolo come se stesse cercando una piccola arancia o una mela o qualcosa del genere, «un animale qui, di cui credo che tu sappia qualcosa, Short».

‘Ah!’ cried Short, ‘let’s have a look at him.’

‘Here he is,’ said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his pocket. ‘He was once a Toby of yours, warn’t he!’

In some versions of the great drama of Punch there is a small dog—a modern innovation—supposed to be the private property of that gentleman, whose name is always Toby. This Toby has been stolen in youth from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the confiding hero, who having no guile himself has no suspicion that it lurks in others; but Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection of his old master, and scorning to attach himself to any new patrons, not only refuses to smoke a pipe at the bidding of Punch, but to mark his old fidelity more strongly, seizes him by the nose and wrings the same with violence, at which instance of canine attachment the spectators are deeply affected. This was the character which the little terrier in question had once sustained; if there had been any doubt upon the subject he would speedily have resolved it by his conduct; for not only did he, on seeing Short, give the strongest tokens of recognition, but catching sight of the flat box he barked so furiously at the pasteboard nose which he knew was inside, that his master was obliged to gather him up and put him into his pocket again, to the great relief of the whole company.

The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which process Mr Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own knife and fork in the most convenient place and establishing himself behind them. When everything was ready, the landlord took off the cover for the last time, and then indeed there burst forth such a goodly promise of supper, that if he had offered to put it on again or had hinted at postponement, he would certainly have been sacrificed on his own hearth.

However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead thereof assisted a stout servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into a large tureen; a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various hot splashes which fell upon their noses, watched with terrible eagerness. At length the dish was lifted on the table, and mugs of ale having been previously set round, little Nell ventured to say grace, and supper began.

At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind legs quite surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about to cast some morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself, hungry though she was, when their master interposed.

‘No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody’s hand but mine if you please. That dog,’ said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, ‘lost a halfpenny to-day. He goes without his supper.’

The unfortunate creature dropped upon his fore-legs directly, wagged his tail, and looked imploringly at his master.

‘You must be more careful, Sir,’ said Jerry, walking coolly to the chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop. ‘Come here. Now, Sir, you play away at that, while we have supper, and leave off if you dare.’

The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music. His master having shown him the whip resumed his seat and called up the others, who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright as a file of soldiers.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Jerry, looking at them attentively. ‘The dog whose name’s called, eats. The dogs whose names an’t called, keep quiet. Carlo!’

The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle. In this manner they were fed at the discretion of their master. Meanwhile the dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick time, sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant. When the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short howl, but he immediately checked it on his master looking round, and applied himself with increased diligence to the Old Hundredth.

‘Ah!’ esclamò Short, ‘diamogli un’occhiata.’

«Eccolo qui», disse Jerry, tirando fuori di tasca un piccolo terrier. «Una volta era il vostro Toby, vero!»

In alcune versioni del grande dramma di Punch c’è un piccolo cane — un’innovazione moderna — che si suppone essere la proprietà privata di quel gentiluomo, il cui nome è sempre Toby. Questo Toby è stato rubato in giovane età a un altro gentiluomo e venduto fraudolentemente all’eroe ingenuo, che non avendo alcuna malizia non sospetta che essa si nasconda in altri; ma Toby, nutrendo un grato ricordo del suo vecchio padrone e disdegnando di attaccarsi a nuovi patroni, non solo rifiuta di fumare una pipa su ordine di Punch, ma per segnare più fortemente la sua vecchia fedeltà, lo afferra per il naso e lo torce con violenza, e a questa dimostrazione di attaccamento canino gli spettatori sono profondamente commossi. Questo era il personaggio che il piccolo terrier in questione aveva una volta interpretato; se ci fosse stato qualche dubbio sull’argomento, lo avrebbe rapidamente risolto con il suo comportamento; perché non solo, vedendo Short, dava i più forti segni di riconoscimento, ma scorgendo la scatola piatta abbaiava così furiosamente al naso di cartone che sapeva essere all’interno, che il suo padrone fu costretto a raccoglierlo e rimetterlo in tasca, grande sollievo di tutta la compagnia.

Il locandiere si mise ora a apparecchiare la tavola, nel quale compito il signor Codlin lo aiutò cortesemente disponendo il proprio coltello e forchetta nel posto più comodo e sistemandosi dietro di essi. Quando tutto fu pronto, il locandiere tolse il coperchio per l’ultima volta, e allora davvero si manifestò una promessa così allettante di cena, che se avesse proposto di ricoprirla o avesse insinuato un rimando, sarebbe certamente stato sacrificato sul suo stesso focolare.

Tuttavia, non fece nulla di tutto ciò, ma invece aiutò una robusta cameriera a versare il contenuto del calderone in una grande terrina; un’operazione che i cani, immuni a vari schizzi caldi che cadevano sulle loro zampe, osservavano con terribile avidità. Alla fine il piatto fu portato sul tavolo, e dopo che le tazze di birra erano state precedentemente disposte intorno, la piccola Nell si azzardò a dire la preghiera, e la cena iniziò.

A questo punto i poveri cani stavano in piedi sulle zampe posteriori in modo sorprendente; la bambina, compatendoli, stava per gettare loro qualche boccone di cibo prima di assaggiarlo lei stessa, per quanto fosse affamata, quando il loro padrone intervenne.

«No, mia cara, no, neanche un atomo dalle mani di chiunque tranne che dalle mie, se non ti dispiace. Quel cane», disse Jerry, indicando il vecchio capo della banda, e parlando con una voce terribile, «ha perso mezzo penny oggi. Lui rinuncia alla cena.»

La povera creatura cadde immediatamente sulle zampe anteriori, agitò la coda e guardò supplichevole il suo padrone.

«Dovete stare più attento, signore», disse Jerry, avvicinandosi con calma alla sedia su cui aveva posato l’organo e sistemando la levetta. «Venite qui. Ora, signore, suonate quello mentre facciamo la cena, e smettetela se osate.»

Il cane iniziò subito a suonare una musica molto triste. Il padrone, dopo avergli mostrato la frusta, riprese posto e chiamò gli altri, che, su suo ordine, si disposero in fila, in piedi come un plotone di soldati.

«Ora, signori», disse Jerry, guardandoli attentamente. «Il cane il cui nome viene chiamato, mangia. I cani i cui nomi non vengono chiamati, stanno zitti. Carlo!»

L’individuo fortunato il cui nome veniva chiamato, afferrava il boccone gettato verso di lui, ma nessuno degli altri si muoveva. In questo modo venivano nutriti a discrezione del loro padrone. Nel frattempo il cane in disgrazia suonava l’organo con forza, a volte in ritmo veloce, a volte lento, ma senza mai fermarsi per un istante. Quando i coltelli e le forchette tintinnavano molto, o uno dei suoi compagni riceveva un pezzo di grasso insolitamente grande, accompagnava la musica con un breve ululato, ma lo interrompeva immediatamente quando il suo padrone si guardava intorno, e si applicava con maggiore diligenza all’Old Hundredth.

CHAPTER 19

Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys two more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had been walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and heavy with water. One of these was the proprietor of a giant, and a little lady without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a van; the other, a silent gentleman who earned his living by showing tricks upon the cards, and who had rather deranged the natural expression of his countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into his eyes and bringing them out at his mouth, which was one of his professional accomplishments. The name of the first of these newcomers was Vuffin; the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon his ugliness, was called Sweet William. To render them as comfortable as he could, the landlord bestirred himself nimbly, and in a very short time both gentlemen were perfectly at their ease.

‘How’s the Giant?’ said Short, when they all sat smoking round the fire.

‘Rather weak upon his legs,’ returned Mr Vuffin. ‘I begin to be afraid he’s going at the knees.’

‘That’s a bad look-out,’ said Short.

‘Aye! Bad indeed,’ replied Mr Vuffin, contemplating the fire with a sigh. ‘Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more about him than they do for a dead cabbage stalk.’

‘What becomes of old giants?’ said Short, turning to him again after a little reflection.

‘They’re usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,’ said Mr Vuffin.

‘The maintaining of ‘em must come expensive, when they can’t be shown, eh?’ remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.

‘It’s better that, than letting ‘em go upon the parish or about the streets,’ said Mr Vuffin. ‘Once make a giant common and giants will never draw again. Look at wooden legs. If there was only one man with a wooden leg what a property he’d be!’

‘So he would!’ observed the landlord and Short both together. ‘That’s very true.’

‘Instead of which,’ pursued Mr Vuffin, ‘if you was to advertise Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs, it’s my belief you wouldn’t draw a sixpence.’

‘I don’t suppose you would,’ said Short. And the landlord said so too.

‘This shows, you see,’ said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an argumentative air, ‘this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop there. There was one giant—a black ‘un—as left his carawan some year ago and took to carrying coach-bills about London, making himself as cheap as crossing-sweepers. He died. I make no insinuation against anybody in particular,’ said Mr Vuffin, looking solemnly round, ‘but he was ruining the trade;—and he died.’

The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the dogs, who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered.

‘I know you do, Jerry,’ said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning. ‘I know you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served him right. Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had three-and-twenty wans—I remember the time when old Maunders had in his cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season was over, eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows: and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his giant wasn’t quick enough to please him, used to stick pins in his legs, not being able to reach up any higher. I know that’s a fact, for Maunders told it me himself.’

‘What about the dwarfs when they get old?’ inquired the landlord.

‘The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,’ returned Mr Vuffin; ‘a grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But a giant weak in the legs and not standing upright!—keep him in the carawan, but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be offered.’

While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth of halfpence for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to the company, who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed. At length the weary child prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they withdrew, leaving the company yet seated round the fire, and the dogs fast asleep at a humble distance.

After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor garret, but had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped at. She opened it directly, and was a little startled by the sight of Mr Thomas Codlin, whom she had left, to all appearance, fast asleep down stairs.

‘What is the matter?’ said the child.

‘Nothing’s the matter, my dear,’ returned her visitor. ‘I’m your friend. Perhaps you haven’t thought so, but it’s me that’s your friend—not him.’

‘Not who?’ the child inquired.

‘Short, my dear. I tell you what,’ said Codlin, ‘for all his having a kind of way with him that you’d be very apt to like, I’m the real, open-hearted man. I mayn’t look it, but I am indeed.’

The child began to be alarmed, considering that the ale had taken effect upon Mr Codlin, and that this commendation of himself was the consequence.

‘Short’s very well, and seems kind,’ resumed the misanthrope, ‘but he overdoes it. Now I don’t.’

Certainly if there were any fault in Mr Codlin’s usual deportment, it was that he rather underdid his kindness to those about him, than overdid it. But the child was puzzled, and could not tell what to say.

‘Take my advice,’ said Codlin: ‘don’t ask me why, but take it. As long as you travel with us, keep as near me as you can. Don’t offer to leave us—not on any account—but always stick to me and say that I’m your friend. Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and always say that it was me that was your friend?’

CAPITOLO 19

La cena non era ancora finita, quando arrivarono al Jolly Sandboys altri due viaggiatori diretti verso la stessa destinazione degli altri, che avevano camminato sotto la pioggia per alcune ore e arrivarono luccicanti e pesanti di acqua. Uno di questi era il proprietario di un gigante e di una piccola signora senza braccia né gambe, che avevano viaggiato su un carro; l’altro, un gentiluomo silenzioso che guadagnava da vivere mostrando trucchi con le carte, e che aveva un po’ alterato l’espressione naturale del suo volto mettendo piccole pastiglie di piombo negli occhi e tirandole fuori dalla bocca, che era una delle sue abilità professionali. Il nome del primo di questi nuovi arrivati era Vuffin; l’altro, probabilmente come una piacevole satira sulla sua bruttezza, era chiamato Sweet William. Per renderli il più a loro agio possibile, il proprietario si affannò con destrezza, e in un tempo molto breve entrambi i signori erano perfettamente a loro agio.

«Come sta il Gigante?» disse Short, quando tutti erano seduti a fumare intorno al fuoco.

«Piuttosto debole alle gambe», rispose il signor Vuffin. «Comincio a temere che stia cedendo alle ginocchia.»

«Questo non promette niente di buono», disse Short.

«Sì! Davvero brutta», rispose il signor Vuffin, contemplando il fuoco con un sospiro. «Una volta che un gigante inizia a vacillare sulle sue gambe, il pubblico non gli dà più importanza di quanta ne dia a un gambo di cavolo morto.»

«Che fine fanno i vecchi giganti?» disse Short, rivolgendosi di nuovo a lui dopo un po’ di riflessione.

«Di solito li tengono nei caravanserragli per servire i nani», disse il signor Vuffin.

«Il mantenimento di queste cose deve costare caro, quando non si possono mostrare, eh?» osservò Short, guardandolo con aria dubbiosa.

«È meglio così che lasciarli andare in parrocchia o per le strade», disse il signor Vuffin. «Una volta che si è fatta una cosa comune, i giganti non la ripeteranno mai più. Guardate le gambe di legno. Se ci fosse solo un uomo con una gamba di legno, che proprietà sarebbe!»

“Proprio così!” osservarono insieme l’oste e Short. “È molto vero.”

«Invece», continuò il signor Vuffin, «se voi metteste in cartellone Shakespeare rappresentato interamente da gambe di legno, credo che non riuscireste a raccogliere neanche un soldo.»

«Non credo che lo fareste», disse Short. E anche il locandiere disse così.

«Questo dimostra, vede», disse il signor Vuffin, agitando la pipa con aria polemica, «questo dimostra la politica di tenere i giganti esausti ancora nei carawans, dove ricevono vitto e alloggio gratis per tutta la vita, e in generale sono molto contenti di rimanere lì. C’era un gigante, un negro, che qualche anno fa aveva lasciato il suo carawan e si era messo a portare in giro i manifesti dei vetturini per Londra, facendosi pagare poco più dei netturbini. È morto. Non faccio insinuazioni contro nessuno in particolare», disse il signor Vuffin, guardandosi intorno con aria solenne, «ma stava rovinando il commercio; ed è morto.»

Il locatore trasse un respiro profondo e guardò il proprietario dei cani, che annuì e disse bruscamente che ricordava.

«So che lo fai, Jerry», disse il signor Vuffin con profonda convinzione. «So che te lo ricordi, Jerry, e l’opinione generale era che se lo meritasse. Per esempio, ricordo il periodo in cui il vecchio Maunders, che aveva ventitré bambini. Ricordo il periodo in cui il vecchio Maunders aveva nella sua casetta a Spa Fields, in inverno, quando la stagione era finita, otto nani, maschi e femmine, che si mettevano a tavola ogni giorno, serviti da otto vecchi giganti in giacche verdi, calzoni rossi, calze di cotone blu e scarpe con tacco alto: e c’era un nano che era diventato anziano e malvagio, e ogni volta che il suo gigante non era abbastanza veloce per accontentarlo, si divertiva a piantargli spilli nelle gambe, non potendo arrivare più in alto. So che è vero, perché me l’ha raccontato lui stesso Maunders.»

«E i nani, quando invecchiano?» chiese il locandiere.

«Più un nano è vecchio, più è prezioso», rispose il signor Vuffin; «un nano con i capelli grigi, tutto raggrinzito, è al di sopra di ogni sospetto. Ma un gigante con le gambe deboli e che non sta dritto!, tenetelo nella carovana, ma non mostratelo mai, mai, per qualsiasi persuasione si possa offrire».

Mentre il signor Vuffin e i suoi due amici fumavano le loro pipe e ingannavano la noia con conversazioni del genere, il gentiluomo silenzioso sedeva in un angolo caldo, ingoiando, o fingendo di ingoiare, sei pence di mezzi penny per esercitarsi, bilanciando una piuma sul naso e provando altri esercizi di destrezza del genere, senza prestare la minima attenzione alla compagnia, che a sua volta lo lasciava completamente inosservato. Alla fine la stanca bambina persuase suo nonno a ritirarsi, e se ne andarono, lasciando la compagnia ancora seduta intorno al fuoco, e i cani addormentati a una distanza umile.

Dopo aver augurato la buona notte al vecchio, Nell si ritirò nel suo povero sottotetto, ma non aveva ancora chiuso la porta, quando qualcuno bussò delicatamente. La aprì subito, e fu un po’ spaventata dalla vista di Mr Thomas Codlin, che aveva lasciato, a quanto pareva, profondamente addormentato al piano di sotto.

«Che succede?» disse il bambino.

«Non c’è nulla di cui preoccuparsi, mia cara», rispose il suo visitatore. «Sono io il tuo amico. Forse non lo hai pensato, ma sono io il tuo amico, non lui.»

‘Non chi?’ chiese il bambino.

«Breve, mia cara. Ti dico una cosa», disse Codlin, «per quanto lui abbia un certo modo di fare che ti piacerebbe molto, sono io l’uomo vero, dal cuore aperto. Potrei non sembrarlo, ma lo sono davvero.»

Il bambino cominciò a preoccuparsi, considerando che la birra aveva fatto effetto su Mr Codlin, e che questa lode di sé stesso ne era la conseguenza.

«Short sta molto bene e sembra gentile», riprese il misantropo, «ma esagera. Io no».

Certamente, se c’era qualche difetto nel comportamento abituale del signor Codlin, era che egli esagerava piuttosto nel sottovalutare la sua gentilezza verso chi gli stava intorno, piuttosto che nel sovrastimarla. Ma il bambino era perplesso e non sapeva cosa dire.

«Accetti il mio consiglio», disse Codlin, «non chiedermi perché, ma accettalo. Finché viaggerai con noi, resta il più vicino possibile a me. Non offrirti di lasciarci, per nessun motivo, ma resta sempre con me e di’ che sono tuo amico. Ti ricorderai di questo, mia cara, e dirai sempre che sono stato io il tuo amico?»

‘Say so where—and when?’ inquired the child innocently.

‘O, nowhere in particular,’ replied Codlin, a little put out as it seemed by the question; ‘I’m only anxious that you should think me so, and do me justice. You can’t think what an interest I have in you. Why didn’t you tell me your little history—that about you and the poor old gentleman? I’m the best adviser that ever was, and so interested in you—so much more interested than Short. I think they’re breaking up down stairs; you needn’t tell Short, you know, that we’ve had this little talk together. God bless you. Recollect the friend. Codlin’s the friend, not Short. Short’s very well as far as he goes, but the real friend is Codlin—not Short.’

Eking out these professions with a number of benevolent and protecting looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole away on tiptoe, leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise. She was still ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor of the crazy stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the other travellers who were passing to their beds. When they had all passed, and the sound of their footsteps had died away, one of them returned, and after a little hesitation and rustling in the passage, as if he were doubtful what door to knock at, knocked at hers.

‘Yes,’ said the child from within.

‘It’s me—Short’—a voice called through the keyhole. ‘I only wanted to say that we must be off early to-morrow morning, my dear, because unless we get the start of the dogs and the conjuror, the villages won’t be worth a penny. You’ll be sure to be stirring early and go with us? I’ll call you.’

The child answered in the affirmative, and returning his ‘good night’ heard him creep away. She felt some uneasiness at the anxiety of these men, increased by the recollection of their whispering together down stairs and their slight confusion when she awoke, nor was she quite free from a misgiving that they were not the fittest companions she could have stumbled on. Her uneasiness, however, was nothing, weighed against her fatigue; and she soon forgot it in sleep.

Very early next morning, Short fulfilled his promise, and knocking softly at her door, entreated that she would get up directly, as the proprietor of the dogs was still snoring, and if they lost no time they might get a good deal in advance both of him and the conjuror, who was talking in his sleep, and from what he could be heard to say, appeared to be balancing a donkey in his dreams. She started from her bed without delay, and roused the old man with so much expedition that they were both ready as soon as Short himself, to that gentleman’s unspeakable gratification and relief.

After a very unceremonious and scrambling breakfast, of which the staple commodities were bacon and bread, and beer, they took leave of the landlord and issued from the door of the jolly Sandboys. The morning was fine and warm, the ground cool to the feet after the late rain, the hedges gayer and more green, the air clear, and everything fresh and healthful. Surrounded by these influences, they walked on pleasantly enough.

They had not gone very far, when the child was again struck by the altered behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on sulkily by himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her, and when he had an opportunity of looking at her unseen by his companion, warned her by certain wry faces and jerks of the head not to put any trust in Short, but to reserve all confidences for Codlin. Neither did he confine himself to looks and gestures, for when she and her grandfather were walking on beside the aforesaid Short, and that little man was talking with his accustomed cheerfulness on a variety of indifferent subjects, Thomas Codlin testified his jealousy and distrust by following close at her heels, and occasionally admonishing her ankles with the legs of the theatre in a very abrupt and painful manner.

All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to perform outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while he went through his share of the entertainments kept his eye steadily upon her and the old man, or with a show of great friendship and consideration invited the latter to lean upon his arm, and so held him tight until the representation was over and they again went forward. Even Short seemed to change in this respect, and to mingle with his good-nature something of a desire to keep them in safe custody. This increased the child’s misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy.

Meanwhile, they were drawing near the town where the races were to begin next day; for, from passing numerous groups of gipsies and trampers on the road, wending their way towards it, and straggling out from every by-way and cross-country lane, they gradually fell into a stream of people, some walking by the side of covered carts, others with horses, others with donkeys, others toiling on with heavy loads upon their backs, but all tending to the same point. The public-houses by the wayside, from being empty and noiseless as those in the remoter parts had been, now sent out boisterous shouts and clouds of smoke; and, from the misty windows, clusters of broad red faces looked down upon the road. On every piece of waste or common ground, some small gambler drove his noisy trade, and bellowed to the idle passersby to stop and try their chance; the crowd grew thicker and more noisy; gilt gingerbread in blanket-stalls exposed its glories to the dust; and often a four-horse carriage, dashing by, obscured all objects in the gritty cloud it raised, and left them, stunned and blinded, far behind.

«Di’ dove, e quando?» chiese il bambino ingenuamente.

«O, non ho una destinazione precisa», rispose Codlin, un po’ turbato, come sembrava, dalla domanda; «mi preme solo che tu mi consideri tale e mi renda giustizia. Non puoi immaginare quanto io mi interessi a te. Perché non mi hai raccontato la tua piccola storia—quella di te e del povero vecchio signore? Sono il miglior consigliere che ci sia, e così interessato a te—molto più di Short. Penso che stiano per chiudere giù; non devi dire a Short, sai, che abbiamo avuto questo piccolo colloquio insieme. Dio ti benedica. Ricordati dell’amico. Codlin è l’amico, non Short. Short va bene per quello che è, ma l’amico vero è Codlin—non Short.»

Accompagnando queste professioni con un certo numero di sguardi benevoli e protettivi e una grande fervore di maniere, Thomas Codlin si allontanò in punta di piedi, lasciando la bambina in uno stato di estrema sorpresa. Era ancora intenta a meditare sul suo curioso comportamento, quando il pavimento delle scale traballanti e dell’ingresso scricchiolò sotto i passi degli altri viaggiatori che si recavano alle loro stanze. Quando tutti furono passati e il rumore dei loro passi si fu spento, uno di loro tornò indietro e, dopo un po’ di esitazione e fruscio nel corridoio, come se fosse incerto su quale porta bussare, bussò alla sua.

‘Sì,’ disse il bambino dall’interno.

«Sono io, Short» — una voce chiamò attraverso la serratura. «Volevo solo dire che domani mattina dobbiamo partire presto, mia cara, perché se non ci diamo una mossa prima dei cani e del mago, i villaggi non varranno un soldo. Sarai sicuramente sveglia presto e verrai con noi? Ti chiamerò.»

Il bambino rispose affermativamente e, restituendogli il suo ‘buona notte’, lo sentì allontanarsi furtivamente. Prova una certa inquietudine per l’ansia di quegli uomini, aumentata dal ricordo del loro bisbigliare insieme al piano di sotto e della loro leggera confusione quando si è svegliata, né è del tutto libera dal sospetto che non fossero i compagni più adatti che avrebbe potuto incontrare. La sua inquietudine, tuttavia, non era nulla, se paragonata alla sua stanchezza; e presto la dimenticò nel sonno.

Molto presto la mattina seguente, Short mantenne la sua promessa e, bussando delicatamente alla sua porta, la pregò di alzarsi immediatamente, poiché il proprietario dei cani stava ancora russando e, se non avessero perso tempo, avrebbero potuto guadagnare un bel vantaggio sia su di lui che sul mago, che parlava nel sonno e, da ciò che si poteva sentire, sembrava stare bilanciando un asino nei suoi sogni. Lei si alzò dal letto senza indugio e svegliò il vecchio con tanta sollecitudine che furono entrambi pronti non appena Short stesso, con immensa soddisfazione e sollievo di quest’ultimo.

Dopo una colazione molto poco cerimoniosa e disordinata, di cui le vivande principali erano pancetta e pane, e birra, si congedarono dall’oste e uscirono dalla porta della gaia Locanda dei Bambini Sorridenti. La mattina era bella e calda, il terreno fresco ai piedi dopo la recente pioggia, le siepi più allegre e più verdi, l’aria limpida, e tutto fresco e salubre. Circondati da queste influenze, camminarono abbastanza piacevolmente.

Non erano andati molto lontano, quando il bambino fu di nuovo colpito dal comportamento alterato del signor Thomas Codlin, che invece di camminare scontroso da solo come aveva fatto finora, rimase vicino a lei e, quando ebbe l’opportunità di guardarla senza che il suo compagno se ne accorgesse, la mise in guardia con certe facce strane e scosse di testa di non fidarsi di Short, ma di riservare tutte le confidenze a Codlin. E non si limitò a sguardi e gesti, perché quando lei e suo nonno camminavano accanto al sopra citato Short, e quel piccolo uomo parlava con la sua solita allegria di una varietà di argomenti indifferenti, Thomas Codlin testimoniò la sua gelosia e sfiducia seguendola da vicino e ammonendo occasionalmente le sue caviglie con le gambe del teatro in un modo molto brusco e doloroso.

Tutte queste procedure resero naturalmente la bambina più guardinga e sospettosa, e ben presto notò che ogni volta che si fermavano per esibirsi fuori da una locanda del villaggio o da un altro luogo, il signor Codlin, mentre si esibiva nella sua parte, teneva lo sguardo costantemente su di lei e sul vecchio, oppure, fingendo grande amicizia e considerazione, invitava quest’ultimo a appoggiarsi al suo braccio, e lo teneva stretto fino a quando la rappresentazione non era finita e non riprendevano il cammino. Anche Short sembrava cambiare in questo senso, e mescolava alla sua buona indole un certo desiderio di tenerli in custodia sicura. Questo aumentò i dubbi della bambina, e la rese ancora più ansiosa e inquieta.

Nel frattempo, si stavano avvicinando alla città dove le corse sarebbero cominciate il giorno dopo; infatti, passando accanto a numerosi gruppi di zingari e vagabondi sulla strada, che si dirigevano verso di essa, e uscendo da ogni stradina e crocevia, gradualmente si unirono a un flusso di persone, alcune delle quali camminavano accanto a carri coperti, altre con cavalli, altre con asini, altre che si affaticavano con pesanti carichi sulle spalle, ma tutte dirette verso lo stesso punto. Le osterie lungo il percorso, che prima erano vuote e silenziose come quelle nelle parti più lontane, ora mandavano fuori grida rumorose e nuvole di fumo; e, dalle finestre appannate, gruppi di facce rosse e larghe guardavano giù sulla strada. Su ogni pezzo di terreno incolto o comune, qualche piccolo giocatore d’azzardo faceva il suo rumoroso commercio, e gridava ai passanti oziosi di fermarsi e provare la loro fortuna; la folla diventava più fitta e più rumorosa; il pan di zenzero dorato nelle bancarelle coperte esprimeva le sue glorie alla polvere; e spesso una carrozza a quattro cavalli, sfrecciando via, oscurava tutti gli oggetti nella nuvola di polvere che sollevava, e li lasciava, storditi e accecati, lontano dietro.

It was dark before they reached the town itself, and long indeed the few last miles had been. Here all was tumult and confusion; the streets were filled with throngs of people—many strangers were there, it seemed, by the looks they cast about—the church-bells rang out their noisy peals, and flags streamed from windows and house-tops. In the large inn-yards waiters flitted to and fro and ran against each other, horses clattered on the uneven stones, carriage steps fell rattling down, and sickening smells from many dinners came in a heavy lukewarm breath upon the sense. In the smaller public-houses, fiddles with all their might and main were squeaking out the tune to staggering feet; drunken men, oblivious of the burden of their song, joined in a senseless howl, which drowned the tinkling of the feeble bell and made them savage for their drink; vagabond groups assembled round the doors to see the stroller woman dance, and add their uproar to the shrill flageolet and deafening drum.

Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by all she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her conductor, and trembling lest in the press she should be separated from him and left to find her way alone. Quickening their steps to get clear of all the roar and riot, they at length passed through the town and made for the race-course, which was upon an open heath, situated on an eminence, a full mile distant from its furthest bounds.

Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or best clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground, and hurrying to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath—although there were tired children cradled on heaps of straw between the wheels of carts, crying themselves to sleep—and poor lean horses and donkeys just turned loose, grazing among the men and women, and pots and kettles, and half-lighted fires, and ends of candles flaring and wasting in the air—for all this, the child felt it an escape from the town and drew her breath more freely. After a scanty supper, the purchase of which reduced her little stock so low, that she had only a few halfpence with which to buy a breakfast on the morrow, she and the old man lay down to rest in a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the busy preparations that were going on around them all night long.

And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, 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 employed; when she returned and was seated beside the old man in one corner of the tent, tying her flowers together, while the two men lay dozing in another corner, she plucked him by the sleeve, and slightly glancing towards 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 an aspect 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, these men suspect 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 Nelly, 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.’

‘Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?’ said Mr Codlin, raising his head, and yawning. Then observing that his companion was fast asleep, he added in an earnest whisper, ‘Codlin’s the friend, remember—not Short.’

‘Making some nosegays,’ the child replied; ‘I am going to try and 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 towards him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, ‘Tom Codlin’s the friend, by G—!’

As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a gayer and more brilliant appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling softly on the turf. Men who had lounged about all night in smock-frocks and leather leggings, came out in silken vests and hats and plumes, as jugglers or mountebanks; or in gorgeous liveries as soft-spoken servants at gambling booths; or in sturdy yeoman dress as decoys at unlawful games. Black-eyed gipsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes, and pale slender women with consumptive faces lingered upon the footsteps of ventriloquists and conjurors, 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 intricate spots, 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, emerged from the holes and corners in which they had passed the night, and flourished boldly in the sun.

Era buio quando raggiunsero la città, e davvero lunghi erano stati quei pochi ultimi chilometri. Qui tutto era tumulto e confusione; le strade erano piene di folla - molti stranieri, sembrava, dai loro sguardi circospetti - le campane della chiesa suonavano a distesa, e bandiere sventolavano dalle finestre e dai tetti delle case. Nei grandi cortili delle locande camerieri correvano avanti e indietro e si scontravano, cavalli scalpitavano sulle pietre irregolari, i gradini delle carrozze cadevano rumorosamente, e odori nauseabondi di molti pranzi arrivavano in un pesante respiro tiepido. Nei piccoli locali pubblici, violini suonavano a squarciagola la melodia per piedi vacillanti; uomini ubriachi, ignari del peso del loro canto, si univano in un urlo senza senso, che soffocava il tintinnio della debole campanella e li rendeva selvaggi per la loro bevuta; gruppi di vagabondi si radunavano intorno alle porte per vedere la donna itinerante danzare, e aggiungevano il loro chiasso al flauto acuto e al tamburo assordante.

Attraverso questa scena delirante, la bambina, spaventata e respinta da tutto ciò che vedeva, guidava la sua confusa carica, aggrappandosi stretta al suo conduttore e tremando per il timore che nella folla potesse essere separata da lui e lasciata a trovare la sua strada da sola. Accelerando il passo per liberarsi di tutto il fragore e il tumulto, alla fine passarono attraverso la città e si diressero verso l’ippodromo, che si trovava su un’ampia brughiera, situata su un’altura, a un miglio di distanza dai suoi confini più lontani.

Anche se c’erano molte persone qui, nessuna delle più belle o meglio vestite, che erano indaffarate a montare tende e a conficcare pali nel terreno, e correvano avanti e indietro con i piedi polverosi e con molti giuramenti borbottati tra i denti—anche se c’erano bambini stanchi cullati su mucchi di paglia tra le ruote dei carri, che piangevano fino a addormentarsi—e poveri cavalli magri e asini appena lasciati liberi, che pascolavano tra gli uomini e le donne, e pentole e bollitori, e fuochi appena accesi, e pezzi di candela che fiammeggiavano e si consumavano nell’aria—nonostante tutto ciò, la bambina sentiva che era una fuga dalla città e respirava più liberamente. Dopo una scarna cena, il cui acquisto ridusse il suo piccolo risparmio a tal punto che le rimanevano solo pochi spiccioli per comprare una colazione il giorno dopo, lei e il vecchio si sdraiarono a riposare in un angolo di una tenda, e dormirono, nonostante i preparativi frenetici che andavano avanti intorno a loro per tutta la notte.

E ora erano giunti al momento in cui dovevano chiedere l’elemosina. Poco dopo l’alba del mattino, lei uscì di nascosto dalla tenda e, vagando in alcuni campi a breve distanza, colse alcune rose selvatiche e alcuni umili fiori, con l’intento di farne dei piccoli mazzolini e offrirli alle signore nei carri quando la compagnia fosse arrivata. I suoi pensieri non erano oziosi mentre era così impegnata; quando tornò e si sedette accanto al vecchio in un angolo della tenda, legando insieme i suoi fiori, mentre i due uomini giacevano sonnecchiando in un altro angolo, lo tirò per la manica e, guardandoli appena, disse, a bassa voce:

«Nonno, non guardare quelli di cui parlo, e non sembrare come se parlassi di altro che di quello che sto facendo. Cosa mi hai detto prima di lasciare la vecchia casa? Che se sapessero cosa stavamo per fare, direbbero che sei pazzo, e ci separerebbero?»

Il vecchio si voltò verso di lei con un’espressione di terrore selvaggio; ma lei lo fermò con uno sguardo, e chiedendogli di tenere alcuni fiori mentre li legava, e avvicinando così le sue labbra all’orecchio di lui, disse:

«So che è quello che mi hai detto. Non devi parlare, cara. Me lo ricordo molto bene. Non era probabile che lo dimenticassi. Nonno, questi uomini sospettano che abbiamo lasciato in segreto i nostri amici e intendono portarci da qualche signore e farci prendere cura e rimandarci indietro. Se lasci tremare la mano così, non potremo mai liberarci di loro, ma se starai tranquillo ora, lo faremo, facilmente.»

«Come?» mormorò il vecchio. «Cara Nell, come? Mi rinchiuderanno in una stanza di pietra, buia e fredda, e mi incateneranno al muro, Nell, mi frusteranno e non mi lasceranno più rivederti!»

«Stai tremando di nuovo», disse il bambino. «Rimani vicino a me tutto il giorno. Non badare a loro, non guardarli, ma guarda me. Troverò un momento in cui potremo scappare. Quando lo farò, assicurati di venire con me e non fermarti né dire una parola. Sst! Questo è tutto.»

«Ehi! cosa stai facendo, mia cara?» disse il signor Codlin, alzando la testa e sbadigliando. Poi, accorgendosi che il suo compagno dormiva profondamente, aggiunse in un sussurro solenne: «Codlin è l’amico, ricordalo, non Short».

«Sto facendo dei mazzolini di fiori», rispose il bambino; «voglio provare a venderne alcuni, in questi tre giorni di corse. Ne vuole uno? — come regalo, voglio dire?»

Il signor Codlin si sarebbe alzato per riceverlo, ma il bambino si affrettò verso di lui e glielo mise in mano. Lo infilò nel risvolto con un’aria di ineffabile compiacimento per un misantropo, e ghignando trionfalmente verso il ignaro Short, borbottò, mentre si sdraiava di nuovo, «Tom Codlin è l’amico, per Dio!»

Man mano che la mattinata avanzava, le tende assumevano un aspetto più allegro e brillante, e lunghe file di carrozze venivano avanti dolcemente sul tappeto erboso. Gli uomini che avevano gironzolato tutta la notte in camiciotti e calzoni di pelle, uscivano in vellutati panciotti e cappelli e piume, come giocolieri o ciarlatani; o in sontuose livree come servi di dolce parlare alle bancarelle dei giochi d’azzardo; o in robusto abito da contadino come esche per giochi illeciti. Ragazze zingare dallo sguardo nero, avvolte in scialli appariscenti, si facevano avanti per indovinare la sorte, e donne pallide e magre dal volto consumato indugiavano sui gradini dei ventriloqui e dei maghi, e contavano i scellini con occhi ansiosi ben prima che fossero guadagnati. Quanti più bambini si potevano tenere entro certi limiti, venivano stipati, insieme a tutti gli altri segni di sporco e povertà, tra asini, carri e cavalli; e quanti non potevano essere sistemati in questo modo correvano dentro e fuori in tutti gli angoli intricati, si infilavano tra le gambe della gente e le ruote delle carrozze, e uscivano illesi da sotto gli zoccoli dei cavalli. I cani danzanti, le pertiche, la piccola dama e l’uomo alto, e tutte le altre attrazioni, con organi in numero infinito e bande innumerevoli, emersero dai buchi e dagli angoli in cui avevano trascorso la notte, e fiorirono audacemente al sole.

Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen trumpet and revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went Thomas Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on Nelly 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 other adepts 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 dismounted 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 unfavourably at them), and left her to herself. She motioned away a gipsy-woman urgent to tell her fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some years, but called the child towards her, and taking her flowers put money into her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at home for God’s sake.

Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang 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 zenith of his humour, but all this while the eye of Thomas Codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice was impracticable.

At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, had been thinking how strange it was that horses who were such fine honest creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men they drew about them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous witticism of Mr Short’s, having allusion to the circumstances of the day, roused her from her meditation and caused her to look around.

If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment. Short was plying the quarter-staves vigorously and knocking the characters in the fury of the combat against the sides of the show, the people were looking on with laughing faces, and Mr Codlin had relaxed into a grim smile as his roving eye detected hands going into waistcoat pockets and groping secretly for sixpences. If they 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 insensible to the shouts and screeching that assailed them for breaking in upon its sanctity, and creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields.

Lungo il percorso non sgomberato, Short guidava il suo gruppo, suonando la tromba di bronzo e godendosi la voce di Punch; e al suo seguito andava Thomas Codlin, portando lo spettacolo come al solito, e tenendo d’occhio Nelly e suo nonno, che si trascinavano un po’ indietro. La bambina portava sul braccio il piccolo cestino con i suoi fiori, e a volte si fermava, con sguardi timidi e modesti, per offrirli a qualche carrozza elegante; ma ahimè! c’erano molti mendicanti più audaci lì, zingari che promettevano mariti e altri esperti del mestiere, e sebbene alcune signore sorridessero dolcemente mentre scuotevano la testa, e altre gridassero ai gentiluomini al loro fianco ‘Guarda, che faccino carina!’, lasciavano che la faccina carina proseguisse, e non pensavano mai che sembrasse stanca o affamata.

C’era solo una signora che sembrava capire la bambina, ed era una che sedeva sola in una carrozza elegante, mentre due giovani in abiti appariscenti, che erano appena scesi da essa, parlavano e ridevano forte a poca distanza, sembrando dimenticarla, del tutto. C’erano molte signore tutt’intorno, ma voltavano le spalle, o guardavano altrove, o verso i due giovani (non in modo sgradevole), e la lasciavano da sola. Fece allontanare una zingara insistente nel volerle predire il futuro, dicendo che era già stato predetto e lo era da alcuni anni, ma chiamò la bambina verso di sé, e prendendo i suoi fiori mise del denaro nella sua mano tremante, e le disse di andare a casa e di restare a casa per amor di Dio.

Molte volte andarono su e giù per quelle lunghe, lunghe file, vedendo tutto tranne i cavalli e la corsa; quando la campana suonava per liberare il percorso, tornavano a riposarsi tra i carri e gli asini, e non uscivano di nuovo finché la corsa non era finita. Molte volte, inoltre, Punch era esposto nel pieno apice del suo umorismo, ma tutto questo tempo l’occhio di Thomas Codlin era su di loro, e sfuggire senza essere notati era impossibile.

Alla fine, verso sera, il signor Codlin montò lo spettacolo in un punto comodo, e gli spettatori furono presto nel pieno trionfo della scena. La bambina, seduta con il vecchio subito dietro di lei, stava pensando quanto fosse strano che i cavalli, che erano creature così belle e oneste, sembrassero fare dei vagabondi di tutti gli uomini che trainavano intorno a loro, quando una risata fragorosa per una battuta improvvisata del signor Short, che aveva a che fare con gli eventi della giornata, la risvegliò dalla sua meditazione e la spinse a guardarsi intorno.

Se mai avessero potuto andarsene senza essere visti, quello era il momento giusto. Short stava maneggiando vigorosamente i quarti di bastone e, nella furia del combattimento, stava sbattendo i personaggi contro i lati dello spettacolo, la gente stava guardando con volti sorridenti, e il signor Codlin si era rilassato in un cupo sorriso mentre il suo sguardo errante individuava mani che si infilavano nelle tasche dei panciotti e frugavano segretamente alla ricerca di mezzacorone. Se mai avessero potuto andarsene senza essere visti, quello era il momento giusto. Lo colsero e fuggirono.

Essi si aprirono un varco tra bancarelle, carrozze e folla di persone, e mai una volta si fermarono a guardarsi indietro. La campana stava suonando e il corso era stato liberato entro il tempo in cui raggiunsero le corde, ma attraversarono la pista insensibili agli urli e ai fischi che li assalivano per aver violato la sua sacralità, e strisciando sotto la cresta della collina a un passo svelto, si diressero verso i campi aperti.

CHAPTER 20

Day after day as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some new effort to procure employment, Kit raised his eyes to the window of the little room he had so much commended to the child, and hoped to see some indication of her presence. His own earnest wish, coupled with the assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him with the belief that she would yet arrive to claim the humble shelter he had offered, and from the death of each day’s hope another hope sprung up to live to-morrow.

‘I think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh mother?’ said Kit, laying aside his hat with a weary air and sighing as he spoke. ‘They have been gone a week. They surely couldn’t stop away more than a week, could they now?’

The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been disappointed already.

‘For the matter of that,’ said Kit, ‘you speak true and sensible enough, as you always do, mother. Still, I do consider that a week is quite long enough for ‘em to be rambling about; don’t you say so?’

‘Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come back for all that.’

Kit was for a moment disposed to be vexed by this contradiction, and not the less so from having anticipated it in his own mind and knowing how just it was. But the impulse was only momentary, and the vexed look became a kind one before it had crossed the room.

‘Then what do you think, mother, has become of ‘em? You don’t think they’ve gone to sea, anyhow?’

‘Not gone for sailors, certainly,’ returned the mother with a smile. ‘But I can’t help thinking that they have gone to some foreign country.’

‘I say,’ cried Kit with a rueful face, ‘don’t talk like that, mother.’

‘I am afraid they have, and that’s the truth,’ she said. ‘It’s the talk of all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of their having been seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of the place they’ve gone to, which is more than I can, my dear, for it’s a very hard one.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Kit. ‘Not a word of it. A set of idle chatterboxes, how should they know!’

‘They may be wrong of course,’ returned the mother, ‘I can’t tell about that, though I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that they’re in the right, for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a little money that nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you talk to me about—what’s his name—Quilp; and that he and Miss Nell have gone to live abroad where it can’t be taken from them, and they will never be disturbed. That don’t seem very far out of the way now, do it?’

Kit scratched his head mournfully, in reluctant admission that it did not, and clambering up to the old nail took down the cage and set himself to clean it and to feed the bird. His thoughts reverting from this occupation to the little old gentleman who had given him the shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the very day—nay, nearly the very hour—at which the little old gentleman had said he should be at the Notary’s house again. He no sooner remembered this, than he hung up the cage with great precipitation, and hastily explaining the nature of his errand, went off at full speed to the appointed place.

It was some two minutes after the time when he reached the spot, which was a considerable distance from his home, but by great good luck the little old gentleman had not yet arrived; at least there was no pony-chaise to be seen, and it was not likely that he had come and gone again in so short a space. Greatly relieved to find that he was not too late, Kit leant against a lamp-post to take breath, and waited the advent of the pony and his charge.

Sure enough, before long the pony came trotting round the corner of the street, looking as obstinate as pony might, and picking his steps as if he were spying about for the cleanest places, and would by no means dirty his feet or hurry himself inconveniently. Behind the pony sat the little old gentleman, and by the old gentleman’s side sat the little old lady, carrying just such a nosegay as she had brought before.

The old gentleman, the old lady, the pony, and the chaise, came up the street in perfect unanimity, until they arrived within some half a dozen doors of the Notary’s house, when the pony, deceived by a brass-plate beneath a tailor’s knocker, came to a halt, and maintained by a sturdy silence, that that was the house they wanted.

‘Now, Sir, will you ha’ the goodness to go on; this is not the place,’ said the old gentleman.

The pony looked with great attention into a fire-plug which was near him, and appeared to be quite absorbed in contemplating it.

‘Oh dear, such a naughty Whisker!’ cried the old lady. ‘After being so good too, and coming along so well! I am quite ashamed of him. I don’t know what we are to do with him, I really don’t.’

The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and properties of the fire-plug, looked into the air after his old enemies the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling his ear at that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail, after which he appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and collected. The old gentleman having exhausted his powers of persuasion, alighted to lead him; whereupon the pony, perhaps because he held this to be a sufficient concession, perhaps because he happened to catch sight of the other brass-plate, or perhaps because he was in a spiteful humour, darted off with the old lady and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come panting on behind.

It was then that Kit presented himself at the pony’s head, and touched his hat with a smile.

‘Why, bless me,’ cried the old gentleman, ‘the lad is here! My dear, do you see?’

‘I said I’d be here, Sir,’ said Kit, patting Whisker’s neck. ‘I hope you’ve had a pleasant ride, sir. He’s a very nice little pony.’

‘My dear,’ said the old gentleman. ‘This is an uncommon lad; a good lad, I’m sure.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ rejoined the old lady. ‘A very good lad, and I am sure he is a good son.’

Kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his hat again and blushing very much. The old gentleman then handed the old lady out, and after looking at him with an approving smile, they went into the house—talking about him as they went, Kit could not help feeling. Presently Mr Witherden, smelling very hard at the nosegay, came to the window and looked at him, and after that Mr Abel came and looked at him, and after that the old gentleman and lady came and looked at him again, and after that they all came and looked at him together, which Kit, feeling very much embarrassed by, made a pretence of not observing. Therefore he patted the pony more and more; and this liberty the pony most handsomely permitted.

The faces had not disappeared from the window many moments, when Mr Chuckster in his official coat, and with his hat hanging on his head just as it happened to fall from its peg, appeared upon the pavement, and telling him he was wanted inside, bade him go in and he would mind the chaise the while. In giving him this direction Mr Chuckster remarked that he wished that he might be blessed if he could make out whether he (Kit) was ‘precious raw’ or ‘precious deep,’ but intimated by a distrustful shake of the head, that he inclined to the latter opinion.

Kit entered the office in a great tremor, for he was not used to going among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and bundles of dusty papers had in his eyes an awful and venerable air. Mr Witherden too was a bustling gentleman who talked loud and fast, and all eyes were upon him, and he was very shabby.

‘Well, boy,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘you came to work out that shilling;—not to get another, hey?’

‘No indeed, sir,’ replied Kit, taking courage to look up. ‘I never thought of such a thing.’

‘Father alive?’ said the Notary.

‘Dead, sir.’

‘Mother?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Married again—eh?’

Kit made answer, not without some indignation, that she was a widow with three children, and that as to her marrying again, if the gentleman knew her he wouldn’t think of such a thing. At this reply Mr Witherden buried his nose in the flowers again, and whispered behind the nosegay to the old gentleman that he believed the lad was as honest a lad as need be.

‘Now,’ said Mr Garland when they had made some further inquiries of him, ‘I am not going to give you anything—’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Kit replied; and quite seriously too, for this announcement seemed to free him from the suspicion which the Notary had hinted.

‘—But,’ resumed the old gentleman, ‘perhaps I may want to know something more about you, so tell me where you live, and I’ll put it down in my pocket-book.’

Kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his pencil. He had scarcely done so, when there was a great uproar in the street, and the old lady hurrying to the window cried that Whisker had run away, upon which Kit darted out to the rescue, and the others followed.

It seemed that Mr Chuckster had been standing with his hands in his pockets looking carelessly at the pony, and occasionally insulting him with such admonitions as ‘Stand still,’—‘Be quiet,’—‘Woa-a-a,’ and the like, which by a pony of spirit cannot be borne. Consequently, the pony being deterred by no considerations of duty or obedience, and not having before him the slightest fear of the human eye, had at length started off, and was at that moment rattling down the street—Mr Chuckster, with his hat off and a pen behind his ear, hanging on in the rear of the chaise and making futile attempts to draw it the other way, to the unspeakable admiration of all beholders. Even in running away, however, Whisker was perverse, for he had not gone very far when he suddenly stopped, and before assistance could be rendered, commenced backing at nearly as quick a pace as he had gone forward. By these means Mr Chuckster was pushed and hustled to the office again, in a most inglorious manner, and arrived in a state of great exhaustion and discomfiture.

The old lady then stepped into her seat, and Mr Abel (whom they had come to fetch) into his. The old gentleman, after reasoning with the pony on the extreme impropriety of his conduct, and making the best amends in his power to Mr Chuckster, took his place also, and they drove away, waving a farewell to the Notary and his clerk, and more than once turning to nod kindly to Kit as he watched them from the road.

CAPITOLO 20

Giorno dopo giorno, mentre si dirigeva verso casa dopo un nuovo tentativo di procurarsi un lavoro, Kit alzava gli occhi verso la finestra della piccola stanza che aveva tanto raccomandato al bambino, e sperava di vedere qualche segno della sua presenza. Il suo sincero desiderio, unito all’assicurazione ricevuta da Quilp, lo riempiva della convinzione che sarebbe arrivata per rivendicare l’umile rifugio che le aveva offerto, e dalla morte della speranza di ogni giorno nasceva un’altra speranza per vivere il domani.

«Penso che dovranno certamente venire domani, eh madre?» disse Kit, togliendosi il cappello con aria stanca e sospirando mentre parlava. «Sono partiti da una settimana. Non potrebbero certo rimanere lontani più di una settimana, vero?»

La madre scosse la testa e gli ricordò quante volte era già stato deluso.

«Del resto», disse Kit, «parlate con verità e buon senso, come al solito, mamma. Tuttavia, ritengo che una settimana sia tempo più che sufficiente per le loro peregrinazioni; non siete d’accordo?»

‘Abbastanza lungo, Kit, più che abbastanza, ma potrebbe non tornare per tutto questo.’

Kit fu per un momento incline a irritarsi per questa contraddizione, e tanto più perché l’aveva prevista e sapeva quanto fosse giusta. Ma l’impulso fu solo momentaneo, e l’espressione irritata si trasformò in un’espressione gentile prima che avesse attraversato la stanza.

«Allora, secondo te, madre, che ne è stato di loro? Non pensi che siano andati in mare, comunque?»

«Non andati per i marinai, certamente», rispose la madre con un sorriso. «Ma non posso fare a meno di pensare che siano andati in qualche paese straniero.»

“Dico io,” esclamò Kit con aria contrita, “non parlare così, mamma.”

«Temo che sia così, ed è la verità», disse. «È il discorso di tutti i vicini, e ce ne sono alcuni che sanno che sono stati visti a bordo della nave, e possono dirti il nome del luogo dove sono andati, il che non posso fare io, mia cara, perché è un nome molto difficile.»

«Non ci credo», disse Kit. «Non una parola. Un gruppo di chiacchierone oziosi, come potrebbero saperlo!»

«Potrebbero sbagliarsi, naturalmente», rispose la madre, «ma non posso dirlo, anche se non credo che sia affatto improbabile che abbiano ragione, perché si dice che il vecchio signore avesse messo da parte un po’ di soldi che nessuno conosceva, nemmeno quel brutto ometto di cui mi parli - come si chiama - Quilp; e che lui e la signorina Nell siano andati a vivere all’estero dove non possono essere tolti loro, e non saranno mai disturbati. Non sembra molto lontano dalla realtà, vero?»

Kit si grattò la testa con tristezza, ammettendo a malincuore che non era così, e arrampicandosi fino al vecchio chiodo prese giù la gabbia e si mise a pulirla e a dare da mangiare all’uccello. I suoi pensieri, passando da questo compito al vecchietto che gli aveva dato lo scellino, gli fecero improvvisamente ricordare che quello era proprio il giorno — anzi, quasi l’ora precisa — in cui il vecchietto aveva detto che sarebbe tornato alla casa del notaio. Non appena se ne ricordò, appese la gabbia con grande precipitazione e, spiegando in fretta la natura della sua missione, partì a tutta velocità per il luogo stabilito.

Erano passati circa due minuti dopo l’ora in cui raggiunse il luogo, che si trovava a notevole distanza dalla sua casa, ma per fortuna la vecchietta non era ancora arrivata; almeno non si vedeva nessuna carrozza a cavalli, e non era probabile che fosse venuta e ripartita in così poco tempo. Immensamente sollevato di scoprire di non essere troppo in ritardo, Kit si appoggiò a un lampione per riprendere fiato e attese l’arrivo del pony e del suo passeggero.

Infatti, poco dopo, il pony arrivò al trotto girando l’angolo della strada, con un’aria ostinata da vero pony, scegliendo i suoi passi come se stesse cercando i posti più puliti, e non voleva assolutamente sporcarsi i piedi o affrettarsi in modo scomodo. Dietro al pony sedeva il vecchietto, e accanto al vecchietto sedeva la vecchietta, portando proprio lo stesso mazzolino di fiori che aveva portato prima.

Il vecchio signore, la vecchia signora, il pony e la carrozza salirono la strada in perfetta unisono, finché non arrivarono a una mezza dozzina di porte dalla casa dello scrivano, quando il pony, ingannato da una targa di ottone sotto il battente di un sarto, si fermò e, con un robusto silenzio, affermò che quella era la casa che cercavano.

«Ora, signore, vuole avere la gentilezza di continuare; questo non è il posto», disse il vecchio signore.

Il pony guardò con grande attenzione un idrante che era vicino a lui, e sembrava essere completamente assorbito nel contemplarlo.

«Oh, poverino, che Whisker così cattivo!» esclamò la vecchietta. «Dopo essere stato così buono e aver fatto così bene! Ne sono davvero imbarazzata. Non so proprio cosa faremo di lui, davvero non lo so.»

Il pony, dopo essersi completamente convinto circa la natura e le proprietà del rubinetto dell’acqua, scrutò l’aria in cerca dei suoi vecchi nemici, le mosche, e poiché in quel momento una di esse gli stava solleticando l’orecchio, scosse la testa e agitò la coda, dopo di che sembrò immerso in profondi pensieri ma del tutto a suo agio e tranquillo. Il vecchio signore, dopo aver esaurito le sue capacità di persuasione, scese per condurre il pony; a questo punto il pony, forse perché considerava ciò una concessione sufficiente, forse perché gli capitò di notare l’altra targa di ottone, o forse perché era di umore capriccioso, partì di scatto con la vecchia signora e si fermò davanti alla giusta casa, lasciando il vecchio signore a seguirli ansimando.

Fu allora che Kit si presentò alla testa del pony e si toccò il cappello con un sorriso.

“Ma, perbacco,” esclamò il vecchio signore, “il ragazzo è qui! Mia cara, lo vedi?”

«Ho detto che sarei stato qui, signore», disse Kit, accarezzando il collo di Whisker. «Spero che il viaggio sia stato piacevole, signore. È un pony davvero carino.»

“Caro mio,” disse il vecchio signore. “Questo è un ragazzo fuori dal comune; un bravo ragazzo, ne sono sicuro.”

«Sono sicura che lo sia», replicò la vecchia signora. «Un ragazzo molto bravo, e sono sicura che sia un buon figlio.»

Kit riconobbe queste espressioni di fiducia toccandosi di nuovo il cappello e arrossendo molto. Il vecchio gentiluomo poi aiutò la vecchia signora a scendere, e dopo averlo guardato con un sorriso di approvazione, entrarono nella casa — parlando di lui mentre andavano, Kit non poteva fare a meno di sentire. Poco dopo il signor Witherden, annusando molto forte il mazzolino, si avvicinò alla finestra e lo guardò, e dopo di che il signor Abel venne e lo guardò, e dopo di che il vecchio gentiluomo e la signora vennero e lo guardarono di nuovo, e dopo di che tutti vennero e lo guardarono insieme, il che imbarazzò molto Kit, che fece finta di non accorgersene. Perciò accarezzò sempre più il pony; e questa libertà il pony gli concesse molto gentilmente.

I volti erano scomparsi dalla finestra da pochi istanti, quando il signor Chuckster, con il suo cappotto ufficiale e il cappello che gli penzolava sulla testa proprio come era caduto dal suo gancio, apparve sul marciapiede, e dicendogli che era richiesto all’interno, gli ordinò di entrare e che nel frattempo lui avrebbe sorvegliato la carrozza. Nel dargli queste istruzioni, il signor Chuckster osservò che avrebbe voluto essere benedetto se fosse riuscito a capire se lui (Kit) fosse “terribilmente ingenuo” o “terribilmente astuto”, ma lasciò intendere, con un sospettoso scuotimento di testa, che tendeva a optare per quest’ultima ipotesi.

Kit entrò nell’ufficio tremando, perché non era abituato a frequentare signore e signori sconosciuti, e le scatole di latta e i fascicoli di carte polverose avevano ai suoi occhi un aspetto terribile e venerabile. Anche il signor Witherden era un signore affaccendato che parlava forte e veloce, e tutti gli occhi erano su di lui, e lui era molto trasandato.

«Bene, ragazzo», disse il signor Witherden, «sei venuto a guadagnare quel scellino;—non a prenderne un altro, eh?»

‘No davvero, signore,’ rispose Kit, prendendo coraggio per alzare lo sguardo. ‘Non ho mai pensato a una cosa del genere.’

«Il padre è vivo?» disse il notaio.

‘Morto, signore.’

‘Mamma?’

“Sì, signore.”

‘Risposato, eh?’

Kit rispose, non senza un po’ di indignazione, che era una vedova con tre figli, e che per quanto riguardava il suo risposarsi, se il gentiluomo la conoscesse non penserebbe a una cosa del genere. A questa risposta il signor Witherden si immerse di nuovo il naso tra i fiori e sussurrò dietro al mazzolino al vecchio signore che credeva che il ragazzo fosse un ragazzo onesto come pochi.

«Ora», disse il signor Garland quando ebbero fatto altre domande a lui, «non ho intenzione di darvi nulla, »

«Grazie, signore», rispose Kit; e lo disse con sincerità, perché questa notizia sembrava liberarlo dal sospetto che il notaio aveva insinuato.

«—Ma», riprese il vecchio signore, «forse vorrò sapere qualcosa di più su di te, quindi dimmi dove vivi, e lo annoterò sul mio taccuino.»

Kit glielo disse, e il vecchio signore scrisse l’indirizzo con la sua matita. Non aveva ancora finito, quando scoppiò un gran trambusto in strada, e la vecchia signora, precipitandosi alla finestra, gridò che Whisker era scappato, al che Kit si lanciò in soccorso, seguito dagli altri.

Sembra che il signor Chuckster fosse rimasto in piedi con le mani in tasca a guardare con noncuranza il pony, e a insultarlo di tanto in tanto con ammonizioni come «Stai fermo» — «Stai zitto» — «Fermati», e simili, che un pony di razza non può tollerare. Di conseguenza, il pony, non trattenuto da alcuna considerazione di dovere o obbedienza, e non avendo davanti a sé il benché minimo timore dell’occhio umano, era alla fine partito, e in quel momento stava sfrecciando lungo la strada — il signor Chuckster, con il cappello in mano e una penna dietro l’orecchio, che lo seguiva in fondo alla carrozza e faceva tentativi inutili di tirarla nella direzione opposta, con l’ammirazione inesprimibile di tutti gli spettatori. Anche mentre scappava, però, Whisker era perverso, perché non era andato molto lontano quando si fermò all’improvviso, e prima che potessero dargli una mano, cominciò a indietreggiare a un ritmo quasi altrettanto veloce di quello con cui era andato avanti. In questo modo il signor Chuckster fu spinto e spintonato fino all’ufficio di nuovo, in maniera del tutto ingloriosa, e arrivò in uno stato di grande spossatezza e disordine.

La vecchia signora si accomodò quindi al suo posto, e il signor Abel (che erano venuti a prendere) al suo. Il vecchio signore, dopo aver fatto una paternale al pony sulla estrema improprietà del suo comportamento, e aver fatto del suo meglio per scusarsi con il signor Chuckster, prese posto anche lui, e partirono, salutando con la mano il notaio e il suo impiegato, e voltandosi più di una volta per fare un cenno amichevole a Kit che li guardava dalla strada.

CHAPTER 21

Kit turned away and very soon forgot the pony, and the chaise, and the little old lady, and the little old gentleman, and the little young gentleman to boot, in thinking what could have become of his late master and his lovely grandchild, who were the fountain-head of all his meditations. Still casting about for some plausible means of accounting for their non-appearance, and of persuading himself that they must soon return, he bent his steps towards home, intending to finish the task which the sudden recollection of his contract had interrupted, and then to sally forth once more to seek his fortune for the day.

When he came to the corner of the court in which he lived, lo and behold there was the pony again! Yes, there he was, looking more obstinate than ever; and alone in the chaise, keeping a steady watch upon his every wink, sat Mr Abel, who, lifting up his eyes by chance and seeing Kit pass by, nodded to him as though he would have nodded his head off.

Kit wondered to see the pony again, so near his own home too, but it never occurred to him for what purpose the pony might have come there, or where the old lady and the old gentleman had gone, until he lifted the latch of the door, and walking in, found them seated in the room in conversation with his mother, at which unexpected sight he pulled off his hat and made his best bow in some confusion.

‘We are here before you, you see, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland smiling.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his mother for an explanation of the visit.

‘The gentleman’s been kind enough, my dear,’ said she, in reply to this mute interrogation, ‘to ask me whether you were in a good place, or in any place at all, and when I told him no, you were not in any, he was so good as to say that—’

‘—That we wanted a good lad in our house,’ said the old gentleman and the old lady both together, ‘and that perhaps we might think of it, if we found everything as we would wish it to be.’

As this thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit, he immediately partook of his mother’s anxiety and fell into a great flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious, and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid there was no chance of his success.

‘You see, my good woman,’ said Mrs Garland to Kit’s mother, ‘that it’s necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter as this, for we’re only three in family, and are very quiet regular folks, and it would be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake, and found things different from what we hoped and expected.’

To this, Kit’s mother replied, that certainly it was quite true, and quite right, and quite proper, and Heaven forbid that she should shrink, or have cause to shrink, from any inquiry into her character or that of her son, who was a very good son though she was his mother, in which respect, she was bold to say, he took after his father, who was not only a good son to HIS mother, but the best of husbands and the best of fathers besides, which Kit could and would corroborate she knew, and so would little Jacob and the baby likewise if they were old enough, which unfortunately they were not, though as they didn’t know what a loss they had had, perhaps it was a great deal better that they should be as young as they were; and so Kit’s mother wound up a long story by wiping her eyes with her apron, and patting little Jacob’s head, who was rocking the cradle and staring with all his might at the strange lady and gentleman.

When Kit’s mother had done speaking, the old lady struck in again, and said that she was quite sure she was a very honest and very respectable person or she never would have expressed herself in that manner, and that certainly the appearance of the children and the cleanliness of the house deserved great praise and did her the utmost credit, whereat Kit’s mother dropped a curtsey and became consoled. Then the good woman entered in a long and minute account of Kit’s life and history from the earliest period down to that time, not omitting to make mention of his miraculous fall out of a back-parlour window when an infant of tender years, or his uncommon sufferings in a state of measles, which were illustrated by correct imitations of the plaintive manner in which he called for toast and water, day and night, and said, ‘don’t cry, mother, I shall soon be better;’ for proof of which statements reference was made to Mrs Green, lodger, at the cheesemonger’s round the corner, and divers other ladies and gentlemen in various parts of England and Wales (and one Mr Brown who was supposed to be then a corporal in the East Indies, and who could of course be found with very little trouble), within whose personal knowledge the circumstances had occurred. This narration ended, Mr Garland put some questions to Kit respecting his qualifications and general acquirements, while Mrs Garland noticed the children, and hearing from Kit’s mother certain remarkable circumstances which had attended the birth of each, related certain other remarkable circumstances which had attended the birth of her own son, Mr Abel, from which it appeared that both Kit’s mother and herself had been, above and beyond all other women of what condition or age soever, peculiarly hemmed in with perils and dangers. Lastly, inquiry was made into the nature and extent of Kit’s wardrobe, and a small advance being made to improve the same, he was formally hired at an annual income of Six Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by Mr and Mrs Garland, of Abel Cottage, Finchley.

It would be difficult to say which party appeared most pleased with this arrangement, the conclusion of which was hailed with nothing but pleasant looks and cheerful smiles on both sides. It was settled that Kit should repair to his new abode on the next day but one, in the morning; and finally, the little old couple, after bestowing a bright half-crown on little Jacob and another on the baby, took their leaves; being escorted as far as the street by their new attendant, who held the obdurate pony by the bridle while they took their seats, and saw them drive away with a lightened heart.

CAPITOLO 21

Kit si voltò e ben presto dimenticò il pony, la carrozza, la vecchietta, il vecchietto e il giovane signore, mentre pensava a cosa potesse essere successo al suo defunto padrone e alla sua adorabile nipote, che erano la fonte di tutte le sue riflessioni. Continuando a cercare un modo plausibile per spiegare la loro assenza e per convincersi che sarebbero tornati presto, si diresse verso casa, con l’intenzione di finire il lavoro che il brusco ricordo del suo contratto aveva interrotto, e poi di uscire di nuovo per cercare la sua fortuna per il giorno.

Quando arrivò all’angolo del vicolo in cui viveva, oh sorpresa, c’era di nuovo il pony! Sì, eccolo lì, che sembrava più ostinato che mai; e solo nella carrozza, tenendo d’occhio ogni suo movimento, sedeva il signor Abel, che, alzando gli occhi per caso e vedendo Kit passare, gli fece un cenno con la testa come se volesse staccarsela.

Kit si meravigliò di rivedere il pony così vicino a casa sua, ma non gli passò mai per la mente a quale scopo il pony potesse essersi recato lì, né dove fossero andati la vecchia signora e il vecchio signore, finché non alzò il chiavistello della porta e, entrando, li trovò seduti nella stanza in conversazione con sua madre, a quella vista inaspettata si tolse il cappello e fece il suo migliore inchino in qualche confusione.

«Siamo qui davanti a voi, vedete, Christopher», disse il signor Garland sorridendo.

«Sì, signore», disse Kit; e mentre lo diceva, guardò sua madre in cerca di una spiegazione per la visita.

«Il signore è stato così gentile, mia cara», disse in risposta a questo interrogativo muto, «da chiedermi se eri in un buon posto, o in qualche posto, e quando gli ho detto di no, che non eri in nessun posto, è stato così gentile da dire che—»

«—Che volevamo un bravo ragazzo nella nostra casa,» dissero insieme il vecchio signore e la vecchia signora, «e che forse avremmo potuto pensarci, se avessimo trovato tutto come avremmo desiderato che fosse.»

Poiché questo pensiero, evidentemente, significava che stava pensando di assumere Kit, lui subito condivise l’ansia della madre e si mise a tremare; perché la vecchietta e il vecchietto erano molto metodici e cauti, e facevano così tante domande che lui cominciò a temere che non ci fosse alcuna possibilità di successo.

«Vede, mia buona donna», disse la signora Garland alla madre di Kit, «che è necessario essere molto cauti e precisi in una faccenda come questa, perché siamo solo in tre in famiglia, e siamo persone molto tranquille e regolari, e sarebbe una cosa triste se facessimo qualche tipo di errore, e trovassimo le cose diverse da quello che speravamo e ci aspettavamo.»

A questo, la madre di Kit rispose che era certamente vero, giusto e appropriato, e che Dio la liberasse dal ritrarsi o avere motivo di ritrarsi da qualsiasi indagine sul suo carattere o su quello di suo figlio, che era un figlio molto buono anche se lei era sua madre, in questo rispetto, si permetteva di dire, assomigliava a suo padre, che non era solo un buon figlio per SUA madre, ma anche il migliore dei mariti e il migliore dei padri, il che Kit poteva e voleva confermare, lo sapeva, e così avrebbero fatto anche il piccolo Giacobbe e il bambino se fossero stati abbastanza grandi, il che purtroppo non erano, anche se dato che non sapevano quale perdita avessero avuto, forse era molto meglio che fossero così giovani come erano; e così la madre di Kit concluse una lunga storia asciugandosi gli occhi con il grembiule e accarezzando la testa del piccolo Giacobbe, che stava dondolando la culla e fissava con tutta la sua forza la strana signora e il signore.

Quando la madre di Kit ebbe finito di parlare, la vecchia signora intervenne di nuovo e disse che era assolutamente sicura di essere una persona molto onesta e molto rispettabile, altrimenti non si sarebbe mai espressa in quel modo, e che certamente l’aspetto dei bambini e la pulizia della casa meritavano grandi lodi e le rendevano il massimo credito, al che la madre di Kit fece una riverenza e si consolò. Poi la brava donna entrò in un lungo e minuzioso resoconto della vita e della storia di Kit fin dai tempi più remoti fino a quel momento, senza tralasciare di menzionare la sua miracolosa caduta da una finestra di un salotto sul retro quando era un bambino di tenera età, o le sue sofferenze straordinarie durante la malattia del morbillo, che furono illustrate da imitazioni esatte del modo lamentoso in cui chiedeva tostapane e acqua, giorno e notte, e diceva: «Non piangere, mamma, presto starò meglio»; a prova di queste affermazioni si fece riferimento alla signora Green, inquilina, dal formaggiaio all’angolo, e a varie altre signore e signori in diverse parti dell’Inghilterra e del Galles (e a un certo signor Brown che si supponeva essere allora caporale nelle Indie Orientali, e che naturalmente si poteva trovare con poca fatica), che avevano personalmente conosciuto le circostanze. Terminata questa narrazione, il signor Garland fece alcune domande a Kit riguardo alle sue qualifiche e ai suoi apprendimenti generali, mentre la signora Garland osservava i bambini, e, avendo appreso dalla madre di Kit alcune circostanze notevoli che avevano accompagnato la nascita di ciascuno, raccontò altre circostanze notevoli che avevano accompagnato la nascita di suo figlio, il signor Abel, da cui risultava che sia la madre di Kit che lei stessa erano state, più di ogni altra donna di qualsiasi condizione o età, particolarmente circondate da pericoli e insidie. Infine, si fece indagine sulla natura e sull’ampiezza del guardaroba di Kit, e, fatto un piccolo anticipo per migliorarlo, fu formalmente assunto a un reddito annuo di Sei Sterline, oltre al vitto e all’alloggio, da parte del signor e della signora Garland, di Abel Cottage, Finchley.

Sarebbe difficile dire quale delle due parti fosse più soddisfatta di questo accordo, la cui conclusione fu salutata con sguardi amichevoli e sorrisi gioiosi da entrambe le parti. Fu stabilito che Kit si sarebbe trasferito nella sua nuova dimora il giorno dopo il successivo, al mattino; e infine, la piccola coppia di anziani, dopo aver donato un mezzo-corona luccicante a piccolo Jacob e un altro al bebè, si congedò; essendo stati scortati fino in strada dal loro nuovo assistente, che teneva il pony ostinato per le briglie mentre prendevano posto, e li vide allontanarsi con il cuore alleggerito.

‘Well, mother,’ said Kit, hurrying back into the house, ‘I think my fortune’s about made now.’

‘I should think it was indeed, Kit,’ rejoined his mother. ‘Six pound a year! Only think!’

‘Ah!’ said Kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the consideration of such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in spite of himself. ‘There’s a property!’

Kit drew a long breath when he had said this, and putting his hands deep into his pockets as if there were one year’s wages at least in each, looked at his mother, as though he saw through her, and down an immense perspective of sovereigns beyond.

‘Please God we’ll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such a scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the one up stairs! Six pound a year!’

‘Hem!’ croaked a strange voice. ‘What’s that about six pound a year? What about six pound a year?’ And as the voice made this inquiry, Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his heels.

‘Who said he was to have six pound a year?’ said Quilp, looking sharply round. ‘Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it? And what’s he to have it for, and where are they, eh!’

The good woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this unknown piece of ugliness, that she hastily caught the baby from its cradle and retreated into the furthest corner of the room; while little Jacob, sitting upon his stool with his hands on his knees, looked full at him in a species of fascination, roaring lustily all the time. Richard Swiveller took an easy observation of the family over Mr Quilp’s head, and Quilp himself, with his hands in his pockets, smiled in an exquisite enjoyment of the commotion he occasioned.

‘Don’t be frightened, mistress,’ said Quilp, after a pause. ‘Your son knows me; I don’t eat babies; I don’t like ‘em. It will be as well to stop that young screamer though, in case I should be tempted to do him a mischief. Holloa, sir! Will you be quiet?’

Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing out of his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror.

‘Mind you don’t break out again, you villain,’ said Quilp, looking sternly at him, ‘or I’ll make faces at you and throw you into fits, I will. Now you sir, why haven’t you been to me as you promised?’

‘What should I come for?’ retorted Kit. ‘I hadn’t any business with you, no more than you had with me.’

‘Here, mistress,’ said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from Kit to his mother. ‘When did his old master come or send here last? Is he here now? If not, where’s he gone?’

‘He has not been here at all,’ she replied. ‘I wish we knew where they have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his mind, and me too. If you’re the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should have thought you’d have known, and so I told him only this very day.’

‘Humph!’ muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that this was true. ‘That’s what you tell this gentleman too, is it?’

‘If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can’t tell him anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,’ was the reply.

Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met him on the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some intelligence of the fugitives. He supposed he was right?

‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘that was the object of the present expedition. I fancied it possible—but let us go ring fancy’s knell. I’ll begin it.’

‘You seem disappointed,’ observed Quilp.

‘A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that’s all,’ returned Dick. ‘I have entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being of brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs’s altar. That’s all, sir.’

The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had been taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not, and continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks. Quilp plainly discerned that there was some secret reason for this visit and his uncommon disappointment, and, in the hope that there might be means of mischief lurking beneath it, resolved to worm it out. He had no sooner adopted this resolution, than he conveyed as much honesty into his face as it was capable of expressing, and sympathised with Mr Swiveller exceedingly.

‘I am disappointed myself,’ said Quilp, ‘out of mere friendly feeling for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have no doubt, for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier than mine.’

‘Why, of course it does,’ Dick observed, testily.

‘Upon my word, I’m very sorry, very sorry. I’m rather cast down myself. As we are companions in adversity, shall we be companions in the surest way of forgetting it? If you had no particular business, now, to lead you in another direction,’ urged Quilp, plucking him by the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out of the corners of his eyes, ‘there is a house by the water-side where they have some of the noblest Schiedam—reputed to be smuggled, but that’s between ourselves—that can be got in all the world. The landlord knows me. There’s a little summer-house overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this delicious liquor with a whiff of the best tobacco—it’s in this case, and of the rarest quality, to my certain knowledge—and be perfectly snug and happy, could we possibly contrive it; or is there any very particular engagement that peremptorily takes you another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?’

As the dwarf spoke, Dick’s face relaxed into a compliant smile, and his brows slowly unbent. By the time he had finished, Dick was looking down at Quilp in the same sly manner as Quilp was looking up at him, and there remained nothing more to be done but to set out for the house in question. This they did, straightway. The moment their backs were turned, little Jacob thawed, and resumed his crying from the point where Quilp had frozen him.

«Beh, madre», disse Kit, affrettandosi a rientrare in casa, «credo che la mia fortuna sia ormai fatta».

«Penso che lo sia davvero, Kit», rispose sua madre. «Sei sterline all’anno! Solo pensaci!»

«Ah!» disse Kit, cercando di mantenere la gravità che la considerazione di una tale somma richiedeva, ma sogghignando di piacere nonostante se stesso. «C’è una proprietà!»

Kit tirò un lungo respiro dopo aver detto questo, e infilando le mani fino in fondo alle tasche come se ci fossero almeno un anno di stipendio in ciascuna, guardò sua madre, come se la vedesse attraverso un vetro e oltre, in un’immensa prospettiva di sovrani.

«Per favore, Dio, ti faremo una tale signora per le domeniche, mamma! un tale studioso di Jacob, un tale bambino del piccolo, una tale stanza di quella di sopra! Sei sterline all’anno!»

‘Ehm!’ gracchiò una voce strana. ‘Che cosa c’è di così importante in sei sterline l’anno? Che cosa c’è in sei sterline l’anno?’ E mentre la voce faceva questa domanda, Daniel Quilp entrò con Richard Swiveller alle calcagna.

«Chi ha detto che doveva avere sei sterline all’anno?» disse Quilp, guardandosi intorno con attenzione. «L’ha detto il vecchio, o l’ha detto la piccola Nell? E per cosa dovrebbe averle, e dove sono, eh!»

La buona donna fu così spaventata dalla repentina apparizione di questo ignoto frammento di bruttezza, che afferrò in fretta il bambino dalla culla e si ritirò nell’angolo più lontano della stanza; mentre il piccolo Giacobbe, seduto sulla sua sedia con le mani sulle ginocchia, lo guardava fissamente in una specie di fascinazione, ruggendo vigorosamente tutto il tempo. Richard Swiveller fece una facile osservazione della famiglia sopra la testa di Quilp, e lo stesso Quilp, con le mani in tasca, sorrise in un delizioso godimento della commozione che aveva provocato.

«Non abbia paura, padrona», disse Quilp, dopo una pausa. «Il suo ragazzo mi conosce; non mangio i bambini; non mi piacciono. Sarà però meglio far smettere quel giovane urlatore, nel caso in cui dovessi essere tentato di fargli del male. Ehi, lei! Vuole stare zitto?»

Il piccolo Giacobbe frenò il corso di due lacrime che stava strizzando fuori dai suoi occhi, e subito sprofondò in un orrore silenzioso.

«Fai attenzione a non ricominciare, tu canaglia», disse Quilp, guardandolo severamente, «o ti farò le smorfie e ti farò venire le convulsioni, lo farò. Ora, tu, signore, perché non sei venuto da me come avevi promesso?»

«Per quale motivo dovrei venire?» ribatté Kit. «Non avevo nulla da fare con voi, così come voi non avevate nulla da fare con me.»

«Ecco, padrona», disse Quilp, voltandosi rapidamente e facendo appello da Kit a sua madre. «Quando è venuto o ha mandato qui l’ultimo suo vecchio padrone? È qui ora? Se no, dove è andato?»

«Non è stato qui affatto», rispose. «Vorrei che sapessimo dove sono andati, perché ciò metterebbe la mente di mio figlio molto più a suo agio, e anche la mia. Se lei è il signore di nome signor Quilp, avrei pensato che lo sapesse, e così gli ho detto proprio oggi stesso.»

«Humph!» borbottò Quilp, evidentemente deluso di dover credere che fosse vero. «È quello che dite anche a questo signore, vero?»

«Se il signore dovesse fare la stessa domanda, non posso dirgli altro, signore; e vorrei tanto poterlo fare, per il nostro bene», fu la risposta.

Quilp lanciò un’occhiata a Richard Swiveller e osservò che, avendolo incontrato sulla soglia, supponeva che fosse venuto in cerca di notizie dei fuggitivi. Si supponeva avesse ragione?

«Sì», disse Dick, «questo era lo scopo della presente spedizione. Mi pareva possibile - ma andiamo a suonare il glas della fantasia. Io lo inizio.»

«Sembra che tu sia deluso», osservò Quilp.

«Un fallimento, signore, un fallimento, ecco tutto», rispose Dick. «Mi sono lanciato in un’impresa che si è rivelata un fallimento; e un Essere di luminosità e bellezza sarà offerto in sacrificio sull’altare di Cheggs. Questo è tutto, signore.»

Il nanerottolo osservò Richard con un sorriso sarcastico, ma Richard, che aveva fatto un pranzo piuttosto abbondante con un amico, non lo notò e continuò a deplorare il suo destino con sguardi tristi e disperati. Quilp capì chiaramente che c’era una ragione segreta per quella visita e per la sua delusione insolita, e, nella speranza che potesse esserci un modo di combinare qualche guaio nascosto, decise di estorcerlo. Non appena adottò questa risoluzione, trasferì tanta onestà nel suo viso quanto esso era capace di esprimere, e simpatizzò molto con il signor Swiveller.

«Sono deluso anch’io», disse Quilp, «per puro affetto amichevole nei loro confronti; ma tu hai ragioni reali, ragioni personali, ne sono senza dubbio, per la tua delusione, e quindi essa ti pesa più di quanto pesi a me».

«Perché, naturalmente, lo fa», osservò Dick, irritato.

«Parola d’onore, mi dispiace molto, molto. Anche io sono piuttosto abbattuto. Poiché siamo compagni di sventura, non diventeremo compagni nel modo più sicuro di dimenticarla? Se non avesse niente di particolare da fare, ora, che la porti in un’altra direzione», insistette Quilp, tirandolo per la manica e guardandolo furbescamente in faccia dai cantoni degli occhi, «c’è una casa lungo il fiume dove hanno del Schiedam più pregiato — si dice sia di contrabbando, ma questo è tra noi — che si possa trovare in tutto il mondo. Il padrone di casa mi conosce. C’è una piccola casetta-estiva che si affaccia sul fiume, dove potremmo prendere un bicchiere di questo delizioso liquore con una boccata del miglior tabacco — è in questa scatola, e di rarissima qualità, lo so per certo — e stare perfettamente al caldo e felici, se riuscissimo a organizzarcela; o c’è qualche impegno molto particolare che la trascina perentoriamente in un’altra direzione, signor Swiveller, eh?»

Mentre il nanerottolo parlava, il viso di Dick si rilassò in un sorriso compiacente e le sue sopracciglia si distesero lentamente. Al tempo in cui ebbe finito, Dick stava guardando Quilp dall’alto con la stessa aria furba con cui Quilp lo guardava dal basso, e non rimaneva altro da fare che mettersi in cammino verso la casa in questione. E così fecero, subito. Nel momento in cui voltarono le spalle, il piccolo Giacobbe si scongelò e riprese a piangere dal punto in cui Quilp lo aveva congelato.

The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river’s mud, and threatened to slide down into it. The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by great bars of wood which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up so long that even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and of a windy night might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to come toppling down. The house stood—if anything so old and feeble could be said to stand—on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank of iron wheels and rush of troubled water. Its internal accommodations amply fulfilled the promise of the outside. The rooms were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes, the rotten floors had sunk from their level, the very beams started from their places and warned the timid stranger from their neighbourhood.

To this inviting spot, entreating him to observe its beauties as they passed along, Mr Quilp led Richard Swiveller, and on the table of the summer-house, scored deep with many a gallows and initial letter, there soon appeared a wooden keg, full of the vaunted liquor. Drawing it off into the glasses with the skill of a practised hand, and mixing it with about a third part of water, Mr Quilp assigned to Richard Swiveller his portion, and lighting his pipe from an end of a candle in a very old and battered lantern, drew himself together upon a seat and puffed away.

‘Is it good?’ said Quilp, as Richard Swiveller smacked his lips, ‘is it strong and fiery? Does it make you wink, and choke, and your eyes water, and your breath come short—does it?’

‘Does it?’ cried Dick, throwing away part of the contents of his glass, and filling it up with water, ‘why, man, you don’t mean to tell me that you drink such fire as this?’

‘No!’ rejoined Quilp, ‘Not drink it! Look here. And here. And here again. Not drink it!’

As he spoke, Daniel Quilp drew off and drank three small glassfuls of the raw spirit, and then with a horrible grimace took a great many pulls at his pipe, and swallowing the smoke, discharged it in a heavy cloud from his nose. This feat accomplished he drew himself together in his former position, and laughed excessively.

‘Give us a toast!’ cried Quilp, rattling on the table in a dexterous manner with his fist and elbow alternately, in a kind of tune, ‘a woman, a beauty. Let’s have a beauty for our toast and empty our glasses to the last drop. Her name, come!’

‘If you want a name,’ said Dick, ‘here’s Sophy Wackles.’

‘Sophy Wackles,’ screamed the dwarf, ‘Miss Sophy Wackles that is—Mrs Richard Swiveller that shall be—that shall be—ha ha ha!’

‘Ah!’ said Dick, ‘you might have said that a few weeks ago, but it won’t do now, my buck. Immolating herself upon the shrine of Cheggs—’

‘Poison Cheggs, cut Cheggs’s ears off,’ rejoined Quilp. ‘I won’t hear of Cheggs. Her name is Swiveller or nothing. I’ll drink her health again, and her father’s, and her mother’s; and to all her sisters and brothers—the glorious family of the Wackleses—all the Wackleses in one glass—down with it to the dregs!’

‘Well,’ said Richard Swiveller, stopping short in the act of raising the glass to his lips and looking at the dwarf in a species of stupor as he flourished his arms and legs about: ‘you’re a jolly fellow, but of all the jolly fellows I ever saw or heard of, you have the queerest and most extraordinary way with you, upon my life you have.’

This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr Quilp’s eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see him in such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself, for company—began imperceptibly to become more companionable and confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew at last very confiding indeed. Having once got him into this mood, and knowing now the key-note to strike whenever he was at a loss, Daniel Quilp’s task was comparatively an easy one, and he was soon in possession of the whole details of the scheme contrived between the easy Dick and his more designing friend.

‘Stop!’ said Quilp. ‘That’s the thing, that’s the thing. It can be brought about, it shall be brought about. There’s my hand upon it; I am your friend from this minute.’

‘What! do you think there’s still a chance?’ inquired Dick, in surprise at this encouragement.

‘A chance!’ echoed the dwarf, ‘a certainty! Sophy Wackles may become a Cheggs or anything else she likes, but not a Swiveller. Oh you lucky dog! He’s richer than any Jew alive; you’re a made man. I see in you now nothing but Nelly’s husband, rolling in gold and silver. I’ll help you. It shall be done. Mind my words, it shall be done.’

‘But how?’ said Dick.

‘There’s plenty of time,’ rejoined the dwarf, ‘and it shall be done. We’ll sit down and talk it over again all the way through. Fill your glass while I’m gone. I shall be back directly—directly.’

With these hasty words, Daniel Quilp withdrew into a dismantled skittle- ground behind the public-house, and, throwing himself upon the ground actually screamed and rolled about in uncontrollable delight.

‘Here’s sport!’ he cried, ‘sport ready to my hand, all invented and arranged, and only to be enjoyed. It was this shallow-pated fellow who made my bones ache t’other day, was it? It was his friend and fellow-plotter, Mr Trent, that once made eyes at Mrs Quilp, and leered and looked, was it? After labouring for two or three years in their precious scheme, to find that they’ve got a beggar at last, and one of them tied for life. Ha ha ha! He shall marry Nell. He shall have her, and I’ll be the first man, when the knot’s tied hard and fast, to tell ‘em what they’ve gained and what I’ve helped ‘em to. Here will be a clearing of old scores, here will be a time to remind ‘em what a capital friend I was, and how I helped them to the heiress. Ha ha ha!’

In the height of his ecstasy, Mr Quilp had like to have met with a disagreeable check, for rolling very near a broken dog-kennel, there leapt forth a large fierce dog, who, but that his chain was of the shortest, would have given him a disagreeable salute. As it was, the dwarf remained upon his back in perfect safety, taunting the dog with hideous faces, and triumphing over him in his inability to advance another inch, though there were not a couple of feet between them.

‘Why don’t you come and bite me, why don’t you come and tear me to pieces, you coward?’ said Quilp, hissing and worrying the animal till he was nearly mad. ‘You’re afraid, you bully, you’re afraid, you know you are.’

The dog tore and strained at his chain with starting eyes and furious bark, but there the dwarf lay, snapping his fingers with gestures of defiance and contempt. When he had sufficiently recovered from his delight, he rose, and with his arms a-kimbo, achieved a kind of demon-dance round the kennel, just without the limits of the chain, driving the dog quite wild. Having by this means composed his spirits and put himself in a pleasant train, he returned to his unsuspicious companion, whom he found looking at the tide with exceeding gravity, and thinking of that same gold and silver which Mr Quilp had mentioned.

La casetta estiva di cui aveva parlato il signor Quilp era una scatola di legno grezza e malandata, marcita e spoglia, che si protendeva sul fango del fiume e minacciava di scivolare dentro. La taverna a cui apparteneva era un edificio decrepito, scavato e minato dai topi, e sorretto solo da grandi travi di legno che erano state piantate contro le sue pareti e lo avevano sostenuto così a lungo che anche loro stavano marcendo e cedendo sotto il loro carico, e in una notte ventosa si poteva sentire scricchiolare e crepitare come se l’intera struttura stesse per crollare. La casa si trovava — se si poteva dire che qualcosa di così vecchio e fragile potesse stare in piedi — su un terreno abbandonato, avvelenato dal fumo nocivo dei camini delle fabbriche, e risuonante del clangore delle ruote di ferro e del fruscio dell’acqua agitata. I suoi alloggi interni rispondevano pienamente alle aspettative create dall’esterno. Le stanze erano basse e umide, le pareti umide erano bucherellate, i pavimenti marci erano affossati, le travi stesse si erano staccate dal loro posto e mettevano in guardia lo straniero timoroso dal loro vicinato.

In questo luogo invitante, invitandolo a osservare le sue bellezze mentre passavano, il signor Quilp condusse Richard Swiveller, e sul tavolo del padiglione-estivo, segnato profondamente con molte forche e lettere iniziali, apparve presto una botte di legno, piena del liquore tanto vantato. Versandolo nei bicchieri con la destrezza di una mano esperta, e mescolandolo con circa un terzo di acqua, il signor Quilp assegnò a Richard Swiveller la sua porzione, e accendendo la pipa da un pezzo di candela in una lanterna molto vecchia e ammaccata, si accoccolò su una sedia e fumò.

«È buono?» disse Quilp, mentre Richard Swiveller si leccava le labbra, «è forte e pungente? Ti fa strizzare gli occhi, ti fa tossire, ti fa venire le lacrime agli occhi, ti fa mancare il fiato—ti fa tutto questo?»

«Lo fa?» gridò Dick, gettando via parte del contenuto del suo bicchiere e riempiendolo di acqua, «perbacco, non vorrai dirmi che bevi un fuoco del genere?»

«No!» ribatté Quilp, «Non berla! Guarda qui. E qui. E ancora qui. Non berla!»

Mentre parlava, Daniel Quilp svuotò e bevve tre piccoli bicchieri di alcol puro, e poi, con una smorfia orribile, aspirò molte boccate dalla sua pipa, ingoiando il fumo e poi espellendolo in una pesante nuvola dal naso. Compiuta questa prodezza, si raddrizzò nella sua posizione precedente e rise in modo eccessivo.

«Facciamo un brindisi!» gridò Quilp, tamburellando sul tavolo in modo abile con il pugno e il gomito alternatamente, in una specie di melodia, «a una donna, a una bella. Prendiamo una bella per il nostro brindisi e svuotiamo i nostri bicchieri fino all’ultima goccia. Il suo nome, presto!»

“Se vuoi un nome,” disse Dick, “ecco Sophy Wackles.”

‘Sophy Wackles,’ urlò il nanerottolo, ‘Miss Sophy Wackles cioè—Mrs Richard Swiveller che sarà—che sarà—ha ha ha!’

«Ah!» disse Dick «avresti potuto dirmelo qualche settimana fa, ma ora non va più bene, mio caro. Immolarsi sull’altare di Cheggs, »

«Veleno Cheggs, tagliate le orecchie a Cheggs», riprese Quilp. «Non voglio sentire parlare di Cheggs. Il suo nome è Swiveller o niente. Brinderò di nuovo alla sua salute, e a quella di suo padre e di sua madre; e a tutte le sue sorelle e fratelli - la gloriosa famiglia dei Wackles - tutti i Wackles in un bicchiere - beviamolo fino all’ultima goccia!»

«Beh,» disse Richard Swiveller, fermandosi di colpo mentre stava per portare il bicchiere alle labbra e guardando il nanerottolo con una specie di stupore mentre agitava braccia e gambe: «sei un tipo in gamba, ma di tutti i tipi in gamba che ho mai visto o sentito, tu hai il modo più strano e più straordinario, sulla mia vita ce l’hai.»

Questa candida dichiarazione tendeva piuttosto ad aumentare che a frenare le eccentricità del signor Quilp, e Richard Swiveller, stupito di vederlo in una vena così baldanzosa e bevendo non poco anche lui, per compagnia, cominciò impercettibilmente a diventare più amichevole e confidenziale, tanto che, guidato con giudizio dal signor Quilp, alla fine divenne molto confidenziale. Una volta che lo ebbe messo in questo umore e conoscesse ora la nota chiave da suonare ogni volta che fosse in difficoltà, il compito di Daniel Quilp era relativamente facile e presto fu a conoscenza di tutti i dettagli del piano escogitato tra il gioviale Dick e il suo amico più intrigante.

«Fermati!» disse Quilp. «Questo è il punto, questo è il punto. Può essere fatto, sarà fatto. La mia mano è su di esso; da questo momento sono tuo amico.»

«Che cosa! pensate che ci sia ancora una possibilità?» chiese Dick, sorpreso da questo incoraggiamento.

«Una possibilità!» fece eco il nanerottolo, «una certezza! Sophy Wackles può diventare una Cheggs o qualsiasi altra cosa le piaccia, ma non una Swiveller. Oh, fortunato cane! È più ricco di qualsiasi ebreo in vita; sei un uomo a posto. In te ora non vedo altro che il marito di Nelly, immerso nell’oro e nell’argento. Ti aiuterò. Sarà fatto. Sta’ attento alle mie parole, sarà fatto.»

«Ma come?» disse Dick.

«C’è tutto il tempo del mondo», ribatté il nanerottolo, «e sarà fatto. Ci siederemo e ne riparleremo tutto daccapo. Riempiti il bicchiere mentre sono via. Sarò di ritorno tra un attimo, tra un attimo.»

Con queste parole affrettate, Daniel Quilp si ritirò in un campo da birilli smantellato dietro la taverna, e, gettandosi a terra, urlò e rotolò in preda a una gioia incontrollabile.

«Ecco lo sport!» esclamò «lo sport pronto per me, tutto inventato e organizzato, e da godere. Era questo tizio di scarso ingegno che l’altro giorno mi ha fatto male alle ossa, vero? Era il suo amico e compagno di intrighi, il signor Trent, che una volta faceva gli occhi dolci a Mrs Quilp, e le ghignava e la fissava, vero? Dopo essersi dati da fare per due o tre anni nel loro prezioso piano, scoprire che hanno finalmente trovato un mendicante, e uno di loro legato per tutta la vita. Ha ha ha! Sposerà Nell. L’avrà, e io sarò il primo uomo, quando il nodo sarà stretto forte e saldamente, a dir loro cosa hanno guadagnato e a cosa li ho aiutati. Ecco un regolamento di vecchi conti, ecco un momento per ricordare loro che amico d’oro ero, e come li ho aiutati a ottenere l’ereditiera. Ha ha ha!»

Nel culmine della sua estasi, il signor Quilp stava per ricevere un fastidioso contrattempo, poiché, rotolando vicino a una cuccia per cani rotta, ne balzò fuori un grosso cane feroce che, se non fosse stato per la catena cortissima, gli avrebbe inflitto un fastidioso saluto. Com’era, il nanerottolo rimase sulla schiena in perfetta sicurezza, schernendo il cane con facce orribili e trionfando sulla sua incapacità di avanzare di un altro pollice, anche se non c’erano più di un paio di piedi tra loro.

«Perché non vieni a mordermi, perché non vieni a straziarmi a pezzi, vigliacco?» disse Quilp, sibilando e tormentando l’animale fino a renderlo quasi pazzo. «Hai paura, prepotente, hai paura, lo sai che è così.»

Il cane si strappava e tirava la catena con gli occhi spalancati e un abbaiare furioso, ma là giaceva il nanerottolo, schioccando le dita con gesti di sfida e disprezzo. Quando si fu sufficientemente ripreso dal suo divertimento, si alzò, e con le braccia sui fianchi, eseguì una specie di danza demoniaca intorno alla cuccia, appena fuori dei limiti della catena, facendo impazzire il cane. Avendo con questo mezzo calmato i suoi spiriti e messo se stesso in una piacevole condizione, tornò al suo ignaro compagno, che trovò intento a osservare la marea con estrema gravità, e a pensare proprio a quel oro e argento che il signor Quilp aveva menzionato.

CHAPTER 22

The remainder of that day and the whole of the next were a busy time for the Nubbles family, to whom everything connected with Kit’s outfit and departure was matter of as great moment as if he had been about to penetrate into the interior of Africa, or to take a cruise round the world. It would be difficult to suppose that there ever was a box which was opened and shut so many times within four-and-twenty hours, as that which contained his wardrobe and necessaries; and certainly there never was one which to two small eyes presented such a mine of clothing, as this mighty chest with its three shirts and proportionate allowance of stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the astonished vision of little Jacob. At last it was conveyed to the carrier’s, at whose house at Finchley Kit was to find it next day; and the box being gone, there remained but two questions for consideration: firstly, whether the carrier would lose, or dishonestly feign to lose, the box upon the road; secondly, whether Kit’s mother perfectly understood how to take care of herself in the absence of her son.

‘I don’t think there’s hardly a chance of his really losing it, but carriers are under great temptation to pretend they lose things, no doubt,’ said Mrs Nubbles apprehensively, in reference to the first point.

‘No doubt about it,’ returned Kit, with a serious look; ‘upon my word, mother, I don’t think it was right to trust it to itself. Somebody ought to have gone with it, I’m afraid.’

‘We can’t help it now,’ said his mother; ‘but it was foolish and wrong. People oughtn’t to be tempted.’

Kit inwardly resolved that he would never tempt a carrier any more, save with an empty box; and having formed this Christian determination, he turned his thoughts to the second question.

‘You know you must keep up your spirits, mother, and not be lonesome because I’m not at home. I shall very often be able to look in when I come into town I dare say, and I shall send you a letter sometimes, and when the quarter comes round, I can get a holiday of course; and then see if we don’t take little Jacob to the play, and let him know what oysters means.’

‘I hope plays mayn’t be sinful, Kit, but I’m a’most afraid,’ said Mrs Nubbles.

‘I know who has been putting that in your head,’ rejoined her son disconsolately; ‘that’s Little Bethel again. Now I say, mother, pray don’t take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your good-humoured face that has always made home cheerful, turned into a grievous one, and the baby trained to look grievous too, and to call itself a young sinner (bless its heart) and a child of the devil (which is calling its dead father names); if I was to see this, and see little Jacob looking grievous likewise, I should so take it to heart that I’m sure I should go and list for a soldier, and run my head on purpose against the first cannon-ball I saw coming my way.’

‘Oh, Kit, don’t talk like that.’

‘I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me feel very wretched and uncomfortable, you’ll keep that bow on your bonnet, which you’d more than half a mind to pull off last week. Can you suppose there’s any harm in looking as cheerful and being as cheerful as our poor circumstances will permit? Do I see anything in the way I’m made, which calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, sneaking about as if I couldn’t help it, and expressing myself in a most unpleasant snuffle? on the contrary, don’t I see every reason why I shouldn’t? just hear this! Ha ha ha! An’t that as nat’ral as walking, and as good for the health? Ha ha ha! An’t that as nat’ral as a sheep’s bleating, or a pig’s grunting, or a horse’s neighing, or a bird’s singing? Ha ha ha! Isn’t it, mother?’

There was something contagious in Kit’s laugh, for his mother, who had looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell to joining in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew it was natural, and to laugh the more. Kit and his mother, laughing together in a pretty loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that there was something very jovial and agreeable in progress, was no sooner in its mother’s arms than it began to kick and laugh, most vigorously. This new illustration of his argument so tickled Kit, that he fell backward in his chair in a state of exhaustion, pointing at the baby and shaking his sides till he rocked again. After recovering twice or thrice, and as often relapsing, he wiped his eyes and said grace; and a very cheerful meal their scanty supper was.

With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen who start upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind them, would deem within the bounds of probability (if matter so low could be herein set down), Kit left the house at an early hour next morning, and set out to walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient pride in his appearance to have warranted his excommunication from Little Bethel from that time forth, if he had ever been one of that mournful congregation.

Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it may be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustre of a new pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny hat, which on being struck anywhere with the knuckles, sounded like a drum. And in this attire, rather wondering that he attracted so little attention, and attributing the circumstance to the insensibility of those who got up early, he made his way towards Abel Cottage.

Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road, than meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his old one, on whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit arrived in course of time at the carrier’s house, where, to the lasting honour of human nature, he found the box in safety. Receiving from the wife of this immaculate man, a direction to Mr Garland’s, he took the box upon his shoulder and repaired thither directly.

To be sure, it was a beautiful little cottage with a thatched roof and little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in some of the windows, almost as large as pocket-books. On one side of the house was a little stable, just the size for the pony, with a little room over it, just the size for Kit. White curtains were fluttering, and birds in cages that looked as bright as if they were made of gold, were singing at the windows; plants were arranged on either side of the path, and clustered about the door; and the garden was bright with flowers in full bloom, which shed a sweet odour all round, and had a charming and elegant appearance. Everything within the house and without, seemed to be the perfection of neatness and order. In the garden there was not a weed to be seen, and to judge from some dapper gardening-tools, a basket, and a pair of gloves which were lying in one of the walks, old Mr Garland had been at work in it that very morning.

Kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, and this a great many times before he could make up his mind to turn his head another way and ring the bell. There was abundance of time to look about him again though, when he had rung it, for nobody came, so after ringing it twice or thrice he sat down upon his box, and waited.

He rang the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came. But at last, as he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants’ castles, and princesses tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads, and dragons bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of the like nature, common in story-books to youths of low degree on their first visit to strange houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl, very tidy, modest, and demure, but very pretty too, appeared.

‘I suppose you’re Christopher, sir,’ said the servant-girl.

Kit got off the box, and said yes, he was.

‘I’m afraid you’ve rung a good many times perhaps,’ she rejoined, ‘but we couldn’t hear you, because we’ve been catching the pony.’

Kit rather wondered what this meant, but as he couldn’t stop there, asking questions, he shouldered the box again and followed the girl into the hall, where through a back-door he descried Mr Garland leading Whisker in triumph up the garden, after that self-willed pony had (as he afterwards learned) dodged the family round a small paddock in the rear, for one hour and three quarters.

The old gentleman received him very kindly and so did the old lady, whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his wiping his boots on the mat until the soles of his feet burnt again. He was then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his new clothes; and when he had been surveyed several times, and had afforded by his appearance unlimited satisfaction, he was taken into the stable (where the pony received him with uncommon complaisance); and thence into the little chamber he had already observed, which was very clean and comfortable: and thence into the garden, in which the old gentleman told him he would be taught to employ himself, and where he told him, besides, what great things he meant to do to make him comfortable, and happy, if he found he deserved it. All these kindnesses, Kit acknowledged with various expressions of gratitude, and so many touches of the new hat, that the brim suffered considerably. When the old gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise and advice, and Kit had said all he had to say in the way of assurance and thankfulness, he was handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning the little servant-girl (whose name was Barbara) instructed her to take him down stairs and give him something to eat and drink, after his walk.

Down stairs, therefore, Kit went; and at the bottom of the stairs there was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out of a toy-shop window, with everything in it as bright and glowing, and as precisely ordered too, as Barbara herself. And in this kitchen, Kit sat himself down at a table as white as a tablecloth, to eat cold meat, and drink small ale, and use his knife and fork the more awkwardly, because there was an unknown Barbara looking on and observing him.

It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very quiet life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and uncertain what she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be. When he had sat for some little time, attentive to the ticking of the sober clock, he ventured to glance curiously at the dresser, and there, among the plates and dishes, were Barbara’s little work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of cotton, and Barbara’s prayer-book, and Barbara’s hymn-book, and Barbara’s Bible. Barbara’s little looking-glass hung in a good light near the window, and Barbara’s bonnet was on a nail behind the door. From all these mute signs and tokens of her presence, he naturally glanced at Barbara herself, who sat as mute as they, shelling peas into a dish; and just when Kit was looking at her eyelashes and wondering—quite in the simplicity of his heart—what colour her eyes might be, it perversely happened that Barbara raised her head a little to look at him, when both pair of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit leant over his plate, and Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme confusion at having been detected by the other.

CAPITOLO 22

Il resto di quel giorno e l’intero giorno successivo furono un periodo molto impegnativo per la famiglia Nubbles, per la quale tutto ciò che riguardava l’equipaggiamento e la partenza di Kit era una questione di grande importanza, come se fosse stato sul punto di penetrare nell’interno dell’Africa o di intraprendere un viaggio intorno al mondo. Sarebbe difficile immaginare che ci sia mai stata una scatola che sia stata aperta e chiusa così tante volte in ventiquattro ore, come quella che conteneva il suo guardaroba e i suoi effetti personali; e certamente non ce n’è mai stata una che, per due piccoli occhi, rappresentasse una tale miniera di vestiti, come questa imponente cassa con le sue tre camicie e la corrispondente quantità di calze e fazzoletti da taschino, che si rivelò alla stupefatta vista del piccolo Jacob. Alla fine fu portata dal corriere, presso la cui casa a Finchley Kit avrebbe dovuto ritrovarla il giorno successivo; e una volta partita la scatola, rimanevano solo due questioni da considerare: in primo luogo, se il corriere avrebbe perso, o finto disonestamente di perdere, la scatola sulla strada; in secondo luogo, se la madre di Kit capiva perfettamente come prendersi cura di sé in assenza di suo figlio.

«Non credo che ci sia quasi nessuna possibilità che lo perda davvero, ma i facchini sono spesso sotto grande tentazione di fingere di perdere le cose, senza dubbio», disse la signora Nubbles preoccupata, riferendosi al primo punto.

«Nessun dubbio al riguardo», rispose Kit con un’aria seria; «sul mio onore, madre, non credo che fosse giusto affidarlo a se stesso. Qualcuno avrebbe dovuto accompagnarlo, temo.»

«Non possiamo farci nulla ora», disse sua madre, «ma è stato sciocco e sbagliato. La gente non dovrebbe essere tentata».

Kit si risolse in cuor suo di non tentare mai più un facchino, se non con una scatola vuota; e avendo preso questa decisione cristiana, rivolse i suoi pensieri alla seconda questione.

«Tu sai che devi mantenere il morale, mamma, e non sentirti sola perché non sono a casa. Potrò spesso passare a trovarvi quando vengo in città, ne sono sicuro, e vi manderò una lettera di tanto in tanto, e quando arriverà il trimestre, potrò prendere una vacanza, naturalmente; e poi vedrai se non portiamo il piccolo Jacob al teatro, e gli facciamo capire cosa sono le ostriche.»

«Spero che le rappresentazioni non siano peccaminose, Kit, ma ho paura», disse la signora Nubbles.

«So chi è stato a metterti quest’idea in testa», rispose il figlio, disperato; «è di nuovo quel piccolo Bethel. Ora, ti prego, madre, non metterti a frequentare quel posto regolarmente, perché se dovessi vedere il tuo volto sempre di buon umore che ha reso casa allegra, trasformato in un volto triste, e il bambino educato a guardare con tristezza e a chiamarsi un giovane peccatore (che il cielo lo benedica) e un figlio del diavolo (che è come insultare suo padre defunto); se dovessi vedere tutto questo, e vedere anche il piccolo Giacobbe con un’aria triste, mi prenderei tanto a cuore la cosa che sono sicuro che andrei a fare il soldato, e mi butterei apposta contro la prima palla di cannone che vedessi venirmi incontro.»

“Oh, Kit, non parlare così.”

«Sì, madre, e a meno che tu non voglia farmi sentire molto infelice e a disagio, terrai quel fiocco sul tuo cappello, che la settimana scorsa avevi più che mezza voglia di strappare. Puoi credere che ci sia qualche danno nell’essere e nell’apparire il più allegro che le nostre povere circostanze ci permettano? Vedo forse qualcosa nel mio modo di essere che mi obbliga ad essere un tipo lacrimoso, solenne, bisbigliante, che si aggira furtivamente come se non potesse farne a meno, e che si esprime con un piagnucolio davvero sgradevole? al contrario, non vedo forse ogni ragione per cui non dovrei? ascolta questo! Ha ha ha! Non è altrettanto naturale come camminare, e altrettanto salutare? Ha ha ha! Non è altrettanto naturale come il belato di una pecora, o il grugnito di un maiale, o lo starnuto di un cavallo, o il canto di un uccello? Ha ha ha! Non lo è, madre?»

C’era qualcosa di contagioso nella risata di Kit, perché sua madre, che prima aveva un’aria grave, dapprima si lasciò sfuggire un sorriso, e poi si unì a lui di cuore, il che fece dire a Kit che sapeva che era naturale, e rise ancora di più. Kit e sua madre, ridendo insieme a gran voce, svegliarono il bambino, che, trovando che c’era qualcosa di molto allegra e piacevole in corso, non appena fu tra le braccia di sua madre cominciò a scalciare e ridere, con grande vigore. Questa nuova illustrazione del suo argomento divertì tanto Kit, che cadde all’indietro sulla sedia in uno stato di sfinimento, indicando il bambino e scuotendo i fianchi fino a dondolare di nuovo. Dopo essersi ripreso due o tre volte, e altrettante ricadendo, si asciugò gli occhi e disse la preghiera; e un pasto molto allegro fu il loro scarno cenino.

Con più baci, abbracci e lacrime di quanti molti giovani signori che iniziano i loro viaggi e lasciano dietro di sé case ben fornite, ritengano entro i limiti della probabilità (se una materia così bassa potesse essere qui esposta), Kit lasciò la casa di buon’ora la mattina seguente e si mise a camminare verso Finchley; sentendosi sufficientemente orgoglioso del suo aspetto da aver giustificato la sua scomunica da Little Bethel da quel momento in poi, se fosse mai stato uno di quella triste congregazione.

Per evitare che qualcuno si senta curioso di sapere come Kit fosse vestito, si può brevemente osservare che non indossava una livrea, ma era abbigliato con un soprabito color pepe e sale, un panciotto di colore canarino e indumenti inferiori di un grigio ferro; oltre a queste glorie, brillava per il lustro di un nuovo paio di stivali e un cappello estremamente rigido e lucido, che, quando veniva colpito con le nocche, risuonava come un tamburo. E in questo abbigliamento, piuttosto stupito di attirare così poca attenzione, e attribuendo la circostanza all’insensibilità di coloro che si alzavano presto, si fece strada verso la Casa di Abel.

Senza incontrare altre avventure degne di nota sulla strada, se non un ragazzo con un cappello senza tesa, la copia esatta del suo vecchio cappello, a cui donò metà dei sei pence che possedeva, Kit arrivò, col trascorrere del tempo, alla casa del facchino, dove, a gloria eterna della natura umana, trovò la scatola al sicuro. Ricevuto dalla moglie di quest’uomo immacolato un indirizzo per il signor Garland, si mise la scatola in spalla e si recò direttamente lì.

Era, è vero, una graziosa casetta con il tetto di paglia e piccole guglie alle estremità delle grondaie, e pezzi di vetro colorato in alcune delle finestre, quasi grandi come portafogli. Su un lato della casa c’era un piccolo fienile, proprio della misura giusta per il pony, con una piccola stanza sopra, proprio della misura giusta per Kit. Le tende bianche sventolavano, e uccelli in gabbie che sembravano brillare come se fossero fatti d’oro, cantavano alle finestre; le piante erano disposte su entrambi i lati del sentiero, e raggruppate intorno alla porta; e il giardino era illuminato da fiori in piena fioritura, che diffondevano un dolce profumo tutt’intorno, e avevano un aspetto incantevole ed elegante. Tutto dentro e fuori la casa sembrava essere la perfezione della pulizia e dell’ordine. Nel giardino non si vedeva un’erbaccia, e a giudicare da alcuni attrezzi da giardinaggio ben tenuti, un cesto e un paio di guanti che erano posati su uno dei viali, il vecchio signor Garland aveva lavorato lì quella stessa mattina.

Kit si guardò intorno, ammirò, si guardò di nuovo, e fece questo molte volte prima di poter decidere di girare la testa in un’altra direzione e suonare il campanello. C’era abbondanza di tempo per guardarsi intorno di nuovo comunque, quando lo aveva suonato, perché nessuno venne, così dopo averlo suonato due o tre volte si sedette sulla sua scatola e aspettò.

Suonò il campanello molte volte, eppure nessuno venne. Ma alla fine, mentre era seduto sulla scatola pensando ai castelli dei giganti, e alle principesse legate a chiodi per i capelli, e ai draghi che esplodono da dietro le porte, e ad altri incidenti della stessa natura, comuni nei libri di storie per i giovani di bassa estrazione al loro primo visita in case straniere, la porta si aprì dolcemente, e apparve una piccola cameriera, molto ordinata, modesta e composta, ma anche molto carina.

«Suppongo che lei sia il signor Christopher», disse la domestica.

Kit scese dal predellino e disse di sì, che lo era.

«Temo che abbiate suonato parecchie volte», replicò, «ma non vi abbiamo sentito perché stavamo cercando di catturare il pony.»

Kit si chiedeva piuttosto cosa significasse, ma dato che non poteva fermarsi lì a fare domande, si mise di nuovo in spalla la scatola e seguì la ragazza nel corridoio, dove attraverso una porta sul retro vide il signor Garland che conduceva Whisker trionfalmente su per il giardino, dopo che quel pony testardo aveva (come apprese in seguito) fatto fare il giro della famiglia in un piccolo paddock sul retro, per un’ora e tre quarti.

Il vecchio gentiluomo lo accolse molto gentilmente, così come fece la vecchia signora, la quale aumentò la sua buona opinione di lui vedendolo strofinare le scarpe sullo zerbino fino a quando le suole dei suoi piedi non furono di nuovo calde. Fu poi condotto nel salotto per essere ispezionato nei suoi nuovi vestiti; e dopo essere stato osservato diverse volte, e aver dato con il suo aspetto una soddisfazione illimitata, fu portato nella scuderia (dove il pony lo accolse con insolita cortesia); e di lì nella piccola camera che aveva già notato, che era molto pulita e confortevole: e di lì nel giardino, nel quale il vecchio gentiluomo gli disse che avrebbe imparato a occuparsi, e dove gli disse, inoltre, quali grandi cose intendeva fare per renderlo comodo e felice, se avesse trovato che lo meritava. Tutte queste gentilezze, Kit le riconobbe con varie espressioni di gratitudine, e con così tanti tocchi del nuovo cappello, che il bordo ne risentì notevolmente. Quando il vecchio gentiluomo ebbe detto tutto ciò che aveva da dire in termini di promesse e consigli, e Kit ebbe detto tutto ciò che aveva da dire in termini di rassicurazioni e ringraziamenti, fu di nuovo affidato alla vecchia signora, la quale, convocando la piccola domestica (il cui nome era Barbara) le diede istruzioni di portarlo al piano di sotto e dargli qualcosa da mangiare e da bere, dopo la sua passeggiata.

Così Kit scese le scale; e in fondo alle scale c’era una cucina come non se n’erano mai viste o sentite fuori dalla vetrina di un negozio di giocattoli, con tutto quanto luccicante e splendente, e ordinato con la stessa precisione di Barbara. E in questa cucina, Kit si sedette a un tavolo bianco come una tovaglia, per mangiare carne fredda, bere birra leggera e usare coltello e forchetta con maggiore goffaggine, perché c’era una Barbara sconosciuta che lo osservava.

Non sembrava, tuttavia, che ci fosse nulla di particolarmente tremendo in questa strana Barbara, che avendo condotto una vita molto tranquilla, arrossiva molto ed era altrettanto imbarazzata e incerta su cosa avrebbe dovuto dire o fare, come poteva essere Kit. Quando era rimasto seduto per un po’ di tempo, attento al ticchettio dell’orologio sobrio, si permise di dare un’occhiata curiosa alla credenza, e lì, tra le piatti e i piatti, c’erano la scatoletta per cucire di Barbara con un coperchio scorrevole per chiudere le palline di cotone, e il libro di preghiere di Barbara, e il libro di inni di Barbara, e la Bibbia di Barbara. Lo specchietto di Barbara era appeso in una buona luce vicino alla finestra, e il cappello di Barbara era su un chiodo dietro la porta. Da tutti questi segni muti e simboli della sua presenza, lui naturalmente guardò Barbara stessa, che sedeva muta come loro, sbucciando i piselli in un piatto; e proprio quando Kit la guardava le ciglia e si chiedeva—tutta nella semplicità del suo cuore—che colore potessero essere i suoi occhi, accadde per perversità che Barbara alzò un po’ la testa per guardarla, quando entrambe le paia di occhi furono ritirate in fretta, e Kit si chinò sul suo piatto, e Barbara sui suoi gusci di piselli, ciascuno in estremo confusione per essere stato scoperto dall’altro.

CHAPTER 23

Mr Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such was the appropriate name of Quilp’s choice retreat), after a sinuous and corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after stopping suddenly and staring about him, then as suddenly running forward for a few paces, and as suddenly halting again and shaking his head; doing everything with a jerk and nothing by premeditation;—Mr Richard Swiveller wending his way homeward after this fashion, which is considered by evil-minded men to be symbolical of intoxication, and is not held by such persons to denote that state of deep wisdom and reflection in which the actor knows himself to be, began to think that possibly he had misplaced his confidence and that the dwarf might not be precisely the sort of person to whom to entrust a secret of such delicacy and importance. And being led and tempted on by this remorseful thought into a condition which the evil-minded class before referred to would term the maudlin state or stage of drunkenness, it occurred to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the ground, and moan, crying aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if he had not been an unhappy orphan things had never come to this.

‘Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,’ said Mr Swiveller, bewailing his hard lot, ‘cast upon the world in my tenderest period, and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can wonder at my weakness! Here’s a miserable orphan for you. Here,’ said Mr Swiveller raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking sleepily round, ‘is a miserable orphan!’

‘Then,’ said somebody hard by, ‘let me be a father to you.’

Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance, and, looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at last perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he observed after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and mouth. Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with reference to a man’s face, his legs are usually to be found, he observed that the face had a body attached; and when he looked more intently he was satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed had been in his company all the time, but whom he had some vague idea of having left a mile or two behind.

‘You have deceived an orphan, Sir,’ said Mr Swiveller solemnly.’

‘I! I’m a second father to you,’ replied Quilp.

‘You my father, Sir!’ retorted Dick. ‘Being all right myself, Sir, I request to be left alone—instantly, Sir.’

‘What a funny fellow you are!’ cried Quilp.

‘Go, Sir,’ returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his hand. ‘Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p’r’aps you’ll waken, from pleasure’s dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken. Will you go, Sir?’

The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced with the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement. But forgetting his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to him, he seized his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring with an agreeable frankness that from that time forth they were brothers in everything but personal appearance. Then he told his secret over again, with the addition of being pathetic on the subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave Mr Quilp to understand, was the occasion of any slight incoherency he might observe in his speech at that moment, which was attributable solely to the strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other fermented liquor. And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly together.

‘I’m as sharp,’ said Quilp to him, at parting, ‘as sharp as a ferret, and as cunning as a weazel. You bring Trent to me; assure him that I’m his friend though I fear he a little distrusts me (I don’t know why, I have not deserved it); and you’ve both of you made your fortunes—in perspective.’

‘That’s the worst of it,’ returned Dick. ‘These fortunes in perspective look such a long way off.’

‘But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,’ said Quilp, pressing his arm. ‘You’ll have no conception of the value of your prize until you draw close to it. Mark that.’

‘D’ye think not?’ said Dick.

‘Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that’s better,’ returned the dwarf. ‘You bring Trent to me. Tell him I am his friend and yours—why shouldn’t I be?’

‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, certainly,’ replied Dick, ‘and perhaps there are a great many why you should—at least there would be nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you were a choice spirit, but then you know you’re not a choice spirit.’

‘I not a choice spirit?’ cried Quilp.

‘Devil a bit, sir,’ returned Dick. ‘A man of your appearance couldn’t be. If you’re any spirit at all, sir, you’re an evil spirit. Choice spirits,’ added Dick, smiting himself on the breast, ‘are quite a different looking sort of people, you may take your oath of that, sir.’

Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression of cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same moment, declared that he was an uncommon character and had his warmest esteem. With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the best of his way home and sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate upon the discovery he had made, and exult in the prospect of the rich field of enjoyment and reprisal it opened to him.

It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr Swiveller, next morning, his head racked by the fumes of the renowned Schiedam, repaired to the lodging of his friend Trent (which was in the roof of an old house in an old ghostly inn), and recounted by very slow degrees what had yesterday taken place between him and Quilp. Nor was it without great surprise and much speculation on Quilp’s probable motives, nor without many bitter comments on Dick Swiveller’s folly, that his friend received the tale.

CAPITOLO 23

Il signor Richard Swiveller, che si faceva strada verso casa dal Deserto (perché così si chiamava l’angolo preferito di Quilp), con un’andatura tortuosa e a spirale, inciampando e fermarsi spesso; dopo essersi fermato di colpo e guardarsi intorno, poi correre all’improvviso per qualche passo, e fermarsi di nuovo scuotendo la testa; facendo tutto a scatti e niente di premeditato; — il signor Richard Swiveller che si faceva strada verso casa in questo modo, che gli uomini malvagi considerano simbolico dell’ebbrezza, e che non è ritenuto da tali persone un segno di quella profonda saggezza e riflessione in cui l’attore sa di trovarsi, cominciò a pensare che forse aveva riposto la sua fiducia nel posto sbagliato e che il nanerottolo potesse non essere esattamente il tipo di persona a cui affidare un segreto di tale delicatezza e importanza. E spinto e tentato da questo pensiero di rimorso in una condizione che la classe malvagia sopra menzionata definirebbe lo stato o la fase di ubriachezza sentimentale, al signor Swiveller venne in mente di gettare il cappello a terra e lamentarsi, gridando che era un disgraziato orfano, e che se non fosse stato un disgraziato orfano le cose non sarebbero mai arrivate a questo punto.

«Abbandonato in tenera età dai miei genitori», disse il signor Swiveller, piangendo la sua dura sorte, «lasciato al mondo nel mio periodo più tenero, e affidato alle merci di un ingannatore nano, chi può meravigliarsi della mia debolezza! Ecco un povero orfano per voi. Ecco», disse il signor Swiveller alzando la voce a un tono acuto e guardandosi intorno con sonnolenza, «un povero orfano!»

“Voglio essere un padre per te” disse qualcuno vicino a lui.

Il signor Swiveller oscillava avanti e indietro per mantenere l’equilibrio, e, guardando in una specie di nebbia che sembrava circondarlo, alla fine scorse due occhi che brillavano debolmente attraverso la foschia, i quali, dopo un breve periodo, notò che si trovavano nelle vicinanze di un naso e di una bocca. Abbassando lo sguardo verso quella zona in cui, in riferimento al volto di un uomo, di solito si trovano le gambe, osservò che il volto aveva un corpo attaccato; e quando guardò più attentamente fu convinto che la persona fosse il signor Quilp, che infatti era stato in sua compagnia tutto il tempo, ma di cui aveva un’idea vaga di averlo lasciato un miglio o due indietro.

«Avete ingannato un orfano, signore», disse il signor Swiveller solennemente.

«Io! Sono un secondo padre per te», rispose Quilp.

«Voi, mio padre, Sir!» ribatté Dick. «Essendo io in perfetta salute, Sir, chiedo di essere lasciato solo—immediatamente, Sir.»

«Che tipo buffo sei!» esclamò Quilp.

«Vada, signore», rispose Dick, appoggiandosi a un palo e agitando la mano. «Vada, ingannatore, vada. Un giorno, forse, si sveglierà dal sogno dei piaceri per conoscere il dolore degli orfani abbandonati. Se ne va, signore?»

Il nanerottolo non facendo caso a questo ammonimento, il signor Swiveller avanzò con l’intenzione di infliggergli un giusto castigo. Ma dimenticando il suo proposito o cambiando idea prima di avvicinarsi a lui, gli afferrò la mano e giurò eterna amicizia, dichiarando con una gradevole franchezza che da quel momento in poi erano fratelli in tutto tranne che nell’aspetto personale. Poi ripeté il suo segreto, aggiungendo di essere patetico riguardo alla signorina Wackles, che, fece capire al signor Quilp, era la causa di qualsiasi leggera incoerenza che potesse osservare nel suo discorso in quel momento, che era attribuibile solo alla forza del suo affetto e non al vino rosato o ad altre bevande fermentate. E poi andarono avanti braccio a braccio, molto affettuosamente insieme.

«Sono astuto», disse Quilp a lui, nel congedarsi, «astuto come un furetto, e furbo come una donnola. Portami Trent; assicuragli che sono suo amico anche se temo che mi diffidi un po’ (non so perché, non me lo sono meritato); e voi due avrete fatto entrambi la vostra fortuna—in prospettiva.»

«Questo è il peggio» rispose Dick. «Queste fortune in prospettiva sembrano così lontane.»

«Ma sembrano più piccoli di quanto siano in realtà, per questo motivo», disse Quilp, stringendogli il braccio. «Non avrete idea del valore del vostro premio finché non vi sarete avvicinato. Tenetelo a mente.»

«Non credete?» disse Dick.

«Sì, lo so; e sono certo di quello che dico, è meglio», rispose il nanerottolo. «Portatemi Trent. Ditegli che sono suo amico e vostro - perché non dovrei esserlo?»

«Non c’è motivo per cui non dovrei, certo», rispose Dick, «e forse ce ne sono molti per cui dovrei — almeno non ci sarebbe nulla di strano se volessi essere mio amico, se fossi un’anima rara, ma poi sapete che non siete un’anima rara.»

«Non sono uno spirito scelto?» gridò Quilp.

«Diavolo un po’, signore», rispose Dick. «Un uomo del suo aspetto non potrebbe esserlo. Se lei è uno spirito, signore, è uno spirito maligno. Gli spiriti scelti», aggiunse Dick, battendosi il petto, «sono una razza di persone che hanno un aspetto completamente diverso, può giurarci, signore.»

Quilp lanciò un’occhiata al suo amico espansivo con un’espressione mista di astuzia e antipatia, e stringendogli la mano quasi nello stesso momento, dichiarò che era un personaggio straordinario e che nutriva per lui la più calda stima. Con ciò si separarono; il signor Swiveller per fare del suo meglio per tornare a casa e dormire fino a sobriarsi; e Quilp per riflettere sulla scoperta che aveva fatto e trionfare alla prospettiva del ricco campo di godimento e rappresaglia che gli si apriva davanti.

Non senza grande riluttanza e apprensione, il mattino seguente, con la testa offuscata dai fumi del rinomato Schiedam, Mr Swiveller si recò all’alloggio del suo amico Trent (che si trovava nel sottotetto di una vecchia casa in una vecchia locanda spettrale) e raccontò molto lentamente quanto era accaduto il giorno prima tra lui e Quilp. E neppure senza grande sorpresa e molte speculazioni sulle probabili motivazioni di Quilp, né senza molti amari commenti sulla follia di Dick Swiveller, l’amico accolse il racconto.

‘I don’t defend myself, Fred,’ said the penitent Richard; ‘but the fellow has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog, that first of all he set me upon thinking whether there was any harm in telling him, and while I was thinking, screwed it out of me. If you had seen him drink and smoke, as I did, you couldn’t have kept anything from him. He’s a Salamander you know, that’s what he is.’

Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good confidential agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of course trustworthy, Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair, and, burying his head in his hands, endeavoured to fathom the motives which had led Quilp to insinuate himself into Richard Swiveller’s confidence;—for that the disclosure was of his seeking, and had not been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was sufficiently plain from Quilp’s seeking his company and enticing him away.

The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to obtain intelligence of the fugitives. This, perhaps, as he had not shown any previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken suspicion in the breast of a creature so jealous and distrustful by nature, setting aside any additional impulse to curiosity that he might have derived from Dick’s incautious manner. But knowing the scheme they had planned, why should he offer to assist it? This was a question more difficult of solution; but as knaves generally overreach themselves by imputing their own designs to others, the idea immediately presented itself that some circumstances of irritation between Quilp and the old man, arising out of their secret transactions and not unconnected perhaps with his sudden disappearance, now rendered the former desirous of revenging himself upon him by seeking to entrap the sole object of his love and anxiety into a connexion of which he knew he had a dread and hatred. As Frederick Trent himself, utterly regardless of his sister, had this object at heart, only second to the hope of gain, it seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp’s main principle of action. Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in abetting them, which the attainment of their purpose would serve, it was easy to believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as there could be no doubt of his proving a powerful and useful auxiliary, Trent determined to accept his invitation and go to his house that night, and if what he said and did confirmed him in the impression he had formed, to let him share the labour of their plan, but not the profit.

Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his meditations as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly satisfied with less), and giving him the day to recover himself from his late salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr Quilp’s house.

Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to be; and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs Jiniwin; and very sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she was affected by the recognition of young Trent. Mrs Quilp was as innocent as her own mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant, which the sight of him awakened, but as her husband’s glance made her timid and confused, and uncertain what to do or what was required of her, Mr Quilp did not fail to assign her embarrassment to the cause he had in his mind, and while he chuckled at his penetration was secretly exasperated by his jealousy.

Nothing of this appeared, however. On the contrary, Mr Quilp was all blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum with extraordinary open-heartedness.

‘Why, let me see,’ said Quilp. ‘It must be a matter of nearly two years since we were first acquainted.’

‘Nearer three, I think,’ said Trent.

‘Nearer three!’ cried Quilp. ‘How fast time flies. Does it seem as long as that to you, Mrs Quilp?’

‘Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,’ was the unfortunate reply.

‘Oh indeed, ma’am,’ thought Quilp, ‘you have been pining, have you? Very good, ma’am.’

‘It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the Mary Anne,’ said Quilp; ‘but yesterday, I declare. Well, I like a little wildness. I was wild myself once.’

Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink, indicative of old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was indignant, and could not forbear from remarking under her breath that he might at least put off his confessions until his wife was absent; for which act of boldness and insubordination Mr Quilp first stared her out of countenance and then drank her health ceremoniously.

‘I thought you’d come back directly, Fred. I always thought that,’ said Quilp setting down his glass. ‘And when the Mary Anne returned with you on board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart you had, and how happy you were in the situation that had been provided for you, I was amused—exceedingly amused. Ha ha ha!’

The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most agreeable one that could have been selected for his entertainment; and for that reason Quilp pursued it.

‘I always will say,’ he resumed, ‘that when a rich relation having two young people—sisters or brothers, or brother and sister—dependent on him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts off the other, he does wrong.’

The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as calmly as if he were discussing some abstract question in which nobody present had the slightest personal interest.

‘It’s very true,’ said Quilp, ‘that your grandfather urged repeated forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but as I told him “these are common faults.” “But he’s a scoundrel,” said he. “Granting that,” said I (for the sake of argument of course), “a great many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels too!” But he wouldn’t be convinced.’

«Non mi difendo, Fred», disse il pentito Richard; «ma il tizio ha un modo così strano di fare e è un cane così astuto che, prima di tutto, mi ha fatto pensare se ci fosse qualcosa di male nel dirglielo, e mentre ci pensavo, me lo ha estorto. Se l’avessi visto bere e fumare come ho fatto io, non avresti potuto nascondergli nulla. È un Salamandra, lo sai, ecco cos’è.»

Senza chiedersi se i Salamandra fossero necessariamente buoni agenti di fiducia, o se un uomo a prova di fuoco fosse per forza di cose degno di fiducia, Frederick Trent si lasciò cadere su una sedia e, nascondendo la testa tra le mani, cercò di comprendere i motivi che avevano spinto Quilp a insinuarsi nella fiducia di Richard Swiveller; — poiché che la rivelazione fosse stata cercata da lui e non fosse stata spontaneamente rivelata da Dick, era sufficientemente chiaro dal fatto che Quilp cercava la sua compagnia e lo attirava lontano.

Il nanerottolo lo aveva incontrato due volte mentre cercava di ottenere informazioni sui fuggitivi. Questo, forse, dato che non aveva mai mostrato alcuna preoccupazione per loro in precedenza, fu sufficiente a destare sospetti nel petto di una creatura così gelosa e diffidente per natura, mettendo da parte qualsiasi impulso aggiuntivo di curiosità che avrebbe potuto derivare dal comportamento imprudente di Dick. Ma conoscendo il piano che avevano progettato, perché avrebbe dovuto offrirsi di aiutarli? Questa era una domanda più difficile da risolvere; ma poiché i furbi di solito si superano attribuendo agli altri i propri piani, l’idea si presentò immediatamente che alcune circostanze di irritazione tra Quilp e il vecchio, derivanti dalle loro transazioni segrete e forse non sconnesse dalla sua improvvisa scomparsa, rendessero ora il primo desideroso di vendicarsi di lui cercando di intrappolare l’unico oggetto del suo amore e della sua ansia in una connessione di cui sapeva che aveva paura e odio. Poiché anche Frederick Trent, completamente indifferente alla sorella, aveva questo obiettivo a cuore, solo secondario rispetto alla speranza di guadagno, gli sembrava ancora più probabile che fosse il principio d’azione principale di Quilp. Una volta attribuito al nanerottolo un piano suo nel favorirli, che il raggiungimento del loro scopo avrebbe servito, era facile crederlo sincero e appassionato nella causa; e poiché non poteva esserci alcun dubbio che si sarebbe rivelato un ausiliario potente e utile, Trent decise di accettare il suo invito e andare a casa sua quella notte, e se ciò che diceva e faceva confermava l’impressione che aveva formato, di lasciargli condividere il lavoro del loro piano, ma non il profitto.

Dopo aver rivolto in mente queste cose e raggiunto questa conclusione, comunicò a Mr Swiveller quanto riteneva opportuno delle sue riflessioni (Dick sarebbe stato perfettamente soddisfatto con meno), e concedendogli il giorno per riprendersi dalla sua recente esperienza di salamandra, lo accompagnò la sera alla casa di Mr Quilp.

Mr Quilp era davvero felice di vederli, o almeno così sembrava; e Mr Quilp era terribilmente gentile con Mrs Quilp e Mrs Jiniwin; e molto attento era lo sguardo che lanciava a sua moglie per osservare come fosse colpita dal riconoscimento del giovane Trent. Mrs Quilp era innocente come sua madre di qualsiasi emozione, dolorosa o piacevole, che la vista di lui suscitava, ma poiché lo sguardo del marito la rendeva timida e confusa, e incerta su cosa fare o cosa si pretendesse da lei, Mr Quilp non mancò di attribuire il suo imbarazzo alla causa che aveva in mente, e mentre si compiaceva della sua perspicacia era segretamente esasperato dalla sua gelosia.

Non appariva nulla di tutto ciò, tuttavia. Al contrario, il signor Quilp era tutto dolcezza e affabilità, e presiedeva sulla bottiglia di rum con straordinaria generosità.

«Ecco, vediamo», disse Quilp. «Deve essere passato quasi due anni da quando ci siamo conosciuti.»

«Più vicino alle tre, credo», disse Trent.

«Più vicino alle tre!» gridò Quilp. «Com’è veloce il tempo. Ti sembra sia passato tanto tempo, signora Quilp?»

«Sì, penso che sembrino tre anni pieni, Quilp», fu la risposta sfortunata.

“Oh davvero, signora,” pensò Quilp, “avete sofferto, vero? Benissimo, signora.”

«Mi sembra fosse ieri che siete partito per la Demerara sulla Mary Anne», disse Quilp; «ieri, ve lo dichiaro. Beh, a me piace un po’ di selvatichezza. Anche io sono stato selvaggio una volta».

Il signor Quilp accompagnò questa confessione con una smorfia così terribile, indicativa di vecchi vagabondaggi e ricadute, che la signora Jiniwin ne fu indignata e non poté trattenersi dal commentare sottovoce che avrebbe almeno potuto rimandare le sue confessioni fino a quando sua moglie non fosse stata assente; per questo atto di audacia e insubordinazione il signor Quilp la fissò dapprima in modo da farla arrossire e poi brindò alla sua salute in modo cerimonioso.

«Pensavo che saresti tornato subito, Fred. L’ho sempre pensato», disse Quilp posando il bicchiere. «E quando la Mary Anne è tornata con te a bordo, invece di una lettera in cui dicevi quanto ti dispiacesse e quanto fossi felice nella situazione che ti era stata offerta, mi sono divertito, divertito in modo incredibile. Ha ha ha!»

Il giovane sorrise, ma non come se il tema fosse il più piacevole che si potesse scegliere per il suo divertimento; e per questo motivo Quilp continuò a insistere.

«Dirò sempre», riprese, «che quando un parente ricco, che ha due giovani a suo carico — sorelle o fratelli, o fratello e sorella — si affeziona esclusivamente a uno e respinge l’altro, si comporta male.»

Il giovane fece un gesto d’impazienza, ma Quilp continuò con la stessa calma con cui avrebbe discusso di qualche questione astratta in cui nessuno dei presenti avesse il minimo interesse personale.

«È molto vero», disse Quilp, «che tuo nonno ha insistito su ripetuti perdono, ingratitudine, disordini e stravaganze, e tutto il resto; ma come gli ho detto “questi sono errori comuni”. “Ma è un farabutto”, ha detto lui. “Concediamo che lo sia”, ho detto io (ovviamente per amore di discussione), “un gran numero di giovani nobili e gentiluomini sono farabutti anche loro!” Ma lui non voleva convincersi.»

‘I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,’ said the young man sarcastically.

‘Well, so did I at the time,’ returned Quilp, ‘but he was always obstinate. He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always obstinate and wrong-headed. Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming girl, but you’re her brother, Frederick. You’re her brother after all; as you told him the last time you met, he can’t alter that.’

‘He would if he could, confound him for that and all other kindnesses,’ said the young man impatiently. ‘But nothing can come of this subject now, and let us have done with it in the Devil’s name.’

‘Agreed,’ returned Quilp, ‘agreed on my part readily. Why have I alluded to it? Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always stood your friend. You little knew who was your friend, and who your foe; now did you? You thought I was against you, and so there has been a coolness between us; but it was all on your side, entirely on your side. Let’s shake hands again, Fred.’

With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short arm across the table. After a moment’s hesitation, the young man stretched out his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip that for the moment stopped the current of the blood within them, and pressing his other hand upon his lip and frowning towards the unsuspicious Richard, released them and sat down.

This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard Swiveller was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his designs than he thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf perfectly understood their relative position, and fully entered into the character of his friend. It is something to be appreciated, even in knavery. This silent homage to his superior abilities, no less than a sense of the power with which the dwarf’s quick perception had already invested him, inclined the young man towards that ugly worthy, and determined him to profit by his aid.

It being now Mr Quilp’s cue to change the subject with all convenient expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness should reveal anything which it was inexpedient for the women to know, he proposed a game at four-handed cribbage, and partners being cut for, Mrs Quilp fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself to Quilp. Mrs Jiniwin being very fond of cards was carefully excluded by her son-in-law from any participation in the game, and had assigned to her the duty of occasionally replenishing the glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp from that moment keeping one eye constantly upon her, lest she should by any means procure a taste of the same, and thereby tantalising the wretched old lady (who was as much attached to the case-bottle as the cards) in a double degree and most ingenious manner.

But it was not to Mrs Jiniwin alone that Mr Quilp’s attention was restricted, as several other matters required his constant vigilance. Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous one of always cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part, not only a close observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in counting and scoring, but also involved the constant correction, by looks, and frowns, and kicks under the table, of Richard Swiveller, who being bewildered by the rapidity with which his cards were told, and the rate at which the pegs travelled down the board, could not be prevented from sometimes expressing his surprise and incredulity. Mrs Quilp too was the partner of young Trent, and for every look that passed between them, and every word they spoke, and every card they played, the dwarf had eyes and ears; not occupied alone with what was passing above the table, but with signals that might be exchanging beneath it, which he laid all kinds of traps to detect; besides often treading on his wife’s toes to see whether she cried out or remained silent under the infliction, in which latter case it would have been quite clear that Trent had been treading on her toes before. Yet, in the most of all these distractions, the one eye was upon the old lady always, and if she so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one sup of its sweet contents, Quilp’s hand would overset it in the very moment of her triumph, and Quilp’s mocking voice implore her to regard her precious health. And in any one of these his many cares, from first to last, Quilp never flagged nor faltered.

At length, when they had played a great many rubbers and drawn pretty freely upon the case-bottle, Mr Quilp warned his lady to retire to rest, and that submissive wife complying, and being followed by her indignant mother, Mr Swiveller fell asleep. The dwarf beckoning his remaining companion to the other end of the room, held a short conference with him in whispers.

‘It’s as well not to say more than one can help before our worthy friend,’ said Quilp, making a grimace towards the slumbering Dick. ‘Is it a bargain between us, Fred? Shall he marry little rosy Nell by-and-by?’

‘You have some end of your own to answer, of course,’ returned the other.

‘Of course I have, dear Fred,’ said Quilp, grinning to think how little he suspected what the real end was. ‘It’s retaliation perhaps; perhaps whim. I have influence, Fred, to help or oppose. Which way shall I use it? There are a pair of scales, and it goes into one.’

‘Throw it into mine then,’ said Trent.

‘It’s done, Fred,’ rejoined Quilp, stretching out his clenched hand and opening it as if he had let some weight fall out. ‘It’s in the scale from this time, and turns it, Fred. Mind that.’

‘Where have they gone?’ asked Trent.

Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be discovered, which it might be, easily. When it was, they would begin their preliminary advances. He would visit the old man, or even Richard Swiveller might visit him, and by affecting a deep concern in his behalf, and imploring him to settle in some worthy home, lead to the child’s remembering him with gratitude and favour. Once impressed to this extent, it would be easy, he said, to win her in a year or two, for she supposed the old man to be poor, as it was a part of his jealous policy (in common with many other misers) to feign to be so, to those about him.

‘He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,’ said Trent.

‘Oh! and to me too!’ replied the dwarf. ‘Which is more extraordinary, as I know how rich he really is.’

‘I suppose you should,’ said Trent.

‘I think I should indeed,’ rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at least, he spoke the truth.

After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and the young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was waiting to depart. This was welcome news to Dick, who started up directly. After a few words of confidence in the result of their project had been exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good night.

Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and listened. Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to marry such a misshapen wretch as he. The dwarf after watching their retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet displayed, stole softly in the dark to bed.

In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had one thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell. It would have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the butt of both, had been harassed by any such consideration; for his high opinion of his own merits and deserts rendered the project rather a laudable one than otherwise; and if he had been visited by so unwonted a guest as reflection, he would—being a brute only in the gratification of his appetites—have soothed his conscience with the plea that he did not mean to beat or kill his wife, and would therefore, after all said and done, be a very tolerable, average husband.

«Mi meraviglio di questo, signor Quilp», disse il giovane sarcasticamente.

«Beh, così pensavo anch’io all’epoca,» rispose Quilp, «ma lui era sempre ostinato. Era in un certo senso un mio amico, ma era sempre ostinato e testardo. La piccola Nell è una ragazza carina, una ragazza incantevole, ma tu sei suo fratello, Frederick. Sei suo fratello, dopotutto; come gli hai detto l’ultima volta che vi siete incontrati, non può cambiare questo.»

«Lo farebbe se potesse, dannato lui per questo e per tutte le altre gentilezze», disse il giovane con impazienza. «Ma non può venire fuori nulla da questo argomento ora, e finiamola in nome del diavolo.»

«D’accordo», rispose Quilp, «d’accordo da parte mia, volentieri. Perché ne ho parlato? Proprio per dimostrarti, Frederick, che sono sempre stato tuo amico. Tu non sapevi chi fosse tuo amico e chi tuo nemico, vero? Pensavi che fossi contro di te, e così tra noi è nata una certa freddezza; ma era tutta da parte tua, interamente da parte tua. Stringiamoci di nuovo la mano, Fred.»

Con la testa affondata tra le spalle e una ghigno orribile che gli attraversava il volto, il nanerottolo si alzò e tese il suo braccio corto sopra il tavolo. Dopo un attimo di esitazione, il giovane tese il suo per incontrarlo; Quilp strinse le sue dita in una presa che per un momento fermò il flusso del sangue al loro interno, e premendo la sua altra mano sul labbro e aggrottando le sopracciglia verso l’insospettato Richard, lo lasciò andare e si sedette.

Questa azione non passò inosservata a Trent, che, sapendo che Richard Swiveller era un mero strumento nelle sue mani e non conosceva i suoi piani più di quanto lui ritenesse opportuno comunicare, vide che il nanerottolo comprendeva perfettamente la loro posizione relativa e si immedesimava pienamente nel carattere del suo amico. È qualcosa che merita apprezzamento, anche nella malvagità. Questo omaggio silenzioso alle sue superiori capacità, non meno che il senso del potere con cui la rapida percezione del nanerottolo lo aveva già investito, inclinò il giovane verso quel brutto personaggio e lo determinò a trarre profitto dal suo aiuto.

Essendo ora il momento in cui Richard Swiveller, nella sua disattenzione, avrebbe potuto rivelare qualcosa che non conveniva alle donne di sapere, il signor Quilp propose una partita a cribbage a quattro mani, e una volta scelti i compagni, la signora Quilp si ritrovò con Frederick Trent e Dick stesso con Quilp. La signora Jiniwin, essendo molto appassionata di carte, fu accuratamente esclusa dal gioco dal genero, che le assegnò il compito di riempire occasionalmente i bicchieri con la bottiglia del caso; dal quel momento il signor Quilp tenne un occhio costantemente su di lei, per timore che potesse in qualche modo procurarsi un assaggio dello stesso, e così tormentando la povera vecchia (che era tanto attaccata alla bottiglia del caso quanto alle carte) in un grado doppio e in modo molto ingegnoso.

Ma non era solo su Mrs Jiniwin che l’attenzione di Mr Quilp era concentrata, poiché diversi altri affari richiedevano la sua costante vigilanza. Tra le sue varie abitudini eccentriche, ne aveva una umoristica di truffare sempre a carte, il che rendeva necessario da parte sua, non solo una attenta osservazione del gioco, e una destrezza nel contare e segnare i punti, ma anche la continua correzione, con sguardi, e cenni del capo, e calci sotto il tavolo, di Richard Swiveller, che essendo sconcertato dalla rapidità con cui le sue carte venivano contate, e la velocità con cui i chiodi viaggiavano lungo la lavagna, non poteva essere impedito a volte di esprimere la sua sorpresa e incredulità. Anche Mrs Quilp era la partner del giovane Trent, e per ogni sguardo che passava tra loro, e ogni parola che dicevano, e ogni carta che giocavano, il nanerottolo aveva occhi e orecchie; non occupati solo con ciò che accadeva sopra il tavolo, ma anche con i segnali che potevano essere scambiati sotto di esso, che lui poneva ogni sorta di trappole per scoprire; oltre a calpestare spesso i piedi di sua moglie per vedere se gridava o rimaneva in silenzio sotto l’infrazione, nel qual caso sarebbe stato chiaro che Trent aveva calpestato i suoi piedi prima. Eppure, nella maggior parte di tutte queste distrazioni, un occhio era sempre sulla vecchia signora, e se lei avanzava anche solo furtivamente un cucchiaino verso un bicchiere vicino (cosa che faceva spesso), allo scopo di sottrarre anche solo un sorso dei suoi dolci contenuti, la mano di Quilp lo rovesciava nel momento del suo trionfo, e la voce beffarda di Quilp la implorava di considerare la sua preziosa salute. E in ciascuno di questi suoi molti pensieri, dall’inizio alla fine, Quilp non vacillò né esitò.

Alla fine, dopo aver giocato molti set e aver attinguto piuttosto liberamente dalla bottiglia, il signor Quilp avvertì la sua signora di ritirarsi a riposare, e la moglie obbediente, seguita dalla madre indignata, acconsentì, e il signor Swiveller si addormentò. Il nanerottolo fece cenno al suo compagno rimasto di raggiungerlo all’altra estremità della stanza, e tenne con lui una breve conferenza sussurrata.

«È meglio non dire più del necessario davanti al nostro stimato amico», disse Quilp, facendo una smorfia verso Dick che dormiva. «È un patto tra noi, Fred? Sposerà la piccola rosea Nell in futuro?»

«Naturalmente avete qualche scopo da raggiungere», rispose l’altro.

«Certo che ho, caro Fred», disse Quilp, ghignando al pensiero di quanto poco lui sospettasse quale fosse il vero scopo. «Forse è una vendetta; forse un capriccio. Ho influenza, Fred, per aiutare o ostacolare. In quale modo dovrei usarla? Ci sono due piatti della bilancia, e va in uno dei due.»

«Allora buttalo nel mio», disse Trent.

«È fatto, Fred,» riprese Quilp, tendendo la mano chiusa a pugno e aprendola come se avesse lasciato cadere un peso. «È sulla bilancia da questo momento e la fa inclinare, Fred. Tienilo a mente.»

«Dove sono andati?» chiese Trent.

Quilp scosse la testa e disse che quel punto restava da scoprire, e che poteva essere fatto facilmente. Quando sarebbe stato fatto, avrebbero iniziato i loro approcci preliminari. Lui avrebbe visitato il vecchio, o anche Richard Swiveller avrebbe potuto visitarlo, e fingendo di essere profondamente preoccupato per lui, e implorandolo di stabilirsi in qualche degno focolare, avrebbero portato la bambina a ricordarlo con gratitudine e favore. Una volta impresso a questo livello, sarebbe stato facile, disse, conquistarla in un anno o due, perché lei credeva che il vecchio fosse povero, poiché faceva parte della sua gelosa politica (in comune con molti altri avari) fingere di esserlo, con chi lo circondava.

«L’ha simulato abbastanza spesso con me, di recente», disse Trent.

‘Oh! e anche a me!’ rispose il nanerottolo. ‘Il che è ancora più straordinario, dato che so quanto sia veramente ricco.’

«Suppongo che dovresti», disse Trent.

«Credo proprio di sì», rispose il nanerottolo; e in questo, almeno, disse la verità.

Dopo qualche altra parola sussurrata, tornarono al tavolo, e il giovane svegliando Richard Swiveller lo informò che stava aspettando di partire. Questa fu una notizia gradita a Dick, che si alzò immediatamente. Dopo che furono state scambiate alcune parole di fiducia nel risultato del loro progetto, salutarono il ghignante Quilp augurandogli una buona notte.

Quilp si avvicinò furtivamente alla finestra mentre passavano per la strada sottostante, e ascoltò. Trent stava pronunciando un elogio per sua moglie, e tutti e due si chiedevano per quale incantesimo fosse stata portata a sposare un mostro così deforme come lui. Dopo aver osservato le loro ombre che si allontanavano con un ghigno più largo di quanto il suo volto avesse mai mostrato, il nanerottolo si avviò furtivamente al buio verso il letto.

In questa elaborazione del loro piano, né Trent né Quilp avevano avuto un solo pensiero per la felicità o la miseria della povera innocente Nell. Sarebbe stato strano se il dissoluto incurante, che era il bersaglio di entrambi, fosse stato tormentato da una tale considerazione; poiché la sua alta opinione dei propri meriti e delle proprie prerogative rendeva il progetto piuttosto lodevole che altro; e se fosse stato visitato da un ospite così insolito come la riflessione, egli - essendo un bruto solo nel soddisfare i suoi appetiti - avrebbe placato la sua coscienza con la scusa che non intendeva picchiare o uccidere sua moglie, e quindi, dopo tutto ciò che era stato detto e fatto, sarebbe stato un marito piuttosto tollerabile, nella media.

CHAPTER 24

It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer maintain the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that the old man and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest upon the borders of a little wood. Here, though the course was hidden from their view, they could yet faintly distinguish the noise of distant shouts, the hum of voices, and the beating of drums. Climbing the eminence which lay between them and the spot they had left, the child could even discern the fluttering flags and white tops of booths; but no person was approaching towards them, and their resting-place was solitary and still.

Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling companion, or restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity. His disordered imagination represented to him a crowd of persons stealing towards them beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in every ditch, and peeping from the boughs of every rustling tree. He was haunted by apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy place where he would be chained and scourged, and worse than all, where Nell could never come to see him, save through iron bars and gratings in the wall. His terrors affected the child. Separation from her grandfather was the greatest evil she could dread; and feeling for the time as though, go where they would, they were to be hunted down, and could never be safe but in hiding, her heart failed her, and her courage drooped.

In one so young, and so unused to the scenes in which she had lately moved, this sinking of the spirit was not surprising. But, Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms—oftenest, God bless her, in female breasts—and when the child, casting her tearful eyes upon the old man, remembered how weak he was, and how destitute and helpless he would be if she failed him, her heart swelled within her, and animated her with new strength and fortitude.

‘We are quite safe now, and have nothing to fear indeed, dear grandfather,’ she said.

‘Nothing to fear!’ returned the old man. ‘Nothing to fear if they took me from thee! Nothing to fear if they parted us! Nobody is true to me. No, not one. Not even Nell!’

‘Oh! do not say that,’ replied the child, ‘for if ever anybody was true at heart, and earnest, I am. I am sure you know I am.’

‘Then how,’ said the old man, looking fearfully round, ‘how can you bear to think that we are safe, when they are searching for me everywhere, and may come here, and steal upon us, even while we’re talking?’

‘Because I’m sure we have not been followed,’ said the child. ‘Judge for yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how quiet and still it is. We are alone together, and may ramble where we like. Not safe! Could I feel easy—did I feel at ease—when any danger threatened you?’

‘True, too,’ he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking anxiously about. ‘What noise was that?’

‘A bird,’ said the child, ‘flying into the wood, and leading the way for us to follow.’ You remember that we said we would walk in woods and fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would be—you remember that? But here, while the sun shines above our heads, and everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly down, and losing time. See what a pleasant path; and there’s the bird—the same bird—now he flies to another tree, and stays to sing. Come!’

When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which led them through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny footsteps in the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure and gave it back as mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured the old man on, with many a backward look and merry beck, now pointing stealthily to some lone bird as it perched and twittered on a branch that strayed across their path, now stopping to listen to the songs that broke the happy silence, or watch the sun as it trembled through the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied trunks of stout old trees, opened long paths of light. As they passed onward, parting the boughs that clustered in their way, the serenity which the child had first assumed, stole into her breast in earnest; the old man cast no longer fearful looks behind, but felt at ease and cheerful, for the further they passed into the deep green shade, the more they felt that the tranquil mind of God was there, and shed its peace on them.

At length the path becoming clearer and less intricate, brought them to the end of the wood, and into a public road. Taking their way along it for a short distance, they came to a lane, so shaded by the trees on either hand that they met together over-head, and arched the narrow way. A broken finger-post announced that this led to a village three miles off; and thither they resolved to bend their steps.

The miles appeared so long that they sometimes thought they must have missed their road. But at last, to their great joy, it led downwards in a steep descent, with overhanging banks over which the footpaths led; and the clustered houses of the village peeped from the woody hollow below.

It was a very small place. The men and boys were playing at cricket on the green; and as the other folks were looking on, they wandered up and down, uncertain where to seek a humble lodging. There was but one old man in the little garden before his cottage, and him they were timid of approaching, for he was the schoolmaster, and had ‘School’ written up over his window in black letters on a white board. He was a pale, simple-looking man, of a spare and meagre habit, and sat among his flowers and beehives, smoking his pipe, in the little porch before his door.

‘Speak to him, dear,’ the old man whispered.

CAPITOLO 24

Non fu finché non furono completamente esausti e non poterono più mantenere il ritmo con cui erano fuggiti dal campo di gara, che il vecchio e il bambino osarono fermarsi e sedersi a riposare ai margini di un piccolo bosco. Qui, sebbene il percorso fosse nascosto alla loro vista, potevano ancora distinguere debolmente il rumore di grida lontane, il brusio di voci e il battito dei tamburi. Salendo l’altura che si trovava tra loro e il luogo che avevano lasciato, il bambino poteva persino scorgere le bandiere sventolanti e i tetti bianchi delle baracche; ma nessuna persona si avvicinava verso di loro, e il loro luogo di riposo era solitario e tranquillo.

Trascorse un po’ di tempo prima che riuscisse a rassicurare la sua compagna tremante, o a riportarla in uno stato di moderata tranquillità. La sua immaginazione sconvolta gli rappresentava una folla di persone che si avvicinavano furtivamente a loro sotto la copertura dei cespugli, nascondendosi in ogni fossato e sbirciando dai rami di ogni albero frusciante. Era perseguitato dall’apprensione di essere condotto prigioniero in un luogo cupo dove sarebbe stato incatenato e frustato, e peggio di tutto, dove Nell non avrebbe mai potuto venire a vederlo, se non attraverso le sbarre di ferro e le grate nel muro. Le sue paure influenzavano la bambina. La separazione dal nonno era il più grande male che potesse temere; e sentendosi per il tempo come se, andassero dove andassero, sarebbero stati cacciati, e non avrebbero mai potuto essere al sicuro se non nascondendosi, il suo cuore le venne meno, e il suo coraggio si abbatté.

In una così giovane, e così inesperta delle scene in cui si era recentemente mossa, questo abbattersi dello spirito non era sorprendente. Ma la Natura spesso custodisce cuori coraggiosi e nobili in petti deboli — più spesso, Dio la benedica, in seni femminili — e quando la bambina, gettando i suoi occhi lacrimosi sull’anziano, ricordava quanto fosse debole, e quanto sarebbe stato abbandonato e indifeso se lei lo avesse deluso, il suo cuore si gonfiava dentro di lei, e la animava con nuova forza e coraggio.

«Ora siamo al sicuro e non abbiamo nulla da temere, davvero, caro nonno», disse.

«Nulla da temere!» rispose il vecchio. «Nulla da temere se mi avessero portato via da te! Nulla da temere se ci avessero separato! Nessuno è fedele a me. No, nessuno. Neanche Nell!»

‘Oh! non dica questo,’ rispose il bambino, ‘perché se mai qualcuno è stato sincero e appassionato, quello sono io. Sono sicuro che lo sa.’

«Allora come», disse il vecchio, guardandosi intorno con paura, «come puoi sopportare di pensare che siamo al sicuro, quando mi stanno cercando dappertutto, e possono venire qui, e piombare su di noi, anche mentre stiamo parlando?»

«Perché sono sicuro che non siamo stati seguiti», disse il bambino. «Giudica tu stesso, caro nonno: guarda intorno e vedi quanto è tranquillo e silenzioso. Siamo soli insieme, e possiamo vagare dove ci piace. Non sicuri! Potrei sentirmi a mio agio - mi sentivo a mio agio - quando qualche pericolo ti minacciava?»

«È vero anche questo», rispose, stringendole la mano, ma continuando a guardarsi intorno con ansia. «Che rumore era quello?»

«Un uccello», disse il bambino, «che vola nel bosco e ci guida per seguire la sua strada». Ricordate che abbiamo detto che avremmo camminato nei boschi e nei campi, e lungo i fiumi, e quanto saremmo stati felici, lo ricordate? Ma eccoci qui, mentre il sole splende sopra le nostre teste, e tutto è luminoso e felice, seduti tristemente e perdendo tempo. Guardate che sentiero piacevole; e c’è l’uccello—lo stesso uccello—ora vola su un altro albero, e si ferma per cantare. Andiamo!»

Quando si levarono dal suolo e presero il sentiero ombroso che li conduceva attraverso il bosco, lei balzò avanti, stampando le sue piccole impronte nel muschio, che si levava elastico sotto una pressione così leggera e la restituiva come gli specchi riflettono il fiato; e così attirava l’anziano uomo con molti sguardi all’indietro e allegri cenni, ora indicando furtivamente qualche uccello solitario mentre si posava e cinguettava su un ramo che si protendeva attraverso il loro cammino, ora fermandosi ad ascoltare le canzoni che rompevano il felice silenzio, o osservare il sole mentre tremolava tra le foglie, e, insinuandosi tra i robusti tronchi ricoperti d’edera degli alberi vecchi e maestosi, apriva lunghi sentieri di luce. Mentre procedevano, divaricando i rami che si ammassavano sul loro cammino, la serenità che la bambina aveva assunto per prima invase il suo petto con sincerità; l’anziano non lanciava più sguardi timorosi alle spalle, ma si sentiva a suo agio e allegro, perché più si addentravano nell’ombra verde scuro, più sentivano che la mente tranquilla di Dio era lì, e riversava la sua pace su di loro.

Alla fine, il sentiero, diventando più chiaro e meno intricato, li portò alla fine del bosco e su una strada pubblica. Percorrendola per un breve tratto, arrivarono a un viottolo così ombreggiato dagli alberi ai lati che si incontravano sopra le loro teste, formando un arco sulla stretta strada. Un indicatore stradale rotto annunciava che questo portava a un villaggio a tre miglia di distanza; e decisero di dirigersi lì.

Le miglia sembravano così lunghe che a volte pensavano di aver perso la strada. Ma finalmente, con grande gioia, questa si inabissò in una ripida discesa, con argini sporgenti oltre i quali conducevano i sentieri; e le case del villaggio, raggruppate, sbucavano dall’incavo boscoso sottostante.

Era un luogo molto piccolo. Gli uomini e i ragazzi giocavano a cricket sul prato; e mentre le altre persone li guardavano, vagavano su e giù, incerti su dove cercare un umile alloggio. C’era solo un vecchio nel piccolo giardino davanti alla sua casetta, e loro erano timorosi di avvicinarsi, perché era il maestro di scuola, e aveva scritto “Scuola” sopra la sua finestra con lettere nere su una targa bianca. Era un uomo pallido, dall’aspetto semplice, di corporatura magra e scarna, e sedeva tra i suoi fiori e gli alveari, fumando la pipa, nel piccolo portico davanti alla sua porta.

«Parlagli, cara», sussurrò il vecchio.

‘I am almost afraid to disturb him,’ said the child timidly. ‘He does not seem to see us. Perhaps if we wait a little, he may look this way.’

They waited, but the schoolmaster cast no look towards them, and still sat, thoughtful and silent, in the little porch. He had a kind face. In his plain old suit of black, he looked pale and meagre. They fancied, too, a lonely air about him and his house, but perhaps that was because the other people formed a merry company upon the green, and he seemed the only solitary man in all the place.

They were very tired, and the child would have been bold enough to address even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which seemed to denote that he was uneasy or distressed. As they stood hesitating at a little distance, they saw that he sat for a few minutes at a time like one in a brown study, then laid aside his pipe and took a few turns in his garden, then approached the gate and looked towards the green, then took up his pipe again with a sigh, and sat down thoughtfully as before.

As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length took courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured to draw near, leading her grandfather by the hand. The slight noise they made in raising the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his attention. He looked at them kindly but seemed disappointed too, and slightly shook his head.

Nell dropped a curtsey, and told him they were poor travellers who sought a shelter for the night which they would gladly pay for, so far as their means allowed. The schoolmaster looked earnestly at her as she spoke, laid aside his pipe, and rose up directly.

‘If you could direct us anywhere, sir,’ said the child, ‘we should take it very kindly.’

‘You have been walking a long way,’ said the schoolmaster.

‘A long way, Sir,’ the child replied.

‘You’re a young traveller, my child,’ he said, laying his hand gently on her head. ‘Your grandchild, friend?’

‘Aye, Sir,’ cried the old man, ‘and the stay and comfort of my life.’

‘Come in,’ said the schoolmaster.

Without further preface he conducted them into his little school-room, which was parlour and kitchen likewise, and told them that they were welcome to remain under his roof till morning. Before they had done thanking him, he spread a coarse white cloth upon the table, with knives and platters; and bringing out some bread and cold meat and a jug of beer, besought them to eat and drink.

The child looked round the room as she took her seat. There were a couple of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal desk perched on four legs, at which no doubt the master sat; a few dog’s-eared books upon a high shelf; and beside them a motley collection of peg-tops, balls, kites, fishing-lines, marbles, half-eaten apples, and other confiscated property of idle urchins. Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors, were the cane and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the dunce’s cap, made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring wafers of the largest size. But, the great ornaments of the walls were certain moral sentences fairly copied in good round text, and well-worked sums in simple addition and multiplication, evidently achieved by the same hand, which were plentifully pasted all round the room: for the double purpose, as it seemed, of bearing testimony to the excellence of the school, and kindling a worthy emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.

‘Yes,’ said the old schoolmaster, observing that her attention was caught by these latter specimens. ‘That’s beautiful writing, my dear.’

‘Very, Sir,’ replied the child modestly, ‘is it yours?’

‘Mine!’ he returned, taking out his spectacles and putting them on, to have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart. ‘I couldn’t write like that, now-a-days. No. They’re all done by one hand; a little hand it is, not so old as yours, but a very clever one.’

As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had been thrown on one of the copies, so he took a penknife from his pocket, and going up to the wall, carefully scraped it out. When he had finished, he walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring it as one might contemplate a beautiful picture, but with something of sadness in his voice and manner which quite touched the child, though she was unacquainted with its cause.

‘A little hand indeed,’ said the poor schoolmaster. ‘Far beyond all his companions, in his learning and his sports too, how did he ever come to be so fond of me! That I should love him is no wonder, but that he should love me—’ and there the schoolmaster stopped, and took off his spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim.

‘I hope there is nothing the matter, sir,’ said Nell anxiously.

‘Not much, my dear,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘I hoped to have seen him on the green to-night. He was always foremost among them. But he’ll be there to-morrow.’

‘Has he been ill?’ asked the child, with a child’s quick sympathy.

‘Not very. They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear boy, and so they said the day before. But that’s a part of that kind of disorder; it’s not a bad sign—not at all a bad sign.’

The child was silent. He walked to the door, and looked wistfully out. The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still.

‘If he could lean upon anybody’s arm, he would come to me, I know,’ he said, returning into the room. ‘He always came into the garden to say good night. But perhaps his illness has only just taken a favourable turn, and it’s too late for him to come out, for it’s very damp and there’s a heavy dew. It’s much better he shouldn’t come to-night.’

The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter, and closed the door. But after he had done this, and sat silent a little time, he took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy himself, if Nell would sit up till he returned. The child readily complied, and he went out.

She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange and lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed, and there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock, and the whistling of the wind among the trees. When he returned, he took his seat in the chimney corner, but remained silent for a long time. At length he turned to her, and speaking very gently, hoped she would say a prayer that night for a sick child.

‘My favourite scholar!’ said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe he had forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the walls. ‘It is a little hand to have done all that, and waste away with sickness. It is a very, very little hand!’

«Ho quasi paura di disturbarlo», disse il bambino timidamente. «Non sembra vederci. Forse se aspettiamo un po’, potrebbe guardare da questa parte.»

Aspettarono, ma il maestro di scuola non li degnò di uno sguardo e continuò a sedere, pensieroso e silenzioso, nel piccolo portico. Aveva un volto gentile. Nel suo semplice vecchio abito nero, appariva pallido e magro. Gli parve anche di notare un’aria solitaria intorno a lui e alla sua casa, ma forse ciò dipendeva dal fatto che le altre persone formavano una allegra compagnia sul prato, e lui sembrava l’unico uomo solitario in tutto il luogo.

Erano molto stanchi, e il bambino avrebbe avuto il coraggio di rivolgersi anche a un maestro di scuola, se non fosse stato per qualcosa nel suo modo di fare che sembrava indicare che era inquieto o angosciato. Mentre si trovavano esitanti a poca distanza, videro che egli sedeva per alcuni minuti alla volta come uno che è in preda a una profonda meditazione, poi deponeva la pipa e faceva qualche passo nel suo giardino, poi si avvicinava al cancello e guardava verso il prato, poi riprendeva la pipa con un sospiro e si sedeva pensieroso come prima.

Poiché nessun altro appariva e sarebbe presto calata la notte, Nell infine prese coraggio, e quando lui riprese la pipa e il posto, si avventurò ad avvicinarsi, conducendo il nonno per mano. Il leggero rumore che fecero alzando il chiavistello del cancelletto attirò la sua attenzione. Li guardò con benevolenza ma sembrò anche deluso, e scosse leggermente la testa.

Nell fece una riverenza e gli disse che erano poveri viaggiatori che cercavano un riparo per la notte e che sarebbero stati lieti di pagare, per quanto le loro possibilità lo consentivano. Il maestro di scuola la guardò attentamente mentre parlava, mise da parte la pipa e si alzò subito.

«Se potesse indicarci una direzione, signore», disse il bambino, «la prenderemmo molto volentieri».

«Avete camminato a lungo», disse il maestro di scuola.

«Una lunga strada, Signore», rispose il bambino.

«Sei una giovane viaggiatrice, mia figlia», disse, posando la mano con dolcezza sulla sua testa. «Tua nipote, amico?»

“Sì, signore,” gridò il vecchio, “e il sostegno e il conforto della mia vita.”

«Avanti», disse il maestro di scuola.

Senza ulteriori preamboli li condusse nella sua piccola aula scolastica, che era anche salotto e cucina, e disse loro che erano benvenuti a rimanere sotto il suo tetto fino al mattino. Prima che avessero finito di ringraziarlo, stese una tovaglia bianca grossolana sul tavolo, con coltelli e piatti; e portando fuori del pane e carne fredda e una brocca di birra, li pregò di mangiare e bere.

La bambina guardò in giro per la stanza mentre prendeva posto. C’erano un paio di banchi, tutti segnati, incisi e macchiati d’inchiostro; una piccola scrivania di pino appollaiata su quattro gambe, alla quale senza dubbio sedeva il maestro; alcuni libri con gli angoli rovesciati su uno scaffale alto; e accanto a questi una collezione eterogenea di trottine, palle, aquiloni, canne da pesca, biglie, mele mezzo mangiate e altre proprietà confiscate a monelli oziosi. Esposi agli attacchi sui ganci alla parete in tutta la loro terribilità, erano la canna e la riga; e vicino a questi, su uno scaffale a parte, il cappello dello scolaro stupido, fatto di vecchi giornali e decorato con vistosi timbri di grandi dimensioni. Ma i grandi ornamenti delle pareti erano certe frasi morali copiate con bella calligrafia e bene eseguite, e somme ben calcolate in addizione e moltiplicazione semplici, evidentemente realizzate dalla stessa mano, che erano abbondantemente incollate tutto intorno alla stanza: per il doppio scopo, come sembrava, di testimoniare l’eccellenza della scuola e di accendere una nobile emulazione nei cuori degli scolari.

«Sì», disse il vecchio maestro di scuola, notando che la sua attenzione era stata catturata da questi ultimi esempi. «È una bella scrittura, mia cara.»

«Sì, signore», rispose il bambino modestamente, «è suo?»

«Miei!» rispose, tirando fuori gli occhiali e mettendoseli per poter meglio ammirare i trionfi così cari al suo cuore. «Non potrei scrivere così, oggi. No. Sono tutti opera di una mano; una manina, non più vecchia della tua, ma molto abile.»

Mentre il maestro diceva questo, vide che una piccola macchia d’inchiostro era stata gettata su uno dei copioni, così prese un temperino dalla tasca e, avvicinandosi al muro, la raschiò via con cura. Quando ebbe finito, si allontanò lentamente dalla scrittura, ammirandola come si potrebbe contemplare un bel quadro, ma con qualcosa di tristezza nella sua voce e nel suo modo che toccò profondamente la bambina, sebbene lei non ne conoscesse la causa.

«Una manina davvero», disse il povero maestro di scuola. «Lontano da tutti i suoi compagni, sia negli studi che nei giochi, come ha fatto a volermi così bene! Che io lo amassi non è una meraviglia, ma che lui mi amasse, » e lì il maestro di scuola si fermò, e si tolse gli occhiali per pulirli, come se si fossero appannati.

«Spero che non ci sia nulla di grave, signore», disse Nell con ansia.

«Non molto, mia cara», rispose il maestro di scuola. «Speravo di vederlo sul prato stasera. Era sempre il primo tra loro. Ma ci sarà domani.»

‘È stato malato?’ chiese il bambino, con la rapida simpatia di un bambino.

«Non molto. Hanno detto che ieri era confuso, caro ragazzo, e lo stesso avevano detto il giorno prima. Ma questo è un sintomo di quel tipo di disturbo; non è un brutto segno, per niente un brutto segno.»

Il bambino era silenzioso. Si avvicinò alla porta e guardò fuori con malinconia. Le ombre della notte si stavano addensando, e tutto era tranquillo.

«Se potesse appoggiarsi al braccio di qualcuno, verrebbe da me, lo so», disse, rientrando nella stanza. «Veniva sempre nel giardino a salutarmi la buona notte. Ma forse la sua malattia ha appena preso una piega favorevole, ed è troppo tardi perché esca, perché fa molto umido e c’è una forte rugiada. È molto meglio che non venga stasera.»

Il maestro accese una candela, chiuse la finestra e chiuse la porta. Ma dopo aver fatto questo, e aver seduto in silenzio per un po’ di tempo, si mise il cappello e disse che sarebbe andato a controllare, se Nell fosse rimasta sveglia fino al suo ritorno. La bambina acconsentì prontamente, e egli uscì.

Rimase seduta lì per mezz’ora o più, trovando il luogo molto strano e solitario, perché aveva convinto il vecchio ad andare a letto, e non si udiva altro che il ticchettio di un vecchio orologio e il fischio del vento tra gli alberi. Quando tornò, si sedette nell’angolo del camino, ma rimase in silenzio per un lungo periodo. Alla fine si rivolse a lei e, parlando molto dolcemente, le augurò di dire una preghiera quella notte per un bambino malato.

«Il mio alunno preferito!» disse il povero maestro di scuola, fumando una pipa che aveva dimenticato di accendere, e guardandosi intorno con tristezza sulle pareti. «È una manina che ha fatto tutto questo, e che si consuma per la malattia. È una manina davvero, davvero piccola!»

CHAPTER 25

After a sound night’s rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in which it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but which he had lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own, the child rose early in the morning and descended to the room where she had supped last night. As the schoolmaster had already left his bed and gone out, she bestirred herself to make it neat and comfortable, and had just finished its arrangement when the kind host returned.

He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually did such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom he had told her of. The child asked how he was, and hoped he was better.

‘No,’ rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, ‘no better. They even say he is worse.’

‘I am very sorry for that, Sir,’ said the child.

The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest manner, but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily that anxious people often magnified an evil and thought it greater than it was; ‘for my part,’ he said, in his quiet, patient way, ‘I hope it’s not so. I don’t think he can be worse.’

The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather coming down stairs, they all three partook of it together. While the meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man seemed much fatigued, and evidently stood in need of rest.

‘If the journey you have before you is a long one,’ he said, ‘and don’t press you for one day, you’re very welcome to pass another night here. I should really be glad if you would, friend.’

He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept or decline his offer; and added,

‘I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day. If you can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the same time, do so. If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you well through it, and will walk a little way with you before school begins.’

‘What are we to do, Nell?’ said the old man irresolutely, ‘say what we’re to do, dear.’

It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that they had better accept the invitation and remain. She was happy to show her gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in the performance of such household duties as his little cottage stood in need of. When these were done, she took some needle-work from her basket, and sat herself down upon a stool beside the lattice, where the honeysuckle and woodbine entwined their tender stems, and stealing into the room filled it with their delicious breath. Her grandfather was basking in the sun outside, breathing the perfume of the flowers, and idly watching the clouds as they floated on before the light summer wind.

As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order, took his seat behind his desk and made other preparations for school, the child was apprehensive that she might be in the way, and offered to withdraw to her little bedroom. But this he would not allow, and as he seemed pleased to have her there, she remained, busying herself with her work.

‘Have you many scholars, sir?’ she asked.

The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely filled the two forms.

‘Are the others clever, sir?’ asked the child, glancing at the trophies on the wall.

‘Good boys,’ returned the schoolmaster, ‘good boys enough, my dear, but they’ll never do like that.’

A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came in and took his seat upon one of the forms. The white-headed boy then put an open book, astonishingly dog’s-eared upon his knees, and thrusting his hands into his pockets began counting the marbles with which they were filled; displaying in the expression of his face a remarkable capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his eyes were fixed. Soon afterwards another white-headed little boy came straggling in, and after him a red-headed lad, and after him two more with white heads, and then one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the forms were occupied by a dozen boys or thereabouts, with heads of every colour but grey, and ranging in their ages from four years old to fourteen years or more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way from the floor when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a heavy good-tempered foolish fellow, about half a head taller than the schoolmaster.

At the top of the first form—the post of honour in the school—was the vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of the row of pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont to hang them up, one was left empty. No boy attempted to violate the sanctity of seat or peg, but many a one looked from the empty spaces to the schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind his hand.

Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by heart, the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and drawl of school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster, the very image of meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his mind upon the duties of the day, and to forget his little friend. But the tedium of his office reminded him more strongly of the willing scholar, and his thoughts were rambling from his pupils—it was plain.

None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder with impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even under the master’s eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke, pinching each other in sport or malice without the least reserve, and cutting their autographs in the very legs of his desk. The puzzled dunce, who stood beside it to say his lesson out of book, looked no longer at the ceiling for forgotten words, but drew closer to the master’s elbow and boldly cast his eye upon the page; the wag of the little troop squinted and made grimaces (at the smallest boy of course), holding no book before his face, and his approving audience knew no constraint in their delight. If the master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive to what was going on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes met his but wore a studious and a deeply humble look; but the instant he relapsed again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder than before.

CAPITOLO 25

Dopo una sana notte di riposo in una camera sotto il tetto di paglia, in cui sembrava che il becchino fosse stato inquilino per alcuni anni, ma che aveva recentemente abbandonato per una moglie e una casetta tutta sua, la bambina si svegliò presto al mattino e scese nella stanza dove aveva cenato la sera precedente. Poiché il maestro di scuola aveva già lasciato il letto e se n’era andato, lei si affrettò a renderlo ordinato e confortevole, e aveva appena finito di sistemarlo quando il gentile ospite tornò.

La ringraziò più volte, e disse che la vecchia signora che di solito faceva questi servizi per lui era andata a prendersi cura del piccolo studioso di cui le aveva parlato. La bambina chiese come stesse, e sperò che stesse meglio.

«No», rispose il maestro scuotendo il capo con tristezza, «non sta meglio. Dicono addirittura che è peggio».

«Mi dispiace molto, signore», disse il bambino.

Il povero maestro di scuola sembrava essere gratificato dal suo atteggiamento serio, ma allo stesso tempo reso più inquieto da esso, perché aggiunse in fretta che le persone ansiose spesso esageravano un male e lo ritenevano più grande di quanto fosse; ‘per quanto mi riguarda’, disse, nel suo modo tranquillo e paziente, ‘spero che non sia così. Non credo che possa essere peggio.’

Il bambino chiese il permesso di preparare la colazione, e quando il nonno scese le scale, tutti e tre la consumarono insieme. Mentre il pasto era in corso, il loro ospite osservò che il vecchio sembrava molto stanco e aveva evidentemente bisogno di riposo.

«Se il viaggio che avete davanti è lungo», disse, «e non vi facciano fretta per un giorno, siete più che benvenuto a passare un’altra notte qui. Sarei davvero felice se lo facessi, amico mio».

Vide che il vecchio guardava Nell, incerto se accettare o rifiutare la sua offerta; e aggiunse:

«Sarò felice di avere il tuo giovane compagno con me per un giorno. Se puoi fare un’elemosina a un uomo solo e riposarti allo stesso tempo, fallo. Se devi proseguire il tuo viaggio, ti auguro di compierlo bene e camminerò un po’ con te prima che inizi la scuola.»

‘Cosa dobbiamo fare, Nell?’ disse l’uomo anziano, incerto, ‘dimmi cosa dobbiamo fare, tesoro.’

Non ci volle grande persuasione per indurre la bambina a rispondere che era meglio accettare l’invito e rimanere. Era felice di dimostrare la sua gratitudine al gentile maestro di scuola occupandosi dei lavori domestici di cui la sua piccola casa aveva bisogno. Quando questi furono completati, prese un po’ di lavoro a maglia dal suo cesto e si sedette su uno sgabello accanto alla finestra, dove il glicine e la caprifoglio intrecciavano i loro teneri steli, e penetrando nella stanza la riempivano del loro delizioso profumo. Suo nonno stava prendendo il sole fuori, respirando il profumo dei fiori, e osservando oziosamente le nuvole mentre fluttuavano davanti al leggero estivo vento.

Mentre il maestro, dopo aver disposto i due banchi in ordine, si accomodava dietro la sua scrivania e faceva altri preparativi per la scuola, la bambina temeva di essere d’intralcio e si offrì di ritirarsi nella sua cameretta. Ma lui non lo volle permettere, e poiché sembrava contento di averla lì, lei rimase, occupandosi dei suoi lavori.

«Avete molti allievi, signore?» chiese.

Il povero maestro di scuola scosse la testa e disse che a malapena riempivano le due classi.

«Sono intelligenti anche gli altri, signore?» chiese il bambino, guardando i trofei appesi al muro.

«Bravi ragazzi», rispose il maestro di scuola, «bravi ragazzi, mia cara, ma non faranno mai una cosa del genere.»

Un piccolo ragazzo con la testa bianca e il viso abbronzato apparve sulla porta mentre lui parlava, e fermandosi lì per fare un rustico inchino, entrò e si sedette su uno dei banchi. Il ragazzo dalla testa bianca poi mise un libro aperto, incredibilmente consunto, sulle sue ginocchia, e infilando le mani nelle tasche cominciò a contare le biglie con cui erano piene; mostrando nell’espressione del suo viso una notevole capacità di astrarre totalmente la sua mente dalla scrittura su cui i suoi occhi erano fissi. Poco dopo un altro piccolo ragazzo dalla testa bianca entrò a rilento, e dopo di lui un ragazzo dalla testa rossa, e dopo di lui altri due con teste bianche, e poi uno con una chioma bionda, e così via fino a quando i banchi furono occupati da una dozzina di ragazzi o giù di lì, con teste di ogni colore tranne il grigio, e variando nelle loro età dai quattro anni ai quattordici anni o più; perché le gambe del più giovane erano lontane dal pavimento quando si sedeva sul banco, e il più anziano era un pesante, buono e sciocco ragazzo, circa mezza testa più alto del maestro di scuola.

In cima alla prima fila, il posto di onore della scuola, era la sedia vuota del piccolo alunno malato, e all’inizio della fila di attaccapanni su cui chi portava cappelli o berretti era solito appendere i propri, uno era rimasto vuoto. Nessun ragazzo tentò di violare la santità del posto o dell’attaccapanni, ma molti guardarono dagli spazi vuoti verso il maestro e bisbigliarono al compagno ozioso dietro la mano.

Poi cominciò il brusio degli studi ripetuti e imparati a memoria, la facezia bisbigliata e il gioco furtivo, e tutto il rumore e il brusio della scuola; e in mezzo al trambusto sedeva il povero maestro, l’immagine stessa della mansuetudine e della semplicità, che tentava invano di concentrarsi sugli impegni della giornata e di dimenticare il suo piccolo amico. Ma il tedio del suo lavoro gli ricordava più fortemente lo studioso volonteroso, e i suoi pensieri vagavano lontano dai suoi alunni: era evidente.

Nessuno lo sapeva meglio dei ragazzi più pigri, che, diventando più audaci con l’impunità, si facevano più rumorosi e più audaci; giocavano a pari o dispari sotto l’occhio del maestro, mangiavano mele apertamente e senza rimproveri, si pizzicavano a vicenda per gioco o per malizia senza la minima riserva, e incidevano le loro firme nelle gambe stesse della scrivania del maestro. L’ingenuo scolaro, che stava in piedi accanto ad essa per recitare la sua lezione dal libro, non guardava più il soffitto per le parole dimenticate, ma si avvicinava al gomito del maestro e osava gettare lo sguardo sulla pagina; il monello del piccolo gruppo faceva strabismo e smorfie (al più piccolo ragazzo, naturalmente), senza tenere un libro davanti al viso, e il suo pubblico di approvazione non conosceva alcun vincolo nel suo divertimento. Se il maestro per caso si risvegliava e sembrava vivo a ciò che stava accadendo, il rumore si attenuava per un momento e nessuno sguardo incontrava il suo, ma aveva un’aria studiosa e profondamente umile; ma non appena ricadeva di nuovo, scoppiava di nuovo, e dieci volte più forte di prima.

Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how they looked at the open door and window, as if they half meditated rushing violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and savages from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling day! Heat! ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to the door gave him opportunities of gliding out into the garden and driving his companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket of the well and then rolling on the grass—ask him if there were ever such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey no more. The day was made for laziness, and lying on one’s back in green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one’s eyes and go to sleep; and was this a time to be poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by the very sun itself? Monstrous!

Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still to all that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous boys. The lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one desk and that the master’s, each boy sat at it in turn and laboured at his crooked copy, while the master walked about. This was a quieter time; for he would come and look over the writer’s shoulder, and tell him mildly to observe how such a letter was turned in such a copy on the wall, praise such an up-stroke here and such a down-stroke there, and bid him take it for his model. Then he would stop and tell them what the sick child had said last night, and how he had longed to be among them once again; and such was the poor schoolmaster’s gentle and affectionate manner, that the boys seemed quite remorseful that they had worried him so much, and were absolutely quiet; eating no apples, cutting no names, inflicting no pinches, and making no grimaces, for full two minutes afterwards.

‘I think, boys,’ said the schoolmaster when the clock struck twelve, ‘that I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon.’

At this intelligence, the boys, led on and headed by the tall boy, raised a great shout, in the midst of which the master was seen to speak, but could not be heard. As he held up his hand, however, in token of his wish that they should be silent, they were considerate enough to leave off, as soon as the longest-winded among them were quite out of breath.

‘You must promise me first,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘that you’ll not be noisy, or at least, if you are, that you’ll go away and be so—away out of the village I mean. I’m sure you wouldn’t disturb your old playmate and companion.’

There was a general murmur (and perhaps a very sincere one, for they were but boys) in the negative; and the tall boy, perhaps as sincerely as any of them, called those about him to witness that he had only shouted in a whisper.

‘Then pray don’t forget, there’s my dear scholars,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘what I have asked you, and do it as a favour to me. Be as happy as you can, and don’t be unmindful that you are blessed with health. Good-bye all!’

‘Thank’ee, Sir,’ and ‘good-bye, Sir,’ were said a good many times in a variety of voices, and the boys went out very slowly and softly. But there was the sun shining and there were the birds singing, as the sun only shines and the birds only sing on holidays and half-holidays; there were the trees waving to all free boys to climb and nestle among their leafy branches; the hay, entreating them to come and scatter it to the pure air; the green corn, gently beckoning towards wood and stream; the smooth ground, rendered smoother still by blending lights and shadows, inviting to runs and leaps, and long walks God knows whither. It was more than boy could bear, and with a joyous whoop the whole cluster took to their heels and spread themselves about, shouting and laughing as they went.

‘It’s natural, thank Heaven!’ said the poor schoolmaster, looking after them. ‘I’m very glad they didn’t mind me!’

It is difficult, however, to please everybody, as most of us would have discovered, even without the fable which bears that moral, and in the course of the afternoon several mothers and aunts of pupils looked in to express their entire disapproval of the schoolmaster’s proceeding. A few confined themselves to hints, such as politely inquiring what red-letter day or saint’s day the almanack said it was; a few (these were the profound village politicians) argued that it was a slight to the throne and an affront to church and state, and savoured of revolutionary principles, to grant a half-holiday upon any lighter occasion than the birthday of the Monarch; but the majority expressed their displeasure on private grounds and in plain terms, arguing that to put the pupils on this short allowance of learning was nothing but an act of downright robbery and fraud: and one old lady, finding that she could not inflame or irritate the peaceable schoolmaster by talking to him, bounced out of his house and talked at him for half-an-hour outside his own window, to another old lady, saying that of course he would deduct this half-holiday from his weekly charge, or of course he would naturally expect to have an opposition started against him; there was no want of idle chaps in that neighbourhood (here the old lady raised her voice), and some chaps who were too idle even to be schoolmasters, might soon find that there were other chaps put over their heads, and so she would have them take care, and look pretty sharp about them. But all these taunts and vexations failed to elicit one word from the meek schoolmaster, who sat with the child by his side—a little more dejected perhaps, but quite silent and uncomplaining.

Oh! come alcuni di quei ragazzi oziosi desideravano essere fuori, e come guardavano la porta aperta e la finestra, come se stessero meditando di precipitarsi violentemente fuori, di tuffarsi nei boschi e di diventare ragazzi selvaggi e selvaggi da quel momento in poi. Quali pensieri ribelli del fresco fiume, e di qualche luogo ombroso per il bagno sotto i salici con i rami che si immergono nell’acqua, continuavano a tentare e a spingere quel ragazzo robusto, che, con il colletto della camicia slacciato e gettato indietro quanto più poteva, sedeva ventagliandosi il viso arrossato con un libro di ortografia, desiderando di essere una balena, o un tittlebat, o una mosca, o qualsiasi cosa tranne un ragazzo a scuola in quella calda, torrida giornata! Calore! chiedetelo a quell’altro ragazzo, il cui posto essendo il più vicino alla porta gli dava l’opportunità di scivolare fuori nel giardino e di portare i suoi compagni alla follia immergendo il viso nel secchio del pozzo e poi rotolando sull’erba—chiedetegli se ci fu mai un giorno come quello, quando persino le api si tuffavano in profondità nei calici dei fiori e si fermavano lì, come se avessero deciso di ritirarsi dagli affari e di non produrre più miele. La giornata era fatta per la pigrizia, e per sdraiarsi supini nei luoghi verdi, e fissare il cielo finché la sua luminosità costringeva a chiudere gli occhi e andare a dormire; e questo era un momento per studiare libri polverosi in una stanza buia, trascurata dallo stesso sole? Mostro!

Nell sedeva alla finestra intenta al suo lavoro, ma sempre attenta a tutto ciò che accadeva, sebbene talvolta piuttosto timorosa dei ragazzi chiassosi. Le lezioni finite, iniziava il tempo della scrittura; e poiché c’era solo una scrivania e quella del maestro, ogni ragazzo vi sedeva a turno e si applicava alla sua scrittura storta, mentre il maestro passeggiava. Questo era un tempo più tranquillo; perché egli veniva a guardare sopra la spalla dello scrittore e gli diceva dolcemente di osservare come una certa lettera fosse curvata in una certa copia sulla parete, lodava un certo tratto ascendente qui e un certo tratto discendente là, e gli ordinava di prenderlo come modello. Poi si fermava e raccontava loro ciò che il bambino malato aveva detto l’ultima notte, e come avesse desiderato di essere di nuovo tra loro; e tale era il dolce e affettuoso modo del povero maestro, che i ragazzi sembravano pentirsi di averlo tanto disturbato, e rimanevano assolutamente tranquilli; non mangiavano mele, non incidevano nomi, non infliggevano pizzicotti e non facevano smorfie, per ben due minuti di seguito.

«Penso, ragazzi», disse il maestro quando la campana suonò le dodici, «che darò un’ora in più di vacanza questo pomeriggio».

A questa notizia, i ragazzi, guidati e capeggiati dal ragazzo alto, levarono un grande grido, nel bel mezzo del quale si vide il maestro parlare, ma non si riuscì a sentirlo. Tuttavia, poiché alzò la mano in segno di voler che facessero silenzio, furono abbastanza premurosi da smettere, non appena i più esauriti tra loro furono completamente senza fiato.

«Dovete prima promettermi», disse il maestro di scuola, «che non farete rumore, o almeno, se lo fate, che ve ne andrete e lo farete lontano — fuori dal villaggio, intendo. Sono sicuro che non vorreste disturbare il vostro vecchio compagno di giochi e amico.»

Ci fu un mormorio generale (e forse molto sincero, dato che erano solo dei ragazzi) in senso negativo; e il ragazzo alto, forse con la stessa sincerità degli altri, chiamò a testimoniare quelli intorno a lui che aveva solo gridato sottovoce.

«Allora, vi prego, non dimenticate i miei cari alunni», disse il maestro, «quello che vi ho chiesto, e fatelo come un favore a me. Siate felici quanto potete, e non dimenticate che siete benedetti dalla salute. Addio a tutti!»

«Grazie, signore», e «addio, signore», furono ripetuti molte volte in una varietà di voci, e i ragazzi uscirono molto lentamente e silenziosamente. Ma c’era il sole che splendeva e c’erano gli uccelli che cantavano, come il sole splende e gli uccelli cantano solo nei giorni festivi e nei pomeriggi liberi; c’erano gli alberi che invitavano tutti i ragazzi liberi a salire e a rifugiarsi tra i loro rami frondosi; il fieno, che li pregava di venire a spargerlo nell’aria pura; il grano verde, che li invitava dolcemente verso il bosco e il ruscello; il terreno liscio, reso ancora più liscio dalla fusione di luci e ombre, che invitava a correre e saltare, e a fare lunghe passeggiate chissà dove. Era più di quanto un ragazzo potesse sopportare, e con un gioioso urlo l’intero gruppo si mise a correre e si sparse intorno, gridando e ridendo mentre andavano.

«È naturale, grazie al cielo!» disse il povero maestro di scuola, guardandoli andar via. «Sono molto contento che non abbiano badato a me!»

È difficile, tuttavia, accontentare tutti, come molti di noi avrebbero scoperto, anche senza la favola che porta quella morale, e nel corso del pomeriggio diverse madri e zie degli alunni si sono presentate per esprimere il loro completo dissenso nei confronti delle azioni del maestro. Alcune si sono limitate ad accenni, come chiedere educatamente quale giorno festivo o giorno di santo indicasse l’alfmanacco; alcune (queste erano le profonde politicanti del villaggio) hanno sostenuto che era un affronto al trono e un’offesa alla chiesa e allo stato, e sapeva di principi rivoluzionari, concedere una mezza giornata di vacanza per un’occasione meno importante del compleanno del Monarca; ma la maggioranza ha espresso il proprio disappunto per motivi privati e in termini chiari, sostenendo che mettere gli alunni a questo breve regime di apprendimento non era altro che un atto di vera e propria rapina e frode: e una vecchia signora, trovando che non poteva infiammare o irritare il pacifico maestro parlandogli, è uscita dalla sua casa e gli ha parlato per mezz’ora fuori dalla sua finestra, a un’altra vecchia signora, dicendo che ovviamente avrebbe detratto questa mezza giornata di vacanza dalla sua tariffa settimanale, o ovviamente si sarebbe naturalmente aspettato di avere un’opposizione avviata contro di lui; non mancavano i tipi oziosi in quel quartiere (qui la vecchia signora ha alzato la voce), e alcuni tipi che erano troppo pigri per essere maestri, avrebbero potuto presto scoprire che c’erano altri tipi messi sopra le loro teste, e quindi avrebbe voluto che facessero attenzione e tenessero gli occhi bene aperti. Ma tutti questi insulti e queste seccature non sono riusciti a strappare una parola dal mite maestro, che sedeva con il bambino al suo fianco—forse un po’ più abbattuto, ma del tutto silenzioso e senza lamentarsi.

Towards night an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily as she could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was to go to Dame West’s directly, and had best run on before her. He and the child were on the point of going out together for a walk, and without relinquishing her hand, the schoolmaster hurried away, leaving the messenger to follow as she might.

They stopped at a cottage-door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly at it with his hand. It was opened without loss of time. They entered a room where a little group of women were gathered about one, older than the rest, who was crying very bitterly, and sat wringing her hands and rocking herself to and fro.

‘Oh, dame!’ said the schoolmaster, drawing near her chair, ‘is it so bad as this?’

‘He’s going fast,’ cried the old woman; ‘my grandson’s dying. It’s all along of you. You shouldn’t see him now, but for his being so earnest on it. This is what his learning has brought him to. Oh dear, dear, dear, what can I do!’

‘Do not say that I am in any fault,’ urged the gentle school-master. ‘I am not hurt, dame. No, no. You are in great distress of mind, and don’t mean what you say. I am sure you don’t.’

‘I do,’ returned the old woman. ‘I mean it all. If he hadn’t been poring over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well and merry now, I know he would.’

The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat some one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook their heads, and murmured to each other that they never thought there was much good in learning, and that this convinced them. Without saying a word in reply, or giving them a look of reproach, he followed the old woman who had summoned him (and who had now rejoined them) into another room, where his infant friend, half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.

He was a very young boy; quite a little child. His hair still hung in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light was of Heaven, not earth. The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and stooping over the pillow, whispered his name. The boy sprung up, stroked his face with his hand, and threw his wasted arms round his neck, crying out that he was his dear kind friend.

‘I hope I always was. I meant to be, God knows,’ said the poor schoolmaster.

‘Who is that?’ said the boy, seeing Nell. ‘I am afraid to kiss her, lest I should make her ill. Ask her to shake hands with me.’

The sobbing child came closer up, and took the little languid hand in hers. Releasing his again after a time, the sick boy laid him gently down.

‘You remember the garden, Harry,’ whispered the schoolmaster, anxious to rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the child, ‘and how pleasant it used to be in the evening time? You must make haste to visit it again, for I think the very flowers have missed you, and are less gay than they used to be. You will come soon, my dear, very soon now—won’t you?’

The boy smiled faintly—so very, very faintly—and put his hand upon his friend’s grey head. He moved his lips too, but no voice came from them; no, not a sound.

In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices borne upon the evening air came floating through the open window. ‘What’s that?’ said the sick child, opening his eyes.

‘The boys at play upon the green.’

He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his head. But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.

‘Shall I do it?’ said the schoolmaster.

‘Please wave it at the window,’ was the faint reply. ‘Tie it to the lattice. Some of them may see it there. Perhaps they’ll think of me, and look this way.’

He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property upon a table in the room. And then he laid him softly down once more, and asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her.

She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the coverlet. The two old friends and companions—for such they were, though they were man and child—held each other in a long embrace, and then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and fell asleep.

The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold hand in his, and chafing it. It was but the hand of a dead child. He felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.

Verso la sera una vecchia venne zoppicando su per il giardino più in fretta che poteva, e incontrando il maestro di scuola alla porta, gli disse che doveva andare subito dalla Signora West, e che era meglio che corresse davanti a lei. Lui e la bambina stavano per uscire insieme a fare una passeggiata, e senza lasciarle la mano, il maestro di scuola si affrettò ad andarsene, lasciando che la messaggera lo seguisse come poteva.

Si fermarono alla porta di una casetta, e il maestro di scuola bussò delicatamente con la mano. La porta fu aperta senza perdita di tempo. Entrarono in una stanza dove un piccolo gruppo di donne era radunato intorno a una, più anziana delle altre, che piangeva amaramente, seduta, torcendosi le mani e dondolandosi avanti e indietro.

“Oh, signorina!” disse il maestro, avvicinandosi alla sua sedia, “è così grave?”

«Sta peggiorando», gridò la vecchia; «mio nipote sta morendo. È tutta colpa tua. Non dovresti vederlo ora, se non fosse per la sua insistenza. È a questo che l’ha portato la sua istruzione. Oh, caro, caro, caro, che cosa posso fare!»

«Non dica che ho colpa in alcun modo», insistette il mite maestro di scuola. «Non sono ferito, signora. No, no. Lei è molto turbata e non intende ciò che dice. Ne sono sicuro.»

«Lo dico», rispose la vecchia. «Lo dico sul serio. Se non fosse stato a studiare sui suoi libri per paura di te, sarebbe stato sano e felice adesso, lo so che lo sarebbe stato.»

Il maestro guardò le altre donne come per implorare che qualcuna di loro dicesse una parola gentile per lui, ma loro scossero la testa e si bisbigliarono a vicenda che non avevano mai pensato che ci fosse molto di buono nell’istruzione, e che questo li aveva convinti. Senza dire una parola in risposta, o rivolgere loro uno sguardo di rimprovero, seguì la vecchia che lo aveva convocato (e che ora si era unita a loro) in un’altra stanza, dove il suo piccolo amico, mezzo vestito, giaceva disteso su un letto.

Era un ragazzo molto giovane, quasi un bambino. I suoi capelli gli cadevano ancora in riccioli sul viso e i suoi occhi erano molto luminosi; ma la loro luce era del Cielo, non della terra. Il maestro si sedette accanto a lui, si chinò sul cuscino e gli sussurrò il nome. Il ragazzo si alzò di scatto, gli accarezzò il viso con la mano e gli gettò le braccia magre al collo, gridando che era il suo caro e gentile amico.

«Spero di essere sempre stato così. Intendevo esserlo, Dio sa», disse il povero maestro di scuola.

«Chi è quella?» disse il ragazzo, vedendo Nell. «Ho paura di baciarla, per timore di farla ammalare. Chiedile di stringermi la mano.»

Il singhiozzante bambino si avvicinò e prese la piccola mano languida nella sua. Dopo un po'', il ragazzo malato la lasciò di nuovo e lo adagiò dolcemente.

«Ti ricordi del giardino, Harry», sussurrò il maestro di scuola, ansioso di riscuoterlo, perché una sorta di torpore sembrava addensarsi sul bambino, «e quanto fosse piacevole la sera, nel tempo? Devi affrettarti a visitarlo di nuovo, perché credo che anche le piante ti abbiano sentito la mancanza, e siano meno allegre di quanto fossero. Verrai presto, mio caro, molto presto ora, non è vero?»

Il ragazzo sorrise debolmente, così debolmente, e posò la mano sulla testa grigia del suo amico. Muoveva anche le labbra, ma nessuna voce usciva da esse; no, nessun suono.

Nel silenzio che seguì, il ronzio di voci lontane trasportato dall’aria serale venne a fluttuare attraverso la finestra aperta. ‘Che cos’è?’ disse il bambino malato, aprendo gli occhi.

‘I ragazzi che giocano sul prato.’

Prese un fazzoletto dal cuscino e cercò di agitarlo sopra la testa. Ma il braccio debole cadde impotente.

«Devo farlo?» disse il maestro di scuola.

«Per favore, agitatela alla finestra», fu la debole risposta. «Legatela alla grata. Forse qualcuno la vedrà lì. Forse penseranno a me e guarderanno da questa parte.»

Alzò la testa e lanciò uno sguardo dal segnale che sventolava alla sua mazza inattiva, che giaceva insieme a una lavagna, un libro e altri oggetti da ragazzo su un tavolo nella stanza. E poi lo adagiò dolcemente di nuovo, e chiese se la piccola fosse lì, perché non riusciva a vederla.

Fece un passo avanti e strinse la mano inerte che giaceva sul copriletto. I due vecchi amici e compagni - poiché tali erano, sebbene fossero uomo e bambino - si strinsero in un lungo abbraccio, e poi il piccolo studioso volse il viso verso il muro e si addormentò.

Il povero maestro di scuola sedeva nello stesso posto, tenendo nella sua la piccola mano fredda e strofinandola. Era solo la mano di un bambino morto. Lo sapeva; eppure continuava a strofinarla, e non riusciva a posarla.

CHAPTER 26

Almost broken-hearted, Nell withdrew with the schoolmaster from the bedside and returned to his cottage. In the midst of her grief and tears she was yet careful to conceal their real cause from the old man, for the dead boy had been a grandchild, and left but one aged relative to mourn his premature decay.

She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was alone, gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was overcharged. But the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without its lesson of content and gratitude; of content with the lot which left her health and freedom; and gratitude that she was spared to the one relative and friend she loved, and to live and move in a beautiful world, when so many young creatures—as young and full of hope as she—were stricken down and gathered to their graves. How many of the mounds in that old churchyard where she had lately strayed, grew green above the graves of children! And though she thought as a child herself, and did not perhaps sufficiently consider to what a bright and happy existence those who die young are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of seeing others die around them, bearing to the tomb some strong affection of their hearts (which makes the old die many times in one long life), still she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy moral from what she had seen that night, and to store it, deep in her mind.

Her dreams were of the little scholar: not coffined and covered up, but mingling with angels, and smiling happily. The sun darting his cheerful rays into the room, awoke her; and now there remained but to take leave of the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more.

By the time they were ready to depart, school had begun. In the darkened room, the din of yesterday was going on again: a little sobered and softened down, perhaps, but only a very little, if at all. The schoolmaster rose from his desk and walked with them to the gate.

It was with a trembling and reluctant hand, that the child held out to him the money which the lady had given her at the races for her flowers: faltering in her thanks as she thought how small the sum was, and blushing as she offered it. But he bade her put it up, and stooping to kiss her cheek, turned back into his house.

They had not gone half-a-dozen paces when he was at the door again; the old man retraced his steps to shake hands, and the child did the same.

‘Good fortune and happiness go with you!’ said the poor schoolmaster. ‘I am quite a solitary man now. If you ever pass this way again, you’ll not forget the little village-school.’

‘We shall never forget it, sir,’ rejoined Nell; ‘nor ever forget to be grateful to you for your kindness to us.’

‘I have heard such words from the lips of children very often,’ said the schoolmaster, shaking his head, and smiling thoughtfully, ‘but they were soon forgotten. I had attached one young friend to me, the better friend for being young—but that’s over—God bless you!’

They bade him farewell very many times, and turned away, walking slowly and often looking back, until they could see him no more. At length they had left the village far behind, and even lost sight of the smoke among the trees. They trudged onward now, at a quicker pace, resolving to keep the main road, and go wherever it might lead them.

But main roads stretch a long, long way. With the exception of two or three inconsiderable clusters of cottages which they passed, without stopping, and one lonely road-side public-house where they had some bread and cheese, this highway had led them to nothing—late in the afternoon—and still lengthened out, far in the distance, the same dull, tedious, winding course, that they had been pursuing all day. As they had no resource, however, but to go forward, they still kept on, though at a much slower pace, being very weary and fatigued.

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, by reason of its situation, they came so suddenly that they could not have avoided it if they would.

It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house upon wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red, in which happily-contrasted colours the whole concern shone brilliant. Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated 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 an unprovided or destitute caravan was clear from this lady’s occupation, which was the very pleasant and refreshing one of taking tea. The tea-things, including a bottle of rather suspicious character 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 that at that moment 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 flavour of the tea, not unmingled possibly with just the slightest dash or gleam of something out of the suspicious bottle—but this is mere speculation and not distinct matter of history—it happened that being thus agreeably engaged, she did not see the travellers when they first came up. It was not until she was in the act of getting down the cup, and drawing a long breath after the exertion of causing its contents to disappear, 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.

CAPITOLO 26

Quasi con il cuore spezzato, Nell si ritirò con il maestro di scuola dal capezzale e tornò alla sua casetta. In mezzo al suo dolore e alle lacrime era tuttavia attenta a nascondere al vecchio la vera causa della loro presenza, perché il ragazzo defunto era stato un nipote, e ne aveva lasciato solo un anziano parente a piangere il suo precoce declino.

Si ritirò in camera sua il più in fretta possibile, e quando fu sola diede libero sfogo al dolore che le opprimeva il petto. Ma la triste scena che aveva assistito non era priva di una lezione di contentezza e gratitudine; di contentezza per la sorte che le lasciava la salute e la libertà; e gratitudine per essere stata risparmiata all’unica parente e amica che amava, e per poter vivere e muoversi in un mondo bellissimo, quando tante creature giovani — giovani e piene di speranza quanto lei — erano state stroncate e portate nelle loro tombe. Quante delle tombe in quel vecchio cimitero dove aveva vagato di recente, erano verdi sopra le tombe di bambini! E sebbene pensasse come una bambina lei stessa, e forse non considerasse a sufficienza a quale esistenza luminosa e felice coloro che muoiono giovani sono portati, e come nella morte perdano il dolore di vedere morire intorno a loro, portando nella tomba qualche forte affetto del loro cuore (il che fa morire più volte gli anziani in una lunga vita), tuttavia pensò abbastanza saggiamente da trarre una morale semplice e facile da ciò che aveva visto quella notte, e di conservarla, profondamente nella sua mente.

I suoi sogni erano del piccolo studioso: non in una bara e coperto, ma che si mescolava agli angeli e sorrideva felice. Il sole che faceva penetrare i suoi raggi gioiosi nella stanza, la svegliò; e ora restava solo da prendere congedo dal povero maestro di scuola e vagare ancora una volta.

Quando furono pronti a partire, la scuola aveva già iniziato. Nella stanza oscurata, il trambusto di ieri era ricominciato: forse un po’ più sobrio e attenuato, ma solo un pochino, se mai. L’insegnante si alzò dalla sua scrivania e camminò con loro fino al cancello.

Fu con mano tremante e riluttante che il bambino gli porse il denaro che la signora gli aveva dato alle corse per i suoi fiori: balbettando i suoi ringraziamenti mentre pensava a quanto fosse piccola la somma, e arrossendo mentre lo offriva. Ma lui le disse di riprenderlo, e chinandosi per baciarle la guancia, tornò nella sua casa.

Non avevano fatto una mezza dozzina di passi quando lui era di nuovo alla porta; il vecchio tornò indietro per stringergli la mano, e il bambino fece lo stesso.

«Buona fortuna e felicità vi accompagnino!» disse il povero maestro di scuola. «Ora sono un uomo completamente solo. Se mai passerete di nuovo da queste parti, non dimenticherete la piccola scuola del villaggio.»

«Non lo dimenticheremo mai, signore», rispose Nell; «né mai dimenticheremo di essere grati per la sua gentilezza verso di noi.»

«Ho sentito spesso parole simili dalle labbra dei bambini», disse il maestro, scuotendo la testa e sorridendo pensieroso, «ma presto le dimenticavano. Avevo legato a me un giovane amico, tanto più amico per essere giovane, ma è finita, Dio lo benedica!»

Lo salutarono molte volte e si allontanarono, camminando lentamente e spesso voltandosi indietro, finché non lo videro più. Alla fine avevano lasciato il villaggio lontano dietro di loro, e persino la vista del fumo tra gli alberi. Ora proseguivano a un ritmo più svelto, risolvendo di tenere la strada principale e andare ovunque potesse condurli.

Ma le strade principali si estendono per un lungo, lunghissimo tratto. A eccezione di due o tre insignificanti gruppi di casette che avevano superato senza fermarsi, e di una solitaria strada-pubblica-casa dove avevano mangiato un po’ di pane e formaggio, questa strada principale non li aveva portati a nulla, tardi nel pomeriggio, e continuava a estendersi, lontana, lo stesso noioso, tedioso, tortuoso percorso che avevano seguito tutto il giorno. Poiché, tuttavia, non avevano altra scelta che andare avanti, continuarono a camminare, sebbene a un ritmo molto più lento, essendo molto stanchi e affaticati.

Il pomeriggio era trascorso in una bella serata, quando arrivarono a un punto in cui la strada faceva una brusca curva e attraversava un terreno comune. Sul confine di questo terreno comune, e vicino alla siepe che lo divideva dai campi coltivati, era parcheggiata una roulotte per riposare; sulla quale, a causa della sua posizione, arrivarono così all’improvviso che non avrebbero potuto evitarla anche se lo avessero voluto.

Non era un carro squallido, sudicio e polveroso, ma una graziosa piccola casa su ruote, con tende di mussola bianca che adornavano le finestre e persiane verdi con pannelli di un rosso acceso, in cui i colori contrastanti rendevano l’intera struttura brillante. Non era nemmeno una misera roulotte trainata da un solo asino o da un cavallo emaciato, poiché un paio di cavalli in buone condizioni erano stati liberati dalle stanghe e pascolavano sull’erba folta. Non era nemmeno una roulotte di zingari, poiché sulla porta aperta (ornata da un pomello di ottone lucente) sedeva una signora cristiana, robusta e confortevole da vedere, che indossava un grande cappello tremante di fiocchi. E che non fosse una roulotte priva di provviste o indigente era chiaro dall’occupazione di questa signora, che era l’occupazione molto piacevole e rinfrescante di prendere il tè. Le cose per il tè, compresa una bottiglia di carattere piuttosto sospetto e una coscia di prosciutto freddo, erano disposte su un tamburo, coperto da un tovagliolo bianco; e lì, come se fosse il tavolo rotondo più comodo del mondo, sedeva questa signora errante, prendendo il suo tè e godendosi il panorama.

Accadde che in quel momento la signora del carrozzone aveva la sua tazza (che, affinché tutto ciò che la riguardava fosse di un tipo robusto e confortevole, era una tazza da colazione) alle labbra, e che, avendo gli occhi rivolti al cielo nel suo godimento del pieno sapore del tè, non forse del tutto privo di una leggera traccia o scintilla di qualcosa proveniente dalla bottiglia sospetta — ma questo è mera speculazione e non fatto storico storia — accadde che, essendo così piacevolmente impegnata, non vide i viaggiatori quando si avvicinarono per la prima volta. Non fu fino a quando non stava per abbassare la tazza e fare un lungo respiro dopo lo sforzo di far scomparire il suo contenuto, che la signora del carrozzone vide un vecchio e un giovane bambino camminare lentamente e lanciare occhiate alle sue operazioni con occhi di modesta ma affamata ammirazione.

‘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 reassure her.

‘And very sorry I was,’ said the lady of the caravan, ‘to see you in company with a Punch; a low, practical, wulgar 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 inexperienced, 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.’

It was granted immediately, though the lady still appeared much ruffled and discomposed by the degrading supposition. The child then explained that they had left the races on the first day, and were travelling to the next town on that road, where they purposed to spend the night. As the countenance of the stout lady began to clear up, she ventured to inquire how far it was. The reply—which the stout lady did not come to, until she had thoroughly explained that she went to the races on the first day in a gig, and as an expedition of pleasure, and that her presence there had no connexion with any matters of business or profit—was, that the town was eight miles off.

This discouraging information a little dashed the child, who could scarcely repress a tear as she glanced along the darkening road. Her grandfather made no complaint, but he sighed heavily as he leaned upon his staff, and vainly tried to pierce the dusty distance.

The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea equipage together preparatory to clearing the table, but noting the child’s anxious manner she hesitated and stopped. The child curtseyed, thanked her for her information, 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 descended again, and sat upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short everything of which she had partaken herself, except the bottle which she had already embraced an opportunity of slipping into her pocket.

‘Set ‘em out near the hind wheels, child, that’s the best place,’ said their friend, superintending the arrangements from above. ‘Now hand up the teapot 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.’

They might perhaps have carried out the lady’s wish, if it had been less freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all. But as this direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or uneasiness, they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.

While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted on the earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large bonnet trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured tread and very stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to time with an air of calm delight, and deriving particular gratification from the red panels and the brass knocker. When she had taken this gentle exercise for some time, she sat down upon the steps and called ‘George’; whereupon a man in a carter’s frock, who had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as to see everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting attitude, supporting on his legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone bottle, and bearing in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.

‘Yes, Missus,’ said George.

‘How did you find the cold pie, George?’

‘It warn’t amiss, mum.’

‘And the beer,’ said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of being more interested in this question than the last; ‘is it passable, George?’

‘It’s more flatterer than it might be,’ George returned, ‘but it an’t so bad for all that.’

To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting in quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and then smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head. No doubt with the same amiable desire, he immediately resumed his knife and fork, as a practical assurance that the beer had wrought no bad effect upon his appetite.

The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time, and then said,

«Ehi!» esclamò la signora della roulotte, raccogliendo le briciole dal grembo e inghiottendole prima di asciugarsi le labbra. «Sì, certo. Chi ha vinto il Helter-Skelter Plate, bambino?»

«Vinto cosa, signora?» chiese Nell.

«Il piatto Helter-Skelter alle corse, bambino — il piatto per cui si è gareggiato il secondo giorno.»

‘Il secondo giorno, signora?’

«Secondo giorno! Sì, secondo giorno», ripeté la signora con aria di impazienza. «Non potete dire chi ha vinto il Helter-Skelter Plate quando vi viene chiesto gentilmente?»

‘Non lo so, signora.’

«Non lo so!» ripeté la signora della roulotte; «ma lei c’era. L’ho vista con i miei occhi.»

Nell rimase piuttosto allarmata nel sentirlo, temendo che la signora potesse essere intimamente conosciuta dalla ditta di Short e Codlin; ma ciò che seguì contribuì a rassicurarla.

«E sono stata molto dispiaciuta», disse la signora della roulotte, «nel vedervi in compagnia di un Punch; un miserabile, pratico, volgare, che la gente dovrebbe disdegnare di guardare.»

«Non ero lì per scelta», rispose il bambino; «non conoscevamo la strada, e i due uomini furono molto gentili con noi e ci permisero di viaggiare con loro. Lei, lei li conosce, signora?»

«Conoscerli, bambino!» gridò la signora della roulotte con una specie di grido. «Conoscerli! Ma sei giovane e inesperto, e questa è la tua scusa per fare una domanda del genere. Ho l’aria di conoscerli io? Ha l’aria di conoscerli la roulotte?»

‘No, signora, no’, disse il bambino, temendo di aver commesso qualche grave errore. ‘Le chiedo scusa.’

Fu accontentata immediatamente, anche se la signora appariva ancora molto turbata e sconvolta da quella supposizione degradante. Il bambino spiegò allora che avevano lasciato le corse il primo giorno e stavano viaggiando verso la città successiva su quella strada, dove intendevano trascorrere la notte. Mentre l’espressione della signora robusta cominciava a schiarirsi, osò chiedere quanto fosse lontana. La risposta, che la signora robusta non ricevette prima di aver spiegato a fondo che era andata alle corse il primo giorno in un calesse, e come una spedizione di piacere, e che la sua presenza lì non aveva alcuna connessione con questioni di affari o di profitto, fu che la città era a otto miglia di distanza.

Questa scoraggiante informazione un po’ abbatté la bambina, che a malapena riuscì a trattenere una lacrima mentre guardava lungo la strada che si faceva buia. Il nonno non si lamentò, ma sospirò pesantemente mentre si appoggiava al suo bastone e cercava invano di scrutare la polverosa distanza.

La signora del carrozzone stava raccogliendo la sua attrezzatura per il tè per prepararsi a sparecchiare il tavolo, ma notando l’aria ansiosa del bambino esitò e si fermò. Il bambino fece una riverenza, la ringraziò per le informazioni, e avendo dato la mano al vecchio era già arrivato a una cinquantina di metri di distanza circa, quando la signora del carrozzone la chiamò per farla tornare.

«Avvicinati, ancora più vicino», disse, facendole cenno di salire i gradini. «Hai fame, bambina?»

‘Non molto, ma siamo stanchi, ed è, è davvero un lungo viaggio.’

«Bene, affamato o no, è meglio che prenda un tè», replicò la sua nuova conoscenza. «Suppongo che non abbia nulla in contrario, vecchio signore?»

Il nonno si tolse umilmente il cappello e la ringraziò. La signora della roulotte lo invitò quindi a salire anche lui i gradini, ma dato che il tamburo si rivelò un tavolo scomodo per due, scesero di nuovo e si sedettero sull’erba, dove lei gli passò il vassoio del tè, il pane e burro, la coscia di prosciutto, e in breve tutto ciò di cui aveva partecipato lei stessa, tranne la bottiglia che aveva già avuto l’opportunità di infilare in tasca.

«Metteteli vicino alle ruote posteriori, bambino, è il posto migliore», disse il loro amico, sovrintendendo agli arrangiamenti dall’alto. «Ora passatemi il bollitore per un po’ d’acqua calda in più, e un pizzico di tè fresco, e poi mangiate e bevete quanto più potete, e non risparmiate nulla; è tutto ciò che vi chiedo».

Forse avrebbero potuto esaudire il desiderio della signora, se fosse stato espresso con meno libertà, o anche se non fosse stato espresso affatto. Ma poiché questa direttiva li liberava da ogni ombra di delicatezza o disagio, fecero un pasto abbondante e lo godettero appieno.

Mentre erano così impegnati, la signora del caravan scese a terra e, con le mani intrecciate dietro la schiena e il suo grande cappello che tremava in modo eccessivo, camminò avanti e indietro con un passo misurato e un portamento molto maestoso, osservando il caravan di tanto in tanto con un’aria di calma delizia, e trasse particolare soddisfazione dai pannelli rossi e dal batacchio di ottone. Dopo aver fatto questo dolce esercizio per un po’ di tempo, si sedette sui gradini e chiamò “George”; a quel punto un uomo in un grembiule da carrettiere, che fino a quel momento era stato così nascosto in una siepe da poter vedere tutto ciò che accadeva senza essere visto lui stesso, divise i ramoscelli che lo nascondevano e apparve in posizione seduta, sostenendo sulle gambe una teglia per la cottura e una bottiglia di pietra da mezzo gallone, e tenendo in mano destra un coltello e in quella sinistra una forchetta.

«Sì, signora», disse George.

‘Com’era la torta fredda, George?’

“Non era sbagliato, signora.”

«E la birra», disse la signora della roulotte, mostrandosi più interessata a questa domanda che alla precedente, «è accettabile, George?»

«È più lusinghiero di quanto potrebbe essere», rispose George, «ma non è così male per questo.»

Per tranquillizzare la mente della sua amata, lui prese un sorso (che in quantità ammontava a circa un boccale) dalla bottiglia di pietra, e poi si leccò le labbra, fece l’occhiolino e annuì. Senza dubbio con lo stesso amabile desiderio, riprese immediatamente coltello e forchetta, come una prova pratica che la birra non aveva avuto alcun effetto negativo sul suo appetito.

La signora del carrozzone osservò con approvazione per qualche tempo, e poi disse,

‘Have you nearly finished?’

‘Wery nigh, mum.’ And indeed, after scraping the dish all round with his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth, and after taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that, by degrees almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went further and further back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the ground, this gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came forth from his retreat.

‘I hope I haven’t hurried you, George,’ said his mistress, who appeared to have a great sympathy with his late pursuit.

‘If you have,’ returned the follower, wisely reserving himself for any favourable contingency that might occur, ‘we must make up for it next time, that’s all.’

‘We are not a heavy load, George?’

‘That’s always what the ladies say,’ replied the man, looking a long way round, as if he were appealing to Nature in general against such monstrous propositions. ‘If you see a woman a driving, you’ll always perceive that she never will keep her whip still; the horse can’t go fast enough for her. If cattle have got their proper load, you never can persuade a woman that they’ll not bear something more. What is the cause of this here?’

‘Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if we took them with us?’ asked his mistress, offering no reply to the philosophical inquiry, and pointing to Nell and the old man, who were painfully preparing to resume their journey on foot.

‘They’d make a difference in course,’ said George doggedly.

‘Would they make much difference?’ repeated his mistress. ‘They can’t be very heavy.’

‘The weight o’ the pair, mum,’ said George, eyeing them with the look of a man who was calculating within half an ounce or so, ‘would be a trifle under that of Oliver Cromwell.’

Nell was very much surprised that the man should be so accurately acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read of in books as having lived considerably before their time, but speedily forgot the subject in the joy of hearing that they were to go forward in the caravan, for which she thanked its lady with unaffected earnestness. She helped with great readiness and alacrity to put away the tea-things and other matters that were lying about, and, the horses being by that time harnessed, mounted into the vehicle, followed by her delighted grandfather. Their patroness then shut the door and sat herself down by her drum at an open window; and, the steps being struck by George and stowed under the carriage, away they went, with a great noise of flapping and creaking and straining, and the bright brass knocker, which nobody ever knocked at, knocking one perpetual double knock of its own accord as they jolted heavily along.

‘Avete quasi finito?’

«Molto vicino, signora.» E infatti, dopo aver raschiato il piatto tutt’intorno col coltello e aver portato alla bocca i pezzi scelti di crosta, e dopo aver dato un tiro così scientifico alla bottiglia di pietra che, a poco a poco, quasi impercettibilmente, la sua testa si ritirava sempre più finché non giaceva quasi disteso per terra, questo signore dichiarò di essere completamente libero e uscì dal suo rifugio.

«Spero di non averla fatta affrettare, George», disse la sua padrona, che sembrava provare grande simpatia per la sua recente ricerca.

«Se l’avete fatto», rispose il seguace, saggiamente riservandosi per qualsiasi contingenza favorevole che potesse verificarsi, «dovremo compensare la prossima volta, ecco tutto».

‘Non siamo un peso, George?’

«Questo è sempre ciò che dicono le donne», rispose l’uomo, guardandosi intorno come se stesse facendo appello alla Natura in generale contro tali proposte mostruose. «Se vedi una donna alla guida, noterai sempre che non riesce mai a tenere ferma la frusta; il cavallo non può andare abbastanza veloce per lei. Se il bestiame ha il suo carico adeguato, non puoi mai convincere una donna che non possa sopportare qualcosa in più. Qual è la causa di tutto ciò?»

«Questi due viaggiatori farebbero molta differenza per i cavalli, se li prendessimo con noi?» chiese la sua padrona, senza rispondere all’interrogativo filosofico e indicando Nell e il vecchio, che si stavano dolorosamente preparando a riprendere il loro viaggio a piedi.

«Avrebbero cambiato rotta», disse George con ostinazione.

“Non farebbero molta differenza?” ripeté la sua padrona. “Non possono essere molto pesanti.”

«Il peso del paio, mamma», disse George, osservandoli con lo sguardo di un uomo che stava calcolando entro mezzo oncia o giù di lì, «sarebbe un po’ inferiore a quello di Oliver Cromwell.»

Nell fu molto sorpresa che l’uomo conoscesse con tanta precisione il peso di uno che aveva letto nei libri come avendo vissuto molto prima del loro tempo, ma dimenticò presto l’argomento per la gioia di sapere che sarebbero andati avanti nella carovana, per la quale ringraziò la sua dama con sincera serietà. Aiutò con grande prontezza e alacrità a riporre le cose del tè e altri oggetti che erano sparsi in giro, e, i cavalli essendo già bardati, salì sul veicolo, seguita dal suo nonno deliziato. La loro patrona chiuse quindi la porta e si sedette accanto al suo tamburo a una finestra aperta; e, i gradini essendo stati rimossi da George e riposti sotto la carrozza, partirono, con un gran rumore di sbattimenti, scricchiolii e sforzi, e il brillante batacchio di ottone, che nessuno aveva mai usato, dava un continuo doppio colpo di sua iniziativa mentre procedevano pesantemente.

CHAPTER 27

When they had travelled 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 moiety in which the comfortable proprietress was then seated—was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed 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 an unfathomable mystery. The other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof. It held also a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery. These latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which, in that portion of the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a couple of well-thumbed tambourines.

The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride and poetry of the musical instruments, and little Nell and her grandfather sat at the other in all the humility of the kettle and saucepans, while the machine jogged on and shifted the darkening prospect very slowly. At first the two travellers spoke little, and only in whispers, but as they grew more familiar with the place they ventured to converse with greater freedom, and talked about the country through which they were passing, and the different objects that presented themselves, until the old man fell asleep; which the lady of the caravan observing, invited Nell to come and sit beside her.

‘Well, child,’ she said, ‘how do you like this way of travelling?’

Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed, to which the lady assented in the case of people who had their spirits. For herself, she said, she was troubled with a lowness in that respect which required a constant stimulant; though whether the aforesaid stimulant was derived from the suspicious bottle of which mention has been already made or from other sources, she did not say.

‘That’s the happiness of you young people,’ she continued. ‘You don’t know what it is to be low in your feelings. You always have your appetites too, and what a comfort that is.’

Nell thought that she could sometimes dispense with her own appetite very conveniently; and thought, moreover, that there was nothing either in the lady’s personal appearance or in her manner of taking tea, to lead to the conclusion that her natural relish for meat and drink had at all failed her. She silently assented, however, as in duty bound, to what the lady had said, and waited until she should speak again.

Instead of speaking, however, she 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, intended to reassure her and let her know, that, although she stood in the presence of the original Jarley, she must not allow herself to be utterly overwhelmed and borne down, 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 unrivalled collection’—‘Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and Gentry’—‘The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.’ When she had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in the shape of hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies on popular melodies, 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 consult all tastes, others were composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody on the favourite 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 acknowledge him? Oh no no! Then run to Jarley’s—

—besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of Canterbury and a dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all having the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to Jarley’s, and that children and servants were admitted at half-price. When she had brought all these testimonials of her important position in society to bear upon her young companion, Mrs Jarley rolled them up, and having put them carefully away, sat down again, and looked at the child in triumph.

‘Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘after this.’

‘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 gentility; 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.’

CAPITOLO 27

Quando ebbero percorso lentamente una breve distanza, Nell osò dare un’occhiata intorno al carrozzone e osservarlo più da vicino. Una metà di esso — quella in cui la comoda proprietaria era allora seduta — era tappezzata e così suddivisa all’estremità più lontana da ospitare un posto letto, costruito secondo lo stile di una cuccetta a bordo nave, che era ombreggiato, come i piccoli finestrini, con tende bianche e appariva abbastanza confortevole, sebbene il tipo di esercizio ginnico che la signora del carrozzone riusciva a fare per entrarci fosse un mistero insondabile. L’altra metà serviva da cucina ed era attrezzata con una stufa la cui piccola cappa passava attraverso il tetto. Conteneva anche un armadio o dispensa, diverse cassapanche, una grande brocca d’acqua e alcuni utensili da cucina e oggetti di ceramica. Questi ultimi necessari erano appesi alle pareti, che, nella parte dell’ambiente dedicata alla signora del carrozzone, erano ornate con decorazioni più allegre e leggere come un triangolo e un paio di ben-sdruciti tamburelli.

La signora del carrozzone sedeva a una finestra in tutta la superbia e la poesia degli strumenti musicali, e la piccola Nell e suo nonno sedevano all’altra in tutta la umiltà del bollitore e delle pentole, mentre la macchina procedeva a scossoni e cambiava lentamente il paesaggio che si oscurava. All’inizio i due viaggiatori parlavano poco, e solo a bassa voce, ma man mano che si familiarizzavano con il luogo osavano conversare con maggiore libertà, e parlavano del paese attraverso il quale stavano passando, e dei diversi oggetti che si presentavano, finché il vecchio non si addormentò; la signora del carrozzone, notandolo, invitò Nell a venire a sedersi accanto a lei.

«Bene, bambino,» disse, «come ti piace questo modo di viaggiare?»

Nell rispose che le sembrava davvero molto piacevole, e la signora concordò nel caso di persone che avessero lo spirito giusto. Per quanto la riguardava, disse, era afflitta da una mancanza in tal senso che richiedeva uno stimolante costante; sebbene non dicesse se lo stimolante sopra menzionato fosse derivato dalla sospetta bottiglia di cui si è già parlato o da altre fonti.

«Questa è la felicità dei giovani», continuò, «non sapete cosa significhi sentirsi abbattuti. Avete sempre anche il vostro appetito, e che conforto è.»

Nell pensava che a volte poteva rinunciare al proprio appetito con grande facilità; e pensava, inoltre, che non vi era nulla né nell’aspetto della signora né nel suo modo di prendere il tè, che portasse a concludere che il suo naturale gusto per il cibo e la bevanda le fosse venuto meno. Tuttavia, assentì silenziosamente, come le era dovere, a quanto la signora aveva detto, e attese che riprendesse a parlare.

Invece di parlare, tuttavia, rimase seduta a guardare il bambino per un lungo tempo in silenzio, e poi alzandosi, tirò fuori da un angolo un grande rotolo di tela largo circa un metro, che distese sul pavimento e aprii con il piede fino a che non arrivò quasi da un’estremità dell’abituro all’altra.

«Ecco, bambino,» disse, «leggi questo.»

Nell scese lungo il viale e lesse ad alta voce, in enormi lettere nere, la iscrizione: «JARLEY’S WAX-WORK».

«Leggetelo di nuovo», disse la signora, compiaciuta.

«La Cera di Jarley», ripeté Nell.

‘Sono io’, disse la signora. ‘Sono la signora Jarley.’

Dando alla bambina uno sguardo incoraggiante, volto a rassicurarla e a farle capire che, sebbene si trovasse in presenza del vero Jarley, non doveva lasciarsi sopraffare e travolgere, la signora della roulotte srotolò un altro papiro su cui era incisa la iscrizione: «Centinaia di figure a grandezza naturale», e poi un altro papiro su cui era scritto: «L’unica stupenda collezione di vere figure di cera al mondo», e poi diversi papirossi più piccoli con iscrizioni come «Ora in esposizione all’interno» — «Il vero e unico Jarley» — «La collezione senza rivali di Jarley» — «Jarley è il diletto della Nobiltà e del Ceto Superiore» — «La Famiglia Reale è il patrono di Jarley». Quando ebbe mostrato a quella bambina sbalordita quei leviatani dell’annuncio pubblico, tirò fuori esemplari del minore fritto sotto forma di volantini, alcuni dei quali erano formulati come parodie di melodie popolari, come «Credetemi se tutta la cera di Jarley è così rara» — «Ho visto il tuo spettacolo nella giovinezza» — «Oltre il mare fino a Jarley»; mentre, per soddisfare tutti i gusti, altri erano composti con l’idea di attirare gli spiriti più leggeri e facétieux, come una parodia sull’aria preferita di «Se avessi un asino», che inizia con:

Se conoscessi un asino che non volesse andare a vedere la mostra di cera della signora JARLEY, credete che lo riconoscerei? Oh no no! Allora correte da Jarley—

—oltre a diverse composizioni in prosa, che pretendevano di essere dialoghi tra l’Imperatore della Cina e una ostrica, o tra l’Arcivescovo di Canterbury e un dissenziente sul tema delle tasse ecclesiastiche, ma tutti con la stessa morale, ossia che il lettore doveva affrettarsi a recarsi da Jarley, e che i bambini e i domestici erano ammessi a metà prezzo. Quando ebbe fatto leva su tutti questi testimoni della sua importante posizione nella società per influenzare la sua giovane compagna, la signora Jarley li arrotolò, li ripose con cura, si sedette di nuovo e guardò la bambina trionfante.

“Non frequentare mai più un lurido Punch”, disse la signora Jarley, “dopo questo.”

«Non ho mai visto delle figure di cera, signora», disse Nell. «È più divertente di Punch?»

“Più divertente!” disse la signora Jarley con voce stridula. “Non è affatto divertente.”

“Oh!” disse Nell, con tutta la umiltà possibile.

«Non c’è niente di divertente», ripeté la signora Jarley, «è calmo e, com’è quel termine, critico? No, classico, ecco, è calmo e classico. Niente botte e percosse, niente scherzi e strilli come nel vostro prezioso Punch, ma sempre uguale, con un’aria di freddezza e gentilezza che non cambia mai; e così simile alla vita che, se le figure di cera parlassero e camminassero, difficilmente si noterebbe la differenza. Non dico che le figure di cera siano proprio come la vita, ma ho certamente visto della gente che era esattamente come le figure di cera.»

‘Is it here, ma’am?’ asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by this description.

‘Is what here, child?’

‘The wax-work, ma’am.’

‘Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of? How could such a collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of one little cupboard and a few boxes? It’s gone on in the other wans to the assembly-rooms, and there it’ll be exhibited the day after to-morrow. You are going to the same town, and you’ll see it I dare say. It’s natural to expect that you’ll see it, and I’ve no doubt you will. I suppose you couldn’t stop away if you was to try ever so much.’

‘I shall not be in the town, I think, ma’am,’ said the child.

‘Not there!’ cried Mrs Jarley. ‘Then where will you be?’

‘I—I—don’t quite know. I am not certain.’

‘You don’t mean to say that you’re travelling about the country without knowing where you’re going to?’ said the lady of the caravan. ‘What curious people you are! What line are you in? You looked to me at the races, child, as if you were quite out of your element, and had got there by accident.’

‘We were there quite by accident,’ returned Nell, confused by this abrupt questioning. ‘We are poor people, ma’am, and are only wandering about. We have nothing to do;—I wish we had.’

‘You amaze me more and more,’ said Mrs Jarley, after remaining for some time as mute as one of her own figures. ‘Why, what do you call yourselves? Not beggars?’

‘Indeed, ma’am, I don’t know what else we are,’ returned the child.

‘Lord bless me,’ said the lady of the caravan. ‘I never heard of such a thing. Who’d have thought it!’

She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell feared she felt her having been induced to bestow her protection and conversation upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her dignity that nothing could repair. This persuasion was rather confirmed than otherwise by the tone in which she at length broke silence and said,

‘And yet you can read. And write too, I shouldn’t wonder?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the child, fearful of giving new offence by the confession.

‘Well, and what a thing that is,’ returned Mrs Jarley. ‘I can’t!’

Nell said ‘indeed’ in a tone which might imply, either that she was reasonably surprised to find the genuine and only Jarley, who was the delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the peculiar pet of the Royal Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she presumed so great a lady could scarcely stand in need of such ordinary accomplishments. In whatever way Mrs Jarley received the response, it did not provoke her to further questioning, or tempt her into any more remarks at the time, for she relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and remained in that state so long that Nell withdrew to the other window and rejoined her grandfather, who was now awake.

At length the lady of the caravan shook off her fit of meditation, and, summoning the driver to come under the window at which she was seated, held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice, as if she were asking his advice on an important point, and discussing the pros and cons of some very weighty matter. This conference at length concluded, she drew in her head again, and beckoned Nell to approach.

‘And the old gentleman too,’ said Mrs Jarley; ‘for I want to have a word with him. Do you want a good situation for your grand-daughter, 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?’

‘I should have thought you were old enough to take care of yourself, if you ever will be,’ retorted Mrs Jarley sharply.

‘But he never will be,’ said the child in an earnest whisper. ‘I fear he never will be again. Pray do not speak harshly to him. We are very thankful to you,’ she added aloud; ‘but neither of us could part from the other if all the wealth of the world were halved between us.’

Mrs Jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her proposal, and looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell’s hand and detained it in his own, as if she could have very well dispensed with his company or even his earthly existence. After an awkward pause, she thrust her head out of the window again, and had another conference with the driver upon some point on which they did not seem to agree quite so readily as on their former topic of discussion; but they concluded at last, and she addressed the grandfather again.

‘If you’re really disposed 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 grand-daughter for, is to point ‘em out to the company; they would be soon learnt, 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 ease 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 wagrancy at Jarley’s, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley’s, remember. Every expectation held out in the handbills is realised to the utmost, and the whole forms an effect of imposing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in this kingdom. Remember that the price of admission is only sixpence, and that this is an opportunity which may never occur again!’

Descending from the sublime when she had reached this point, to the details of common life, Mrs Jarley remarked that with reference to salary she could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had sufficiently tested Nell’s abilities, and narrowly watched her in the performance of her duties. But board and lodging, both for her and her grandfather, she bound herself to provide, and she furthermore passed her word that the board should always be good in quality, and in quantity plentiful.

«È qui, signora?», chiese Nell, la cui curiosità era stata risvegliata da questa descrizione.

«Cosa c’è qui, bambino?»

‘La figura di cera, signora.’

«Ma, benedetto bambino, a cosa stai pensando? Come potrebbe una tale collezione trovarsi qui, dove vedi tutto tranne l’interno di un piccolo armadio e qualche scatola? È stata portata nelle altre stanze che danno sulle sale di assemblea, e lì sarà esposta dopodomani. Anche tu andrai nella stessa città, e probabilmente la vedrai. È naturale aspettarsi che la vedrai, e non ho dubbio che lo farai. Immagino che non potresti stare lontano nemmeno se ci provassi con tutte le tue forze.»

«Non credo che sarò in città, signora», disse il bambino.

“Non c’è!” esclamò la signora Jarley. “Allora dove sarà?”

‘Io, io, non lo so esattamente. Non ne sono sicuro.’

«Non vorrete dire che viaggiate per il paese senza sapere dove andate?» disse la signora della roulotte. «Che gente curiosa siete! A quale settore appartenete? Mi sembrava che alle corse, ragazzo, foste completamente fuori dal vostro ambiente, e che foste finito lì per caso.»

«Eravamo lì per puro caso», rispose Nell, confusa da quelle domande così brusche. «Siamo povera gente, signora, e non facciamo altro che vagabondare. Non abbiamo nulla da fare; vorrei che non fosse così.»

«Mi stupite sempre di più», disse la signora Jarley, dopo essere rimasta per qualche tempo muta come una delle sue statue. «Ditemi, come vi chiamate? Non mendicanti, vero?»

«In verità, signora, non so che altro siamo», rispose il bambino.

«Signore, benedicimi!», esclamò la signora della roulotte. «Non ho mai sentito niente del genere. Chi l’avrebbe mai detto!»

Rimase così a lungo in silenzio dopo quell’esclamazione, che Nell temette che lei considerasse un’offesa alla sua dignità, irripetibile, il fatto di essere stata indotta a concedere la sua protezione e la sua conversazione a qualcuno così povero. Questa convinzione fu piuttosto confermata che altrimenti dal tono con cui alla fine ruppe il silenzio e disse,

«Eppure sapete leggere. E scrivere, immagino anch’io?»

«Sì, signora», disse il bambino, temendo di dare nuovo affronto con la confessione.

«Beh, e che cosa è mai questa?», rispose la signora Jarley. «Non posso!»

Nell disse «sì» in un tono che poteva implicare, o che fosse ragionevolmente sorpresa di trovare il vero e unico Jarley, che era il delizioso divertimento della Nobiltà e del Ceto Superiore e il particolare beniamino della Famiglia Reale, privo di queste consuete arti; o che presumesse che una così grande dama non potesse avere bisogno di tali comuni abilità. In qualunque modo la signora Jarley avesse accolto la risposta, questa non la provocò a ulteriori domande, né la indusse a fare altri commenti in quel momento, perché ricadde in un pensieroso silenzio, e rimase in tale stato così a lungo che Nell si ritirò all’altra finestra e tornò da suo nonno, che ora era sveglio.

Alla fine la signora del carrozzone si scosse dal suo stato di meditazione e, chiamando il cocchiere a venire sotto la finestra presso la quale era seduta, tenne con lui una lunga conversazione a bassa voce, come se gli stesse chiedendo consiglio su un punto importante e discutendo i pro e i contro di una questione di grande rilevanza. Terminata questa conferenza, lei ritirò di nuovo la testa all’interno e fece cenno a Nell di avvicinarsi.

«E anche il vecchio signore», disse la signora Jarley, «perché voglio parlargli. Voi volete un buon posto per vostra nipote, signore? Se lo volete, posso metterla sulla buona strada per ottenerlo. Che ne dite?»

«Non posso lasciarla», rispose il vecchio. «Non possiamo separarci. Cosa ne sarebbe di me senza di lei?»

«Avrei pensato che foste abbastanza grande da badare a voi stesso, se mai lo sarete», ribatté bruscamente la signora Jarley.

«Ma non lo sarà mai», disse il bambino in un sussurro serio. «Temo che non lo sarà mai più. La prego, non parli duramente con lui. Siamo molto grati a lei», aggiunse ad alta voce; «ma nessuno di noi due potrebbe separarsi dall’altro anche se tutta la ricchezza del mondo fosse divisa a metà tra noi».

La signora Jarley fu un po’ disorientata da questa accoglienza della sua proposta, e guardò il vecchio, che prese teneramente la mano di Nell e la trattenne nella sua, come se lei avrebbe potuto benissimo fare a meno della sua compagnia o anche della sua esistenza terrena. Dopo una pausa imbarazzante, lei sporse di nuovo la testa dal finestrino e ebbe un’altra conferenza con l’autista su un punto su cui non sembravano concordare così facilmente come sul loro precedente argomento di discussione; ma alla fine conclusero, e lei si rivolse di nuovo al nonno.

«Se sei davvero disposta a darti da fare», disse la signora Jarley, «ci sarebbe un sacco di cose da fare per quanto riguarda l’aiuto a spolverare le figure, e a riscuotere i biglietti, e così via. Quello che voglio dalla tua nipote è che mostri le figure al pubblico; imparerebbe presto, e ha un modo di fare che la gente non troverebbe sgradevole, anche se viene dopo di me; perché sono sempre stata abituata a fare il giro con i visitatori di persona, e continuerei a farlo, se non fosse che il mio stato d’animo rende assolutamente necessario un po’ di riposo. Non è un’offerta comune, tieni presente», disse la signora, assumendo il tono e il modo in cui era abituata a rivolgersi al suo pubblico; «è la cera di Jarley, ricordalo. Il lavoro è molto leggero e distinto, il pubblico è particolarmente selezionato, la mostra si tiene in sale da ballo, municipi, grandi sale nelle locande o nelle aste. Non c’è nessuna di quelle vagabondaggini all’aperto a Jarley, ricordalo; non c’è nessun telone e segatura a Jarley, ricordalo. Tutte le aspettative suscitate dai volantini si realizzano appieno, e il tutto forma un effetto di brillantezza imponente finora senza rivali in questo regno. Ricorda che il prezzo di ingresso è solo sei pence, e che questa è un’opportunità che potrebbe non ripresentarsi mai più!»

Scendendo dal sublime quando aveva raggiunto questo punto, ai dettagli della vita comune, la signora Jarley osservò che, per quanto riguardava lo stipendio, non poteva impegnarsi per una somma specifica fino a quando non avesse sufficientemente testato le capacità di Nell e non l’avesse osservata attentamente nell’espletamento dei suoi compiti. Ma si impegnò a fornire vitto e alloggio sia per lei che per suo nonno, e inoltre promise che il vitto sarebbe sempre stato di buona qualità e in quantità abbondante.

Nell and her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down the caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with uncommon dignity and self-esteem. Nor will this appear so slight a circumstance as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered that the caravan was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none but a person of great natural stateliness and acquired grace could have forborne to stagger.

‘Now, child?’ cried Mrs Jarley, coming to a halt as Nell turned towards her.

‘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.’

In the meanwhile, the caravan blundered on as if it too had been drinking strong beer and was drowsy, and came at last upon the paved streets of a town which were clear of passengers, and quiet, for it was by this time near midnight, and the townspeople were all abed. As it was too late an hour to repair to the exhibition room, they turned aside into a piece of waste ground that lay just within the old town-gate, and drew up there for the night, near to another caravan, which, notwithstanding that it bore on the lawful panel the great name of Jarley, and was employed besides in conveying from place to place the wax-work which was its country’s pride, was designated by a grovelling stamp-office as a ‘Common Stage Waggon,’ and numbered too—seven thousand odd hundred—as though its precious freight were mere flour or coals!

This ill-used machine being empty (for it had deposited its burden at the place of exhibition, and lingered here until its services were again required) was assigned to the old man as his sleeping-place for the night; and within its wooden walls, Nell made him up the best bed she could, from the materials at hand. For herself, she was to sleep in Mrs Jarley’s own travelling-carriage, as a signal mark of that lady’s favour and confidence.

She had taken leave of her grandfather and was returning to the other waggon, when she was tempted by the coolness of the night to linger for a little while in the air. The moon was shining down upon the old gateway of the town, leaving the low archway very black and dark; and with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear, she slowly approached the gate, and stood still to look up at it, wondering to see how dark, and grim, and old, and cold, it looked.

There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or been carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what strange people it must have looked down upon when it stood there, and how many hard struggles might have taken place, and how many murders might have been done, upon that silent spot, when there suddenly emerged from the black shade of the arch, a man. The instant he appeared, she recognised him—Who could have failed to recognise, in that instant, the ugly misshapen Quilp!

The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on one side of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of the earth. But there he was. The child withdrew into a dark corner, and saw him pass close to her. He had a stick in his hand, and, when he had got clear of the shadow of the gateway, he leant upon it, looked back—directly, as it seemed, towards where she stood—and beckoned.

To her? oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an extremity of fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come from her hiding-place and fly, before he should draw nearer, there issued slowly forth from the arch another figure—that of a boy—who carried on his back a trunk.

‘Faster, sirrah!’ cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and showing in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come down from its niche and was casting a backward glance at its old house, ‘faster!’

‘It’s a dreadful heavy load, Sir,’ the boy pleaded. ‘I’ve come on very fast, considering.’

‘You have come fast, considering!’ retorted Quilp; ‘you creep, you dog, you crawl, you measure distance like a worm. There are the chimes now, half-past twelve.’

He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a suddenness and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour that London coach passed the corner of the road. The boy replied, at one.

‘Come on then,’ said Quilp, ‘or I shall be too late. Faster—do you hear me? Faster.’

The boy made all the speed he could, and Quilp led onward, constantly turning back to threaten him, and urge him to greater haste. Nell did not dare to move until they were out of sight and hearing, and then hurried to where she had left her grandfather, feeling as if the very passing of the dwarf so near him must have filled him with alarm and terror. But he was sleeping soundly, and she softly withdrew.

As she was making her way to her own bed, she determined to say nothing of this adventure, as upon whatever errand the dwarf had come (and she feared it must have been in search of them) it was clear by his inquiry about the London coach that he was on his way homeward, and as he had passed through that place, it was but reasonable to suppose that they were safer from his inquiries there, than they could be elsewhere. These reflections did not remove her own alarm, for she had been too much terrified to be easily composed, and felt as if she were hemmed in by a legion of Quilps, and the very air itself were filled with them.

The delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the patronised of Royalty had, by some process of self-abridgment known only to herself, got into her travelling bed, where she was snoring peacefully, while the large bonnet, carefully disposed upon the drum, was revealing its glories by the light of a dim lamp that swung from the roof. The child’s bed was already made upon the floor, and it was a great comfort to her to hear the steps removed as soon as she had entered, and to know that all easy communication between persons outside and the brass knocker was by this means effectually prevented. Certain guttural sounds, too, which from time to time ascended through the floor of the caravan, and a rustling of straw in the same direction, apprised her that the driver was couched upon the ground beneath, and gave her an additional feeling of security.

Notwithstanding these protections, she could get none but broken sleep by fits and starts all night, for fear of Quilp, who throughout her uneasy dreams was somehow connected with the wax-work, or was wax-work himself, or was Mrs Jarley and wax-work too, or was himself, Mrs Jarley, wax-work, and a barrel organ all in one, and yet not exactly any of them either. At length, towards break of day, that deep sleep came upon her which succeeds to weariness and over-watching, and which has no consciousness but one of overpowering and irresistible enjoyment.

Nell e suo nonno si consultarono insieme, e mentre erano così impegnati, la signora Jarley, con le mani dietro la schiena, camminava su e giù per la roulotte, come aveva camminato dopo il tè sulla terra battuta, con una dignità e un senso di sé fuori dal comune. E questo non apparirà un fatto così irrilevante da non meritare di essere menzionato, quando si ricorda che la roulotte era in movimento instabile tutto il tempo, e che solo una persona di grande maestosità naturale e grazia acquisita avrebbe potuto evitare di vacillare.

«Ora, bambina?», esclamò la signora Jarley, fermandosi mentre Nell si voltava verso di lei.

“Siamo molto obbligati, signora,” disse Nell, “e accettiamo volentieri la sua offerta.”

«E non ve ne pentirete mai», rispose la signora Jarley. «Ne sono abbastanza sicura. E dato che tutto è sistemato, facciamo un po’ di cena.»

Nel frattempo, la carovana procedeva a tentoni come se anche lei avesse bevuto birra forte ed fosse assonnata, e alla fine arrivò nelle strade lastricate di una città che erano deserte e tranquille, perché a quell’ora era quasi mezzanotte e tutti gli abitanti della città erano a letto. Poiché era troppo tardi per recarsi nella sala delle esposizioni, svoltarono in un terreno abbandonato che si trovava appena dentro la vecchia porta della città, e si fermarono lì per la notte, vicino a un’altra carovana, che, nonostante portasse sul pannello legale il grande nome di Jarley, e fosse inoltre impiegata nel trasporto da un luogo all’altro dei manichini di cera che erano l’orgoglio del suo paese, era designata da un ufficio postale strisciante come un “Comune Carro da Teatro”, e numerata anche — settemila e qualche centinaio — come se il suo prezioso carico fosse stato semplice farina o carbone!

Questa maltrattata macchina essendo vuota (perché aveva depositato il suo carico nel luogo dell’esposizione e si era trattenuta lì fino a quando i suoi servigi non erano stati di nuovo richiesti) fu assegnata al vecchio come suo giaciglio per la notte; e all’interno delle sue pareti di legno, Nell gli preparò il miglior letto possibile con i materiali a disposizione. Per quanto riguardava lei, avrebbe dormito nel carrozzone di viaggio della signora Jarley, come segno distintivo del favore e della fiducia di quella signora.

Si era congedata dal nonno e stava tornando all’altro carro, quando la frescura della notte la indusse a trattenersi un po’ all’aria aperta. La luna illuminava il vecchio ingresso della città, lasciando l’arco basso molto scuro e buio; e con un misto di curiosità e paura, si avvicinò lentamente al cancello e si fermò a guardarlo, stupita di vedere quanto apparisse scuro, cupo, vecchio e freddo.

C’era una nicchia vuota da cui una vecchia statua era caduta o era stata portata via centinaia di anni fa, e lei stava pensando quali strane persone doveva aver osservato quando era lì, e quanti duri combattimenti potrebbero aver avuto luogo, e quanti omicidi potrebbero essere stati commessi, in quel luogo silenzioso, quando improvvisamente emerse dall’ombra nera dell’arco un uomo. Nel momento in cui apparve, lo riconobbe: chi avrebbe potuto non riconoscere, in quell’istante, il brutto e deforme Quilp!

La strada oltre era così stretta, e l’ombra delle case su un lato della via così profonda, che sembrava fosse emerso dalla terra. Ma lì era. Il bambino si ritirò in un angolo buio e lo vide passare vicino a lei. Aveva un bastone in mano e, quando fu fuori dall’ombra del portone, si appoggiò su di esso, guardò indietro - direttamente, sembrava, verso il punto dove lei si trovava - e fece un cenno.

A lei? oh no, grazie a Dio, non a lei; perché mentre lei stava lì, in un’estremo di paura, esitando se urlare per chiedere aiuto o uscire dal suo nascondiglio e scappare, prima che lui si avvicinasse, lentamente uscì dall’arco un’altra figura: quella di un ragazzo che portava sulle spalle una valigia.

«Più veloce, birbante!» gridò Quilp, guardando verso l’antico cancello e mostrandosi alla luce della luna come una mostruosa immagine che fosse scesa dalla sua nicchia e stesse gettando un’occhiata all’indietro alla sua vecchia casa, «più veloce!»

«È un carico terribilmente pesante, signore», implorò il ragazzo. «Sono venuto molto in fretta, considerando.»

«Voi siete venuto in fretta, considerando!» ribatté Quilp; «voi strisciate, cane che siete, vi arrampicate, misurate le distanze come un verme. Ecco le campane ora, mezzogiorno e mezzo.»

Si fermò ad ascoltare, e poi, voltandosi verso il ragazzo con una rapidità e una ferocia che lo fecero trasalire, chiese a che ora passava l’autobus per Londra all’angolo della strada. Il ragazzo rispose, alle tre.

“Vieni, allora,” disse Quilp, “o arriverò troppo tardi. Più veloce, mi senti? Più veloce.”

Il ragazzo fece tutta la velocità che poteva, e Quilp lo guidò avanti, voltandosi costantemente per minacciarlo e spingerlo a una maggiore fretta. Nell non osò muoversi finché non furono fuori dalla sua vista e portata d’orecchio, e poi si affrettò verso il punto in cui aveva lasciato suo nonno, sentendo come se il semplice passaggio del nanerottolo così vicino a lui dovesse averlo riempito di allarme e terrore. Ma lui stava dormendo profondamente, e lei si ritirò dolcemente.

Mentre si dirigeva verso il proprio letto, decise di non dire nulla di questa avventura, poiché, qualunque fosse stato lo scopo della visita del nano (e temeva che dovesse essere alla loro ricerca), era chiaro dalla sua domanda sul treno per Londra che stava tornando a casa, e dato che era passato da quel luogo, era ragionevole supporre che lì fossero più al sicuro dalle sue indagini che altrove. Queste riflessioni non placarono la sua ansia, perché era stata troppo spaventata per calmarsi facilmente, e si sentiva come se fosse circondata da una legione di Quilp, e l’aria stessa fosse piena di loro.

Il diletto della nobiltà e della borghesia e la protetta della regalità era, per un processo di auto-riduzione noto solo a lei, entrata nel suo letto da viaggio, dove russava pacificamente, mentre il grande cappello, accuratamente disposto sul tamburo, rivelava le sue glorie alla luce di una lampada fioca che pendeva dal soffitto. Il letto del bambino era già preparato sul pavimento, e per lei era un grande conforto sentire i passi allontanarsi non appena era entrata, e sapere che ogni facile comunicazione tra le persone all’esterno e il batacchio di ottone era così efficacemente impedita. Anche certi suoni gutturali, che di tanto in tanto salivano attraverso il pavimento della roulotte, e un fruscio di paglia nella stessa direzione, la informavano che l’autista era disteso a terra sotto di lei, e le davano un ulteriore senso di sicurezza.

Nonostante queste protezioni, non riusciva a prendere altro che un sonno spezzato a tratti e a intervalli per tutta la notte, per paura di Quilp, che nei suoi inquieti sogni era in qualche modo collegato al museo delle cere, o era lui stesso una figura di cera, o era la signora Jarley e una figura di cera allo stesso tempo, o era lui stesso, la signora Jarley, una figura di cera e un organo di Barberia tutti in uno, eppure non esattamente nessuno di loro. Alla fine, all’alba, su di lei calò quel profondo sonno che segue alla stanchezza e alla veglia prolungata, e che non ha altra consapevolezza se non quella di un godimento travolgente e irresistibile.

CHAPTER 28

Sleep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she awoke, Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and actively engaged in preparing breakfast. She received Nell’s apology for being so late with perfect good humour, and said that she should not have roused her if she had slept on until noon.

‘Because it does you good,’ said the lady of the caravan, ‘when you’re tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue quite off; and that’s another blessing of your time of life—you can sleep so very sound.’

‘Have you had a bad night, ma’am?’ asked Nell.

‘I seldom have anything else, child,’ replied Mrs Jarley, with the air of a martyr. ‘I sometimes wonder how I bear it.’

Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night, Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake. However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal account of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down with her grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast. The meal finished, Nell assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper places, and these household duties performed, Mrs Jarley arrayed herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose of making a progress through the streets of the town.

‘The wan will come on to bring the boxes,’ said Mrs Jarley, and you had better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can’t be their own masters and mistresses in such matters as these. How do I look, child?’

Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last satisfied with her appearance, and went forth majestically.

The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting through the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the dreaded face of Quilp. It was a pretty large town, with an open square which they were crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock. There were houses of stone, houses of red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of lath and plaster; and houses of wood, many of them very old, with withered faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the street. These had very little winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement. The streets were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few idle men lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the tradesmen’s doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.

Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an important item of the curiosities, and were fully impressed with the belief that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out with all convenient despatch, and taken in to be unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by George and another man in velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented with turnpike tickets, were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental devices in upholstery work) to the best advantage in the decoration of the room.

They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were. As the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred herself to assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also was of great service. The two men being well used to it, did a great deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks from a linen pocket like a toll-collector’s which she wore for the purpose, and encouraged her assistants to renewed exertion.

While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over, but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare—dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps in the winter of their existence—looked in at the door and smiled affably. Mrs Jarley’s back being then towards him, the military gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her myrmidons were not to apprise her of his presence, and stealing up close behind her, tapped her on the neck, and cried playfully ‘Boh!’

‘What, Mr Slum!’ cried the lady of the wax-work. ‘Lot! who’d have thought of seeing you here!’

‘’Pon my soul and honour,’ said Mr Slum, ‘that’s a good remark. ‘Pon my soul and honour that’s a wise remark. Who would have thought it! George, my faithful feller, how are you?’

George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing that he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering lustily all the time.

CAPITOLO 28

Il sonno gravava sulle palpebre del bambino così a lungo che, quando si svegliò, la signora Jarley era già adornata del suo grande cappello e si dava da fare a preparare la colazione. Accettò le scuse di Nell per essere arrivata così tardi con perfetto buon umore, e disse che non l’avrebbe svegliata se avesse dormito fino a mezzogiorno.

«Perché vi fa bene», disse la signora della roulotte, «quando siete stanchi, dormire quanto più a lungo potete, e liberarvi completamente dalla stanchezza; e questa è un’altra benedizione della vostra età: potete dormire così profondamente.»

«Avete passato una brutta notte, signora?» chiese Nell.

«Di rado ho qualcos’altro, bambino», rispose la signora Jarley, con l’aria di una martire. «A volte mi chiedo come faccio a sopportarlo.»

Ricordando i ronfi che erano usciti da quella fessura della roulotte in cui la proprietaria della mostra di cera passava la notte, Nell pensò che doveva aver sognato di non riuscire a dormire. Tuttavia, si disse molto dispiaciuta di sentire un resoconto così desolante del suo stato di salute, e poco dopo si sedette con suo nonno e la signora Jarley per fare colazione. Terminato il pasto, Nell aiutò a lavare le tazze e i piattini e a riporli al loro posto, e una volta svolte queste faccende domestiche, la signora Jarley si adornò con uno scialle di un colore straordinariamente vivace per fare un giro per le strade della città.

«La carrozza verrà a prendere le casse», disse la signora Jarley, «e tu farai meglio a salirci, bambina. Sono costretta a camminare, contro la mia volontà; ma la gente se lo aspetta da me, e i personaggi pubblici non possono fare come vogliono in queste faccende. Come mi trovi, bambina?»

Nell diede una risposta soddisfacente, e la signora Jarley, dopo aver pianto parecchie spille in vari punti del suo corpo e aver fatto diversi tentativi infruttuosi di riuscire a vedere bene la propria schiena, alla fine fu soddisfatta del suo aspetto e uscì con aria maestosa.

La carovana seguiva a non grande distanza. Mentre procedeva sobbalzando per le strade, Nell sbirciava dalla finestra, curiosa di vedere in che tipo di luogo si trovassero, eppure timorosa di incontrare ad ogni angolo la temuta faccia di Quilp. Era una città abbastanza grande, con una piazza aperta che stavano attraversando lentamente, e al centro della quale si trovava il Municipio, con una torre dell’orologio e un gallo del vento. C’erano case di pietra, case di mattoni rossi, case di mattoni gialli, case di legno e intonaco; e case di legno, molte delle quali molto vecchie, con facce avvizzite scolpite sui travetti, che fissavano la strada. Queste avevano finestre che non sbattevano quasi mai, porte a basso arco, e, in alcuni dei vicoli più stretti, si protendevano quasi completamente sul marciapiede. Le strade erano molto pulite, molto soleggiate, molto vuote e molto noiose. Qualche uomo ozioso se ne stava attorno alle due locande, e alla piazza del mercato deserta, e alle porte dei commercianti, e alcuni anziani facevano la pennichella su sedie fuori da un muro di un ospizio; ma passavano a malapena dei viaggiatori che sembravano intenzionati ad andare da qualche parte, o che avessero un obiettivo in vista; e se per caso qualche vagabondo si faceva vedere, i suoi passi riecheggiavano sul marciapiede caldo e luminoso per minuti dopo. Non sembrava che stesse succedendo nulla se non gli orologi, e questi avevano facce così sonnolente, mani così pesanti e pigre, e voci così rauche che di certo dovevano essere troppo lenti. Anche i cani erano tutti addormentati, e le mosche, ubriache di zucchero umido nel negozio del droghiere, dimenticavano le ali e la vivacità, e arrostivano fino alla morte in angoli polverosi della finestra.

Rumoreggiando con un frastuono del tutto insolito, la carovana si fermò finalmente nel luogo dell’esposizione, dove Nell smontò in mezzo a un gruppo di bambini ammirati, che evidentemente la consideravano un elemento importante delle curiosità, e che erano pienamente convinti che suo nonno fosse un ingegnoso manufatto in cera. Le casse furono tolte con tutta la sollecitudine possibile e portate dentro per essere aperte dalla signora Jarley, che, accompagnata da George e da un altro uomo in calzoncini di velluto e un cappello color topo ornato di biglietti del pedaggio, aspettava per disporre al meglio il loro contenuto (composto da festoni rossi e altri ornamenti in lavorazione di tappezzeria) nella decorazione della sala.

Si misero tutti al lavoro senza perdere tempo, e furono molto impegnati. Poiché la stupenda collezione era ancora coperta da panni, per timore che la polvere invidiosa potesse danneggiarne le superfici, Nell si diede da fare per aiutare nell’abbellimento della stanza, in cui anche suo nonno fu di grande aiuto. I due uomini, essendo ben abituati a quel lavoro, ne fecero molto in poco tempo; e la signora Jarley distribuiva i chiodini di stagno da una tasca di lino come quella di un raccoglitore di pedaggi che portava a tale scopo, e incoraggiava le sue assistenti a nuovi sforzi.

Mentre erano così occupati, un signore piuttosto alto con un naso ad uncino e i capelli neri, vestito con un soprabito militare molto corto e stretto nelle maniche, che un tempo era stato ricamato e guarnito dappertutto, ma che ora era tristemente privo delle sue decorazioni e completamente logoro, vestito anche con antichi pantaloni grigi che aderivano strettamente alle gambe e un paio di pantofole nell’inverno della loro esistenza, guardò dentro dalla porta e sorrise affabilmente. Poiché la signora Jarley aveva le spalle voltate verso di lui, il signore militare scosse il dito indice come segno che i suoi myrmidoni non dovevano avvisarla della sua presenza, e avvicinandosi furtivamente dietro di lei, le diede una pacca sul collo e gridò scherzosamente “Boh!”.

«Che cosa, signor Slum!» esclamò la signora della mostra delle cere. «Lot! chi avrebbe mai pensato di vedervi qui!»

«Per la mia anima e il mio onore,» disse il signor Slum, «è un’osservazione giusta. Per la mia anima e il mio onore, è un’osservazione saggia. Chi l’avrebbe mai detto! George, mio fedele amico, come stai?»

George accolse questo anticipo con una scontrosa indifferenza, osservando che si trovava abbastanza bene per quel che lo riguardava, e martellando vigorosamente tutto il tempo.

‘I came here,’ said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley—‘’pon my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and— ‘Pon my soul and honour,’ said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking round the room, ‘what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it’s quite Minervian.’

‘It’ll look well enough when it comes to be finished,’ observed Mrs Jarley.

‘Well enough!’ said Mr Slum. ‘Will you believe me when I say it’s the delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I’ve exercised my pen upon this charming theme? By the way—any orders? Is there any little thing I can do for you?’

‘It comes so very expensive, sir,’ replied Mrs Jarley, ‘and I really don’t think it does much good.’

‘Hush! No, no!’ returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand. ‘No fibs. I’ll not hear it. Don’t say it don’t do good. Don’t say it. I know better!’

‘I don’t think it does,’ said Mrs Jarley.

‘Ha, ha!’ cried Mr Slum, ‘you’re giving way, you’re coming down. Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old lottery-office-keepers—ask any man among ‘em what my poetry has done for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum. If he’s an honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of Slum—mark that! You are acquainted with Westminster Abbey, Mrs Jarley?’

‘Yes, surely.’

‘Then upon my soul and honour, ma’am, you’ll find in a certain angle of that dreary pile, called Poets’ Corner, a few smaller names than Slum,’ retorted that gentleman, tapping himself expressively on the forehead to imply that there was some slight quantity of brain behind it. ‘I’ve got a little trifle here, now,’ said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which was full of scraps of paper, ‘a little trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the moment, which I should say was exactly the thing you wanted to set this place on fire with. It’s an acrostic—the name at this moment is Warren, and the idea’s a convertible one, and a positive inspiration for Jarley. Have the acrostic.’

‘I suppose it’s very dear,’ said Mrs Jarley.

‘Five shillings,’ returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a toothpick. ‘Cheaper than any prose.’

‘I couldn’t give more than three,’ said Mrs Jarley.

‘—And six,’ retorted Slum. ‘Come. Three-and-six.’

Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet’s insinuating manner, and Mr Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a three-and-sixpenny one. Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, after taking a most affectionate leave of his patroness, and promising to return, as soon as he possibly could, with a fair copy for the printer.

As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed shortly after his departure. When the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were displayed, 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, divers sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, 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 countenances expressing great surprise. All the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies were miraculous figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at nothing.

When Nell had exhausted her first raptures 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 centre, formally invested 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 Honour 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 atrocious 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 offence. 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 competent to the enlightenment of visitors.

Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result, and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage had been already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with the inscription she had already seen (Mr Slum’s productions), and a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company with his Majesty King George the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots, an anonymous gentleman of the Quaker persuasion, and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the bill for the imposition of the window duty. The preparations without doors had not been neglected either; a nun of great personal attractions was telling her beads on the little portico over the door; and a brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest possible complexion, was at that moment going round the town in a cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.

It now only remained that Mr Slum’s compositions should be judiciously distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all private houses and tradespeople; and that the parody commencing ‘If I know’d a donkey,’ should be confined to the taverns, and circulated only among the lawyers’ clerks and choice spirits of the place. When this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly proved that wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged the sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable lady sat down to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing campaign.

«Sono venuto qui», disse il gentiluomo militare rivolgendosi a Mrs Jarley, «per anima e onore non so quasi perché sono venuto qui. Mi costerebbe fatica dirvelo, per anima e onore, disse il gentiluomo militare, trattenendosi e guardandosi intorno per la stanza, «che diavolo di cosa classica è questa! per anima e onore, è proprio minerviana.»

«Sembrerà bene abbastanza quando sarà finito», osservò la signora Jarley.

‘Bene abbastanza!’ disse il signor Slum. ‘Mi crederete quando dico che è il delizioso scopo della mia vita aver fatto qualche incursione nella poesia, quando penso di aver esercitato la mia penna su questo affascinante tema? A proposito, ci sono ordini? C’è qualcosa di piccolo che posso fare per voi?’

«È davvero molto costoso, signore», rispose la signora Jarley, «e in verità non credo che faccia molto bene.»

«Ssst! No, no!» rispose il signor Slum, alzando la mano. «Niente bugie. Non voglio sentirlo. Non dire che non fa bene. Non dirlo. Lo so io!»

«Io non credo che lo faccia», disse la signora Jarley.

«Ah, ah!» gridò il signor Slum «state cedendo, state per cadere. Chiedete ai profumieri, chiedete ai fabbricanti di lucido per scarpe, chiedete ai cappellai, chiedete ai vecchi gestori di uffici della lotteria — chiedete a chiunque di loro cosa ha fatto la mia poesia per lui, e vi dico io, benedirà il nome di Slum. Se è un uomo onesto, alza gli occhi al cielo e benedice il nome di Slum — segnatelo bene! Siete familiare con l’Abbazia di Westminster, signora Jarley?»

‘Sicuramente, sì.’

«Allora, sulla mia anima e sul mio onore, signora, troverete in un certo angolo di quel tetto desolato, chiamato l’Angolo dei Poeti, alcuni nomi più piccoli di Slum», ribatté quell’individuo, battendosi espressivamente la fronte per insinuare che dietro di essa ci fosse una certa quantità di cervello. «Ho un piccolo gioiellino qui, ora», disse il signor Slum, togliendosi il cappello che era pieno di pezzi di carta, «un piccolo gioiellino qui, buttato giù sull’onda del momento, che direi essere esattamente la cosa che volevate per mettere a ferro e fuoco questo posto. È un acrostico: il nome in questo momento è Warren, e l’idea è trasformabile, ed è un’ispirazione positiva per Jarley. Ecco l’acrostico».

«Suppongo che sia molto caro», disse la signora Jarley.

«Cinque scellini», rispose il signor Slum, usando la sua matita come stuzzicadenti. «Più economico di qualsiasi prosa.»

«Non potevo dare più di tre», disse la signora Jarley.

«—E sei», ribatté Slum. «Avanti. Tre e sei.»

La signora Jarley non seppe resistere al modo insinuante del poeta, e il signor Slum trascrisse l’ordine su un piccolo taccuino come un ordine di tre scellini e sei pence. Il signor Slum si ritirò quindi per modificare l’acrostico, dopo aver preso un commovente congedo dalla sua patrona e promettendo di tornare, appena possibile, con una copia pulita per il tipografo.

Poiché la sua presenza non aveva interferito né interrotto i preparativi, questi erano ormai molto avanzati e furono completati poco dopo la sua partenza. Quando i festoni furono tutti appesi con gusto, la stupenda collezione fu svelata, e furono esposte, su un palco rialzato di circa mezzo metro dal pavimento, che correva tutto intorno alla sala e separato dal pubblico volgare da una corda cremisi all’altezza del petto, varie vivaci effigi di personaggi celebri, singoli e in gruppo, vestiti con abiti scintillanti di vari climi e epoche, e in piedi più o meno instabili sulle loro gambe, con gli occhi spalancati e le narici molto dilatate, e i muscoli delle gambe e delle braccia molto sviluppati, e tutti i loro volti esprimevano grande sorpresa. Tutti i signori avevano il petto molto in fuori e la barba molto blu; e tutte le signore erano figure miracolose; e tutte le signore e tutti i signori guardavano intensamente nel vuoto, fissando con straordinaria serietà il nulla.

Quando Nell ebbe esaurito i suoi primi trasporti di fronte a quella gloriosa vista, la signora Jarley ordinò che la stanza fosse liberata da tutti tranne che da lei e dalla bambina, e, sedendosi su una poltrona al centro, investì formalmente Nell di un bastone di salice, da tempo usato da lei per indicare i personaggi, e si prese la briga di istruirla sui suoi doveri.

«Quella», disse la signora Jarley con il suo tono da mostra, mentre Nell toccava una figura all’inizio del palco, «è una sfortunata dama d’epoca del tempo di Elisabetta I, che morì per essersi infilzata un dito mentre cuciva di domenica. Osservate il sangue che le cola dal dito; e anche l’ago d’oro dell’epoca, con cui sta lavorando.»

Tutto ciò Nell ripeté due o tre volte, indicando il dito e l’ago nei momenti giusti, e poi passò al successivo.

«Questo, signore e signori», disse la signora Jarley, «è Jasper Packlemerton, di atroce memoria, che corteggiò e sposò quattordici mogli, e le distrusse tutte, solleticando le piante dei loro piedi mentre dormivano nella coscienza della innocenza e della virtù. Quando fu portato al patibolo e gli fu chiesto se gli dispiacesse per ciò che aveva fatto, rispose di sì, gli dispiaceva di averle fatte franca così facilmente, e sperava che tutti i mariti cristiani gli avrebbero perdonato l’offesa. Che questo sia un monito per tutte le giovani signore di essere particolari nel carattere dei gentiluomini di loro scelta. Notate che le sue dita sono arricciate come se fossero nell’atto di solleticare, e che il suo volto è rappresentato con un occhio strizzato, come appariva quando commetteva i suoi barbari omicidi.»

Quando Nell seppe tutto su Mr Packlemerton e poté raccontarlo senza esitare, Mrs Jarley passò all’uomo grasso, poi a quello magro, a quello alto, a quello basso, alla vecchia signora che morì di danza a centotrentadue anni, al ragazzo selvaggio dei boschi, alla donna che avvelenò quattordici famiglie con noci sott’aceto e ad altri personaggi storici e individui interessanti ma fuorviati. E Nell trasse tanto profitto dalle sue istruzioni e le ricordava così bene che, quando furono chiuse insieme per un paio d’ore, conosceva già tutta la storia dell’intero stabilimento e sapeva perfettamente come illuminare i visitatori.

La signora Jarley non si fece attendere per esprimere la sua ammirazione per questo felice risultato, e portò la sua giovane amica e allieva a ispezionare gli altri preparativi all’interno, grazie ai quali il passaggio era già stato trasformato in un boschetto di panno verde decorato con la iscrizione che aveva già visto (le opere del signor Slum) e con un tavolo molto ornato collocato all’estremità superiore per la signora Jarley stessa, a cui avrebbe presieduto e incassato i soldi, in compagnia di sua Maestà Re Giorgio il Terzo, del signor Grimaldi in veste di pagliaccio, di Maria Regina di Scozia, di un gentiluomo anonimo della fede quacchera, e del signor Pitt che teneva in mano un modello esatto del progetto di legge per l’imposizione della tassa sulle finestre. Anche i preparativi all’esterno non erano stati trascurati; una suora di grande fascino personale stava recitando il rosario sul piccolo portico sopra la porta; e un brigante con la chioma più nera possibile e il colorito più chiaro possibile, in quel momento stava girando per la città su un carro, consultando il ritratto di una dama.

Restava ora solo che le composizioni del signor Slum venissero distribuite con giudizio; che le effusioni patetiche trovassero la strada verso tutte le case private e i commercianti; e che la parodia che iniziava con “Se conoscessi un asino” fosse confinata ai pub e circolasse solo tra i cancellieri degli avvocati e le anime scelte del posto. Quando ciò fu fatto, e la signora Jarley ebbe personalmente fatto visita alle scuole residenziali con un volantino composto espressamente per loro, in cui si dimostrava in modo chiaro che il lavoro in cera raffinava la mente, coltivava il gusto e ampliava la sfera della comprensione umana, quella indefessa signora si sedette a cena e bevve dalla bottiglia sospetta per una campagna fiorente.

CHAPTER 29

Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of the various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition, little Nell was not forgotten. The light cart in which the Brigand usually made his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and streamers, and the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the miniature of his beloved as usual, Nell was accommodated with a seat beside him, decorated with artificial flowers, and in this state and ceremony rode slowly through the town every morning, dispersing handbills from a basket, to the sound of drum and trumpet. The beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country place. The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest in the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief attraction. Grown-up folks began to be interested in the bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in love, and constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed in small-text, at the wax-work door.

This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest Nell should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone again, and kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the figures every half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring audiences. And these audiences were of a very superior description, including a great many young ladies’ boarding-schools, whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at great pains to conciliate, by altering the face and costume of Mr Grimaldi as clown to represent Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when engaged in the composition of his English Grammar, and turning a murderess of great renown into Mrs Hannah More—both of which likenesses were admitted by Miss Monflathers, who was at the head of the head Boarding and Day Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private View with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from their extreme correctness. Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and without his boots, represented the poet Cowper with perfect exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, white shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it. Miss Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select: observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a Dean and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.

Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the lady of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not only a peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for making everybody about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it may be remarked, is, even in persons who live in much finer places than caravans, a far more rare and uncommon one than the first, and is not by any means its necessary consequence. As her popularity procured her various little fees from the visitors on which her patroness never demanded any toll, and as her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, she had no cause of anxiety in connexion with the wax-work, beyond that which sprung from her recollection of Quilp, and her fears that he might return and one day suddenly encounter them.

Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure. She slept, for their better security, in the room where the wax-work figures were, and she never retired to this place at night but she tortured herself—she could not help it—with imagining a resemblance, in some one or other of their death-like faces, to the dwarf, and this fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she would almost believe he had removed the figure and stood within the clothes. Then there were so many of them with their great glassy eyes—and, as they stood one behind the other all about her bed, they looked so like living creatures, and yet so unlike in their grim stillness and silence, that she had a kind of terror of them for their own sakes, and would often lie watching their dusky figures until she was obliged to rise and light a candle, or go and sit at the open window and feel a companionship in the bright stars. At these times, she would recall the old house and the window at which she used to sit alone; and then she would think of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes, and she would weep and smile together.

Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of their former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the change in their condition and of their late helplessness and destitution. When they were wandering about, she seldom thought of this, but now she could not help considering what would become of them if he fell sick, or her own strength were to fail her. He was very patient and willing, happy to execute any little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state, with no prospect of improvement—a mere child—a poor, thoughtless, vacant creature—a harmless fond old man, susceptible of tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions, but alive to nothing more. It made her very sad to know that this was so—so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat idly by, smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was fond of doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple questions, yet patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost conscious of it too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant—so sad it made her to see him thus, that she would burst into tears, and, withdrawing into some secret place, fall down upon her knees and pray that he might be restored.

CAPITOLO 29

Indubbiamente la signora Jarley aveva un genio inventivo. Tra i vari espedienti per attirare i visitatori all’esposizione, la piccola Nell non fu dimenticata. Il leggero carretto in cui il Brigante di solito faceva le sue peregrinazioni era allegramente addobbato con bandiere e striscioni, e il Brigante vi era collocato al suo interno, contemplando come al solito la miniatura della sua amata, mentre Nell era sistemata su un sedile accanto a lui, decorato con fiori artificiali, e in questo stato e con questa cerimonia cavalcava lentamente attraverso la città ogni mattina, distribuendo volantini da un cesto, al suono di tamburo e tromba. La bellezza della bambina, unita al suo comportamento gentile e timido, produsse una vera e propria sensazione nel piccolo paese. Il Brigante, fino ad allora fonte di interesse esclusivo nelle strade, divenne una mera considerazione secondaria, e importante solo come parte dello spettacolo di cui lei era la principale attrazione. Gli adulti iniziarono a interessarsi alla ragazza dagli occhi luminosi, e una ventina di ragazzini si innamorarono disperatamente e lasciavano costantemente offerte di noci e mele, indirizzate con caratteri minuscoli, alla porta della mostra di cera.

Questa desiderabile impressione non sfuggì a Mrs Jarley, che, per evitare che Nell diventasse troppo economica, presto rimandò il Brigante fuori da solo e la tenne nella sala delle esposizioni, dove descriveva le figure ogni mezz’ora, con grande soddisfazione del pubblico ammirato. E questi pubblici erano di una descrizione molto superiore, comprendendo molte scuole residenziali per giovani signorine, il cui favore Mrs Jarley si era data molto da fare per conciliare, modificando il volto e il costume di Mr Grimaldi come pagliaccio per rappresentare Mr Lindley Murray come appariva quando era impegnato nella composizione della sua Grammatica Inglese, e trasformando un’assassina di grande rinomanza in Mrs Hannah More—entrambe le cui somiglianze furono ammesse da Miss Monflathers, che era a capo del principale Istituto Residenziale e Giornaliero della città, e che si degnò di fare una Mostra Privata con otto giovani signorine scelte, che era davvero sorprendente per la loro estrema correttezza. Mr Pitt in berretto da notte e veste da camera, e senza le sue scarpe, rappresentava il poeta Cowper con perfetta esattezza; e Mary Regina di Scozia in una parrucca scura, colletto bianco della camicia e abbigliamento maschile, era un’immagine così completa di Lord Byron che le giovani signorine urlavano quando lo vedevano. Miss Monflathers, tuttavia, rimproverò questo entusiasmo, e colse l’occasione per rimproverare Mrs Jarley per non aver mantenuto la sua collezione più selezionata: osservando che Sua Signoria aveva espresso certe opinioni del tutto incompatibili con gli onori della cera, e aggiungendo qualcosa su un Decano e un Capitolo, che Mrs Jarley non capì.

Anche se i suoi doveri erano abbastanza faticosi, Nell trovò nella signora della carovana una persona molto gentile e premurosa, che aveva non solo un gusto particolare per il proprio benessere, ma anche per il benessere di tutti quelli che la circondavano; quest’ultimo gusto, si può notare, è, anche in persone che vivono in luoghi molto più lussuosi delle carovane, molto più raro e insolito del primo, e non è affatto la sua conseguenza necessaria. Poiché la sua popolarità le procurava vari piccoli guadagni dai visitatori sui quali la sua patrona non chiedeva mai alcun pedaggio, e poiché anche suo nonno era trattato bene e utile, non aveva nessuna ragione di preoccupazione in relazione alla mostra di cera, oltre a quella che derivava dal suo ricordo di Quilp, e dalla paura che potesse ritornare e un giorno incontrarli all’improvviso.

Quilp era infatti un incubo perenne per la bambina, che era costantemente perseguitata dalla visione del suo volto brutto e della sua figura stentata. Dormiva, per maggiore sicurezza, nella stanza dove c’erano le figure di cera, e non si ritirava mai in questo luogo di notte senza torturarsi - non poteva evitarlo - immaginando una somiglianza, in uno o nell’altro dei loro volti simili alla morte, con il nanerottolo, e questa fantasia a volte la dominava al punto che quasi credeva che avesse rimosso la figura e si trovasse dentro i vestiti. Poi c’erano così tanti di loro con i loro grandi occhi di vetro - e, mentre stavano uno dietro l’altro tutto intorno al suo letto, sembravano così simili a creature viventi, eppure così diversi nella loro tetra immobilità e silenzio, che aveva una specie di terrore di loro per loro stessi, e spesso giaceva osservando le loro figure scure finché non era costretta ad alzarsi e accendere una candela, o andare a sedersi alla finestra aperta e sentire una compagnia nelle luminose stelle. In questi momenti, ricordava la vecchia casa e la finestra presso la quale era solita sedere sola; e allora pensava al povero Kit e a tutta la sua gentilezza, finché le lacrime le salivano agli occhi, e piangeva e sorrideva insieme.

Spesso e con ansia, in quest’ora silenziosa, i suoi pensieri tornavano a suo nonno, e si chiedeva quanto ricordasse della loro vita passata, e se fosse mai veramente consapevole del cambiamento nella loro condizione e della loro recente impotenza e indigenza. Quando vagavano per il mondo, raramente pensava a questo, ma ora non poteva fare a meno di considerare cosa sarebbe successo se lui si fosse ammalato, o se le sue forze l’avessero abbandonata. Era molto paziente e disponibile, felice di eseguire qualsiasi piccolo compito, e contento di essere utile; ma era nello stesso stato di apatia, senza prospettive di miglioramento — un semplice bambino — una povera, sprovveduta e vacua creatura — un vecchio uomo affettuoso e inoffensivo, capace di tenero amore e riguardo per lei, e di impressioni piacevoli e dolorose, ma vivo a nulla di più. La rendeva molto triste sapere che era così — così triste da vederlo che a volte, quando sedeva oziosamente accanto a lei, sorridendo e annuendo quando lei si voltava, o quando accarezzava qualche piccolo bambino e lo portava avanti e indietro, come amava fare per ore, confuso dalle sue semplici domande, ma paziente nella sua stessa infermità, e quasi consapevole di essa, e umiliato persino davanti alla mente di un infante — così triste la rendeva vederlo così, che scoppiava in lacrime, e, ritirandosi in qualche luogo segreto, cadeva in ginocchio e pregava che lui potesse essere guarito.

But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials for a young heart. Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to come.

One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather went out to walk. They had been rather closely confined for some days, and the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance. Clear of the town, they took a footpath which struck through some pleasant fields, judging that it would terminate in the road they quitted and enable them to return that way. It made, however, a much wider circuit than they had supposed, and thus they were tempted onward until sunset, when they reached the track of which they were in search, and stopped to rest.

It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth. The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it, menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant.

Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and the child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in which they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst forth in earnest, and every moment increased in violence. Drenched with the pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and bewildered by the glare of the forked lightning, they would have passed a solitary house without being aware of its vicinity, had not a man, who was standing at the door, called lustily to them to enter.

‘Your ears ought to be better than other folks’ at any rate, if you make so little of the chance of being struck blind,’ he said, retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the jagged lightning came again. ‘What were you going past for, eh?’ he added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to a room behind.

‘We didn’t see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,’ Nell replied.

‘No wonder,’ said the man, ‘with this lightning in one’s eyes, by-the-by. You had better stand by the fire here, and dry yourselves a bit. You can call for what you like if you want anything. If you don’t want anything, you are not obliged to give an order. Don’t be afraid of that. This is a public-house, that’s all. The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.’

‘Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?’ asked Nell.

‘I thought everybody knew that,’ replied the landlord. ‘Where have you come from, if you don’t know the Valiant Soldier as well as the church catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves—Jem Groves—honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral character, and has a good dry skittle-ground. If any man has got anything to say again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and Jem Groves can accommodate him with a customer on any terms from four pound a side to forty.

With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at society in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and, applying a half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips, drank Jem Groves’s health.

The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the room, for a barrier against the heat of the fire. It seemed as if somebody on the other side of this screen had been insinuating doubts of Mr Groves’s prowess, and had thereby given rise to these egotistical expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by giving a loud knock upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a reply from the other side.

‘There an’t many men,’ said Mr Groves, no answer being returned, ‘who would ventur’ to cross Jem Groves under his own roof. There’s only one man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that man’s not a hundred mile from here neither. But he’s worth a dozen men, and I let him say of me whatever he likes in consequence—he knows that.’

In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade Mr Groves ‘hold his noise and light a candle.’ And the same voice remarked that the same gentleman ‘needn’t waste his breath in brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was made of.’

‘Nell, they’re—they’re playing cards,’ whispered the old man, suddenly interested. ‘Don’t you hear them?’

‘Look sharp with that candle,’ said the voice; ‘it’s as much as I can do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter closed as quick as you can, will you? Your beer will be the worse for to-night’s thunder I expect.—Game! Seven-and-sixpence to me, old Isaac. Hand over.’

‘Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?’ whispered the old man again, with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.

‘I haven’t seen such a storm as this,’ said a sharp cracked voice of most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had died away, ‘since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen times running on the red. We all said he had the Devil’s luck and his own, and as it was the kind of night for the Devil to be out and busy, I suppose he was looking over his shoulder, if anybody could have seen him.’

Ma la sua amarezza non era nel vederlo in quello stato, quando almeno era contento e tranquillo, né nelle sue solitarie meditazioni sul suo cambiamento, sebbene fossero prove per un cuore giovane. Causa di un dolore più profondo e più pesante doveva ancora arrivare.

Una sera, una serata festiva con loro, Nell e suo nonno uscirono a fare una passeggiata. Erano stati piuttosto confinati per alcuni giorni, e dato che il tempo era caldo, si allontanarono molto. Usciti dalla città, imboccarono un sentiero che attraversava alcuni campi piacevoli, pensando che si sarebbe connesso alla strada che avevano lasciato e che avrebbe permesso loro di tornare indietro. Tuttavia, il percorso era molto più lungo di quanto avessero immaginato, e così furono indotti a proseguire fino al tramonto, quando raggiunsero il sentiero che stavano cercando e si fermarono a riposare.

Il cielo si era gradualmente coperto e ora era scuro e minaccioso, tranne dove la gloria del sole che tramontava accumulava masse d’oro e di fuoco ardente, le cui braci morenti brillavano qua e là attraverso il velo nero, e illuminavano di rosso la terra. Il vento cominciò a gemere in sordi mormorii, mentre il sole tramontava portando la lieta giornata altrove; e una fila di nuvole opache che si alzavano contro di esso, minacciavano tuono e fulmini. Ben presto cominciarono a cadere grosse gocce di pioggia, e, mentre le nuvole della tempesta navigavano in avanti, altre riempivano il vuoto che lasciavano dietro di sé e si diffondevano su tutto il cielo. Poi si udì il basso brontolio del tuono lontano, poi il fulmine tremolò, e poi l’oscurità di un’ora sembrò essersi raccolta in un istante.

Spaventato all’idea di ripararsi sotto un albero o un cespuglio, il vecchio e il bambino si affrettavano lungo la strada principale, sperando di trovare qualche casa in cui poter trovare rifugio dalla tempesta, che ormai era scoppiata in tutta la sua violenza e aumentava di minuto in minuto. Inzuppati dalla pioggia battente, confusi dal tuono assordante e disorientati dal bagliore del fulmine a zigzag, avrebbero superato una solitaria casa senza accorgersi della sua vicinanza, se un uomo che stava sulla porta non li avesse chiamati con voce forte per invitarli a entrare.

«Le vostre orecchie dovrebbero essere migliori di quelle degli altri, almeno, se fate così poco caso alla possibilità di diventare ciechi», disse, ritirandosi dalla porta e proteggendosi gli occhi con le mani mentre il fulmine a zigzag tornava a lampeggiare. «Perché passavate di lì, eh?», aggiunse, mentre chiudeva la porta e si dirigeva lungo un corridoio verso una stanza sul retro.

«Non abbiamo visto la casa, signore, finché non ti abbiamo sentito chiamare», rispose Nell.

«Non c’è da meravigliarsi,» disse l’uomo, «con questo fulmine negli occhi, a proposito. È meglio che vi fermiate qui vicino al fuoco e vi asciughiate un po’. Potete chiedere quello che volete se desiderate qualcosa. Se non volete nulla, non siete obbligati a ordinare. Non temete. Questo è un albergo pubblico, ecco tutto. Il Valente Soldato è piuttosto noto da queste parti.»

«Questa casa si chiama il Valente Soldato, signore?» chiese Nell.

«Pensavo che tutti lo sapessero», rispose l’oste. «Da dove siete venuto, se non conoscete il Valente Soldato bene quanto il catechismo della chiesa? Questo è il Valente Soldato, di James Groves—Jem Groves—onesto Jem Groves, che è un uomo di carattere morale irreprensibile, e ha un buon campo da birilli asciutto. Se qualcuno ha qualcosa da dire contro Jem Groves, lo dica A Jem Groves, e Jem Groves può metterlo in contatto con un cliente a qualsiasi condizione da quattro sterline a lato a quaranta.

Con queste parole, l’oratore si diede una pacca sul panciotto per far intendere che era il Jem Groves così altamente elogiato; si esibì in un combattimento scientifico con un finto Jem Groves, che stava combattendo contro la società in generale da un telaio nero sopra il camino; e, portando alle labbra un bicchiere di alcol e acqua mezzo vuoto, brindò alla salute di Jem Groves.

Essendo la notte calda, era stata tesa una grande paratia attraverso la stanza, per proteggersi dal calore del fuoco. Sembrava che qualcuno dall’altra parte di questa paratia avesse insinuato dubbi sulla prodezza del signor Groves, e avesse così dato origine a queste espressioni egotistiche, poiché il signor Groves concluse la sua sfida dando un forte colpo sulla paratia con le nocche e aspettando una risposta dall’altra parte.

«Non ci sono molti uomini», disse il signor Groves, non ricevendo risposta, «che oserebbero sfidare Jem Groves sotto il suo stesso tetto. Ne conosco solo uno che ha il coraggio di farlo, e quell’uomo non è neanche a cento miglia da qui. Ma vale più di una dozzina di uomini, e per questo gli lascio dire di me quello che vuole — lui lo sa».

In cambio di questo discorso di ringraziamento, una voce molto rauca e burbera disse a Mr. Groves di “tenere a freno la sua voce e accendere una candela”. E la stessa voce osservò che lo stesso signore “non doveva sprecare il suo fiato a vantarsi, perché la maggior parte della gente sapeva abbastanza bene di che pasta era fatto”.

«Nell, stanno, stanno giocando a carte», sussurrò l’anziano, improvvisamente interessato. «Non li senti?»

«Fai attenzione con quella candela», disse la voce; «faccio già fatica a vedere i punti sulle carte così com’è; e chiudi questa persiana il più in fretta che puoi, vuoi? La tua birra sarà rovinata dal tuono di questa notte, credo. — Partita! Sette scellini e sei pence a me, vecchio Isaac. Paga.»

«Li senti, Nell, li senti?» bisbigliò di nuovo il vecchio, con crescente serietà, mentre il denaro tintinnava sul tavolo.

«Non ho mai visto una tempesta come questa», disse una voce acuta e rauca di qualità molto sgradevole, quando un tremendo boato di tuono era svanito, «dalla notte in cui il vecchio Luke Withers vinse tredici volte di seguito sul rosso. Tutti dissero che aveva la fortuna del diavolo e la sua, e dato che era il tipo di notte in cui il diavolo è fuori e attivo, immagino che stesse guardandogli la schiena, se qualcuno lo avesse potuto vedere.»

‘Ah!’ returned the gruff voice; ‘for all old Luke’s winning through thick and thin of late years, I remember the time when he was the unluckiest and unfortunatest of men. He never took a dice-box in his hand, or held a card, but he was plucked, pigeoned, and cleaned out completely.’

‘Do you hear what he says?’ whispered the old man. ‘Do you hear that, Nell?’

The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance had undergone a complete change. His face was flushed and eager, his eyes were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and thick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently that she shook beneath its grasp.

‘Bear witness,’ he muttered, looking upward, ‘that I always said it; that I knew it, dreamed of it, felt it was the truth, and that it must be so! What money have we, Nell? Come! I saw you with money yesterday. What money have we? Give it to me.’

‘No, no, let me keep it, grandfather,’ said the frightened child. ‘Let us go away from here. Do not mind the rain. Pray let us go.’

‘Give it to me, I say,’ returned the old man fiercely. ‘Hush, hush, don’t cry, Nell. If I spoke sharply, dear, I didn’t mean it. It’s for thy good. I have wronged thee, Nell, but I will right thee yet, I will indeed. Where is the money?’

‘Do not take it,’ said the child. ‘Pray do not take it, dear. For both our sakes let me keep it, or let me throw it away—better let me throw it away, than you take it now. Let us go; do let us go.’

‘Give me the money,’ returned the old man, ‘I must have it. There—there—that’s my dear Nell. I’ll right thee one day, child, I’ll right thee, never fear!’

She took from her pocket a little purse. He seized it with the same rapid impatience which had characterised his speech, and hastily made his way to the other side of the screen. It was impossible to restrain him, and the trembling child followed close behind.

The landlord had placed a light upon the table, and was engaged in drawing the curtain of the window. The speakers whom they had heard were two men, who had a pack of cards and some silver money between them, while upon the screen itself the games they had played were scored in chalk. The man with the rough voice was a burly fellow of middle age, with large black whiskers, broad cheeks, a coarse wide mouth, and bull neck, which was pretty freely displayed as his shirt collar was only confined by a loose red neckerchief. He wore his hat, which was of a brownish-white, and had beside him a thick knotted stick. The other man, whom his companion had called Isaac, was of a more slender figure—stooping, and high in the shoulders—with a very ill-favoured face, and a most sinister and villainous squint.

‘Now old gentleman,’ said Isaac, looking round. ‘Do you know either of us? This side of the screen is private, sir.’

‘No offence, I hope,’ returned the old man.

‘But by G—, sir, there is offence,’ said the other, interrupting him, ‘when you intrude yourself upon a couple of gentlemen who are particularly engaged.’

‘I had no intention to offend,’ said the old man, looking anxiously at the cards. ‘I thought that—’

‘But you had no right to think, sir,’ retorted the other. ‘What the devil has a man at your time of life to do with thinking?’

‘Now bully boy,’ said the stout man, raising his eyes from his cards for the first time, ‘can’t you let him speak?’

The landlord, who had apparently resolved to remain neutral until he knew which side of the question the stout man would espouse, chimed in at this place with ‘Ah, to be sure, can’t you let him speak, Isaac List?’

‘Can’t I let him speak,’ sneered Isaac in reply, mimicking as nearly as he could, in his shrill voice, the tones of the landlord. ‘Yes, I can let him speak, Jemmy Groves.’

‘Well then, do it, will you?’ said the landlord.

Mr List’s squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to threaten a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion, who had been looking sharply at the old man, put a timely stop to it.

‘Who knows,’ said he, with a cunning look, ‘but the gentleman may have civilly meant to ask if he might have the honour to take a hand with us!’

‘I did mean it,’ cried the old man. ‘That is what I mean. That is what I want now!’

‘I thought so,’ returned the same man. ‘Then who knows but the gentleman, anticipating our objection to play for love, civilly desired to play for money?’

The old man replied by shaking the little purse in his eager hand, and then throwing it down upon the table, and gathering up the cards as a miser would clutch at gold.

‘Oh! That indeed,’ said Isaac; ‘if that’s what the gentleman meant, I beg the gentleman’s pardon. Is this the gentleman’s little purse? A very pretty little purse. Rather a light purse,’ added Isaac, throwing it into the air and catching it dexterously, ‘but enough to amuse a gentleman for half an hour or so.’

‘We’ll make a four-handed game of it, and take in Groves,’ said the stout man. ‘Come, Jemmy.’

The landlord, who conducted himself like one who was well used to such little parties, approached the table and took his seat. The child, in a perfect agony, drew her grandfather aside, and implored him, even then, to come away.

‘Come; and we may be so happy,’ said the child.

‘We WILL be happy,’ replied the old man hastily. ‘Let me go, Nell. The means of happiness are on the cards and the dice. We must rise from little winnings to great. There’s little to be won here; but great will come in time. I shall but win back my own, and it’s all for thee, my darling.’

‘God help us!’ cried the child. ‘Oh! what hard fortune brought us here?’

‘Hush!’ rejoined the old man laying his hand upon her mouth, ‘Fortune will not bear chiding. We must not reproach her, or she shuns us; I have found that out.’

«Ah!» rispose la voce burbera; «per quanto negli ultimi anni vecchio Luke sia riuscito a cavarsela in ogni situazione, ricordo il tempo in cui era l’uomo più sfortunato e disgraziato. Non appena prendeva in mano un dado o una carta, veniva derubato, truffato e completamente spennato.»

«Senti cosa dice?» sussurrò il vecchio. «Senti, Nell?»

Il bambino vide con stupore e allarme che il suo aspetto complessivo aveva subito un cambiamento completo. Il suo viso era arrossato e febbrile, gli occhi erano dilatati, i denti serrati, il respiro veniva corto e affannoso, e la mano che posò sul suo braccio tremava così violentemente che lei tremava sotto la sua presa.

«Testimoniate», mormorò, guardando in alto, «che l’ho sempre detto; che lo sapevo, ne sognavo, sentivo che era la verità, e che doveva essere così! Che soldi abbiamo, Nell? Dai! Ti ho vista con dei soldi ieri. Che soldi abbiamo? Dammi i soldi.»

«No, no, lascia che lo tenga io, nonno», disse il bambino spaventato. «Andiamocene da qui. Non badare alla pioggia. Ti prego, andiamocene».

«Dammi i soldi, ti dico», rispose l’anziano con foga. «Zitto, zitto, non piangere, Nell. Se ho parlato in modo brusco, mia cara, non era mia intenzione. È per il tuo bene. Ti ho fatto torto, Nell, ma ti riparerò, lo farò davvero. Dov’è il denaro?»

«Non prenderlo», disse il bambino. «Ti prego, non prenderlo, caro. Per entrambi i nostri interessi lascia che lo tenga io, o lascia che lo getti via - meglio che lo getti via, che tu lo prenda ora. Andiamocene; per favore, andiamocene».

«Dammi i soldi», rispose il vecchio, «devo averli. Ecco, ecco, questa è la mia cara Nell. Un giorno ti farò giustizia, bambina, ti farò giustizia, non temere!»

Lei tirò fuori dalla tasca una piccola borsetta. Lui la afferrò con la stessa rapida impazienza che aveva caratterizzato il suo discorso, e si diresse in fretta verso l’altro lato dello schermo. Era impossibile trattenerlo, e la bambina tremante lo seguì da vicino.

Il locandiere aveva posato una luce sul tavolo e stava occupato a tirare la tenda della finestra. Gli interlocutori che avevano udito erano due uomini, che avevano un mazzo di carte e del denaro d’argento tra loro, mentre sullo schermo stesso i giochi che avevano giocato erano segnati a gesso. L’uomo dalla voce ruvida era un tizio robusto di mezza età, con grandi baffi neri, guance larghe, una bocca larga e grossolana, e un collo da toro, che era piuttosto liberamente esposto poiché il suo colletto della camicia era tenuto solo da una sciarpa rossa allentata. Portava il cappello, che era di un bianco-giallastro, e aveva accanto a sé un bastone spesso e nodoso. L’altro uomo, che il suo compagno aveva chiamato Isaac, era di una figura più esile—curvo, e alto sulle spalle—con un viso molto sgradevole, e uno sguardo estremamente sinistro e malvagio.

«Ora, signore anziano», disse Isaac, guardandosi intorno, «ci conoscete uno di noi? Questo lato dello schermo è privato, signore.»

«Nessuna offesa, spero,» rispose il vecchio.

«Ma per G—», signore, «c’è offesa», disse l’altro, interrompendolo, «quando si impone la propria presenza a due signori che sono particolarmente impegnati.»

«Non avevo intenzione di offendere», disse il vecchio, guardando ansiosamente le carte. «Pensavo che—»

«Ma non aveva alcun diritto di pensare, signore», ribatté l’altro. «Che diavolo ha un uomo della sua età da fare con il pensare?»

«Ora, ragazzo prepotente», disse l’uomo robusto, alzando gli occhi dalle sue carte per la prima volta, «non puoi lasciarlo parlare?»

Il locandiere, che aveva apparentemente deciso di rimanere neutrale finché non avesse saputo quale parte avrebbe preso l’uomo robusto, intervenne in quel punto con «Ah, certo, non puoi lasciarlo parlare, Isaac List?»

«Non posso lasciarlo parlare?», disse Isaac in tono di scherno, imitando il più possibile, con la sua voce stridula, il tono del locandiere. «Sì, posso lasciarlo parlare, Jemmy Groves.»

«Bene, allora, fatelo, vuole?» disse l’oste.

Lo strabismo del signor List assunse un carattere portentoso, che sembrava minacciare una prolungazione di questa controversia, quando il suo compagno, che aveva osservato attentamente il vecchio, pose un tempestivo freno alla situazione.

«Chissà», disse lui, con uno sguardo astuto, «se il signore non avesse gentilmente voluto chiedere se poteva avere l’onore di giocare con noi!»

“Lo dicevo sul serio”, gridò il vecchio. “È questo che intendo. È questo che voglio ora!”

«Lo pensavo anch’io», rispose lo stesso uomo. «Allora, chissà, forse il signore, prevedendo la nostra obiezione a giocare per amore, ha gentilmente desiderato giocare per denaro?»

Il vecchio rispose scuotendo la piccola borsa nella sua mano febbrile, e poi gettandola sul tavolo, e raccogliendo le carte come un avaro farebbe con l’oro.

«Oh! Sì, infatti», disse Isaac; «se questo è ciò che il signore intendeva, chiedo scusa al signore. Questa è la borsa del signore? Una borsa molto graziosa. Un po’ leggera», aggiunse Isaac, lanciandola in aria e riprendendola abilmente, «ma sufficiente per divertire un signore per mezz’ora circa.»

«Facciamo una partita a quattro e includiamo Groves», disse l’uomo robusto. «Vieni, Jemmy.»

Il locatore, che si comportava come uno abituato a tali piccoli raduni, si avvicinò al tavolo e prese posto. La bambina, in preda a una perfetta agonia, tirò da parte il nonno e lo supplicò, anche in quel momento, di andarsene.

«Ecco; e potremmo essere così felici», disse il bambino.

«Saremo felici», rispose l’anziano uomo in fretta. «Lasciami andare, Nell. I mezzi per la felicità sono nelle carte e nei dadi. Dobbiamo passare da piccole vincite a grandi. C’è poco da vincere qui; ma grande verrà nel tempo. Non farò altro che riconquistare il mio, e tutto è per te, mia cara.»

«Dio ci aiuti!» gridò il bambino. «Oh! che dura sorte ci ha portato qui?»

«Ssst!» rispose il vecchio posandole una mano sulla bocca «la Fortuna non sopporta le lamentele. Non dobbiamo rimproverarla, altrimenti ci eviterà; l’ho scoperto.»

‘Now, mister,’ said the stout man. ‘If you’re not coming yourself, give us the cards, will you?’

‘I am coming,’ cried the old man. ‘Sit thee down, Nell, sit thee down and look on. Be of good heart, it’s all for thee—all—every penny. I don’t tell them, no, no, or else they wouldn’t play, dreading the chance that such a cause must give me. Look at them. See what they are and what thou art. Who doubts that we must win!’

‘The gentleman has thought better of it, and isn’t coming,’ said Isaac, making as though he would rise from the table. ‘I’m sorry the gentleman’s daunted—nothing venture, nothing have—but the gentleman knows best.’

‘Why I am ready. You have all been slow but me,’ said the old man. ‘I wonder who is more anxious to begin than I.’

As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three closing round it at the same time, the game commenced.

The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind. Regardless of the run of luck, and mindful only of the desperate passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains were to her alike. Exulting in some brief triumph, or cast down by a defeat, there he sat so wild and restless, so feverishly and intensely anxious, so terribly eager, so ravenous for the paltry stakes, that she could have almost better borne to see him dead. And yet she was the innocent cause of all this torture, and he, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain as the most insatiable gambler never felt, had not one selfish thought!

On the contrary, the other three—knaves and gamesters by their trade—while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as if every virtue had been centered in their breasts. Sometimes one would look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle, or to glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window and fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder than the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put him out; but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone.

The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and break above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse distance; and still the game went on, and still the anxious child was quite forgotten.

«Ora, signore», disse l’uomo robusto, «se non viene lei stesso, ci dia le carte, vuole?»

«Sto arrivando», gridò il vecchio. «Siediti, Nell, siediti e guarda. Sii coraggiosa, è tutto per te — tutto — ogni centesimo. Non glielo dico, no, no, altrimenti non giocherebbero, temendo che una causa del genere mi dia vantaggio. Guardali. Vedi cosa sono loro e cosa sei tu. Chi dubita che dobbiamo vincere!»

«Il signore ha cambiato idea e non viene», disse Isaac, facendo come se volesse alzarsi da tavola. «Mi dispiace che il signore si sia tirato indietro — niente tentativi, niente successi — ma il signore sa meglio di chiunque altro».

«Perché sono pronto. Siete stati tutti lenti, tranne me», disse il vecchio. «Mi domando chi sia più ansioso di cominciare di me».

Mentre parlava, tirò una sedia verso il tavolo; e gli altri tre, avvicinandosi contemporaneamente, iniziarono la partita.

Il bambino sedeva accanto e osservava il suo comportamento con preoccupazione. Indipendentemente dalla sorte del gioco, e pensando solo alla disperata passione che aveva preso possesso di suo nonno, perdite e guadagni erano per lei la stessa cosa. Euforica per qualche breve trionfo, o abbattuta da una sconfitta, lui sedeva lì così selvaggio e irrequieto, così febbrilmente e intensamente ansioso, così terribilmente impaziente, così avido per le misere puntate, che avrebbe quasi preferito vederlo morto. Eppure lei era la causa innocente di tutta questa tortura, e lui, giocando con una sete selvaggia di guadagno che il più insaziabile giocatore non avrebbe mai provato, non aveva un solo pensiero egoista!

Al contrario, gli altri tre, furfanti e giocatori d’azzardo di professione, mentre erano intenti al loro gioco, erano calmi e tranquilli come se ogni virtù fosse concentrata nei loro petti. A volte uno di loro alzava lo sguardo per sorridere a un altro, o per accendere la debole candela, o per dare un’occhiata al fulmine mentre attraversava la finestra aperta e la tenda svolazzante, o per ascoltare un tuono più forte degli altri, con una specie di momentanea impazienza, come se lo distraesse; ma lì sedevano, con una calma indifferenza per tutto tranne che per le loro carte, perfetti filosofi in apparenza, e senza maggiore dimostrazione di passione o eccitazione come se fossero stati fatti di pietra.

La tempesta aveva infuriato per tre ore abbondanti; la fulgore era diventata più fioca e meno frequente; il tuono, che sembrava rotolare e scoppiare sopra le loro teste, si era gradualmente spento in un profondo, lontano rimbombo; e ancora il gioco continuava, e ancora il bambino ansioso era completamente dimenticato.

CHAPTER 30

At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only winner. Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional fortitude. Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised nor pleased.

Nell’s little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old man sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt before, and turning up the different hands to see what each man would have held if they had still been playing. He was quite absorbed in this occupation, when the child drew near and laid her hand upon his shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.

‘See the curse of poverty, Nell,’ he said, pointing to the packs he had spread out upon the table. ‘If I could have gone on a little longer, only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my side. Yes, it’s as plain as the marks upon the cards. See here—and there—and here again.’

‘Put them away,’ urged the child. ‘Try to forget them.’

‘Try to forget them!’ he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers, and regarding her with an incredulous stare. ‘To forget them! How are we ever to grow rich if I forget them?’

The child could only shake her head.

‘No, no, Nell,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘they must not be forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can. Patience—patience, and we’ll right thee yet, I promise thee. Lose to-day, win to-morrow. And nothing can be won without anxiety and care—nothing. Come, I am ready.’

‘Do you know what the time is?’ said Mr Groves, who was smoking with his friends. ‘Past twelve o’clock—’

‘—And a rainy night,’ added the stout man.

‘The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap entertainment for man and beast,’ said Mr Groves, quoting his sign-board. ‘Half-past twelve o’clock.’

‘It’s very late,’ said the uneasy child. ‘I wish we had gone before. What will they think of us! It will be two o’clock by the time we get back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?’

‘Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total two shillings and sixpence,’ replied the Valiant Soldier.

Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when she came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent habits of Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in which they would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up in the middle of the night—and when she reflected, on the other hand, that if they remained where they were, and rose early in the morning, they might get back before she awoke, and could plead the violence of the storm by which they had been overtaken, as a good apology for their absence—she decided, after a great deal of hesitation, to remain. She therefore took her grandfather aside, and telling him that she had still enough left to defray the cost of their lodging, proposed that they should stay there for the night.

‘If I had had but that money before—If I had only known of it a few minutes ago!’ muttered the old man.

‘We will decide to stop here if you please,’ said Nell, turning hastily to the landlord.

‘I think that’s prudent,’ returned Mr Groves. ‘You shall have your suppers directly.’

Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out the ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place, with the bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and beer, with many high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his guests fall to, and make themselves at home. Nell and her grandfather ate sparingly, for both were occupied with their own reflections; the other gentlemen, for whose constitutions beer was too weak and tame a liquid, consoled themselves with spirits and tobacco.

As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to bed. But as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it secretly from its place of concealment, and embraced an opportunity of following the landlord when he went out of the room, and tendered it to him in the little bar.

‘Will you give me the change here, if you please?’ said the child.

Mr James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money, and rang it, and looked at the child, and at the money again, as though he had a mind to inquire how she came by it. The coin being genuine, however, and changed at his house, he probably felt, like a wise landlord, that it was no business of his. At any rate, he counted out the change, and gave it her. The child was returning to the room where they had passed the evening, when she fancied she saw a figure just gliding in at the door. There was nothing but a long dark passage between this door and the place where she had changed the money, and, being very certain that no person had passed in or out while she stood there, the thought struck her that she had been watched.

But by whom? When she re-entered the room, she found its inmates exactly as she had left them. The stout fellow lay upon two chairs, resting his head on his hand, and the squinting man reposed in a similar attitude on the opposite side of the table. Between them sat her grandfather, looking intently at the winner with a kind of hungry admiration, and hanging upon his words as if he were some superior being. She was puzzled for a moment, and looked round to see if any else were there. No. Then she asked her grandfather in a whisper whether anybody had left the room while she was absent. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nobody.’

It must have been her fancy then; and yet it was strange, that, without anything in her previous thoughts to lead to it, she should have imagined this figure so very distinctly. She was still wondering and thinking of it, when a girl came to light her to bed.

CAPITOLO 30

Alla fine la partita terminò, e il signor Isaac List si alzò come unico vincitore. Mat e il locandiere sopportarono le loro perdite con la forza d’animo del professionista. Isaac mise in tasca i suoi guadagni con l’aria di un uomo che aveva deciso fin dall’inizio di vincere, e non era né sorpreso né contento.

La piccola borsa di Nell era esaurita; ma sebbene giacesse vuota al suo fianco, e gli altri giocatori si fossero alzati dal tavolo, il vecchio rimase seduto a scrutare le carte, distribuendole come erano state distribuite prima, e girando le diverse mani per vedere quali carte avrebbe avuto ciascuno se avessero continuato a giocare. Era completamente assorbito da questa occupazione, quando la bambina si avvicinò e posò la mano sulla sua spalla, dicendogli che era quasi mezzanotte.

«Guarda la maledizione della povertà, Nell», disse, indicando i pacchetti che aveva sparsi sul tavolo. «Se avessi potuto continuare ancora un po’, solo un po’, la fortuna sarebbe cambiata a mio favore. Sì, è evidente come le figure sulle carte. Guarda qui, e lì, e ancora qui.»

«Metteteli via», esortò il bambino. «Cercate di dimenticarli».

«Cercare di dimenticarli!» replicò, alzando il suo viso smunto verso il suo, e guardandola con uno sguardo incredulo. «Dimenticarli! Come potremo mai diventare ricchi se li dimentico?»

La bambina non poté fare altro che scuotere la testa.

«No, no, Nell», disse il vecchio, accarezzandole la guancia; «non devono essere dimenticati. Dobbiamo riparare a questo il prima possibile. Pazienza, pazienza, e ti rimetteremo in sesto, te lo prometto. Perderemo oggi, vinceremo domani. E nulla può essere vinto senza ansia e preoccupazione, nulla. Vieni, sono pronto».

«Sapete che ora è?» disse il signor Groves, che stava fumando con i suoi amici. «Passato mezzanotte o’clock—»

«—E una notte piovosa», aggiunse l’uomo robusto.

«Il Soldato Valoroso, di James Groves. Buoni letti. Divertimento a buon mercato per uomo e bestia», disse il signor Groves, citando la sua insegna. «Mezzogiorno e mezzo».

«È molto tardi», disse il bambino inquieto. «Avrei voluto che fossimo andati prima. Che cosa penseranno di noi! Saranno le due del mattino quando torneremo. Quanto ci costerebbe, signore, se ci fermassimo qui?»

«Due buoni letti, una sterlina e sei pence; cena e birra una sterlina; totale due sterline e sei pence», rispose il Soldato Valoroso.

Ora, Nell aveva ancora il pezzo d’oro cucito nel suo vestito; e quando cominciò a considerare l’ora tarda, e le abitudini sonnolente della signora Jarley, e a immaginare lo stato di costernazione in cui avrebbero certamente gettato quella brava donna svegliandola nel mezzo della notte—e quando rifletté, d’altra parte, che se fossero rimasti dove si trovavano, e si fossero alzati presto la mattina, avrebbero potuto tornare indietro prima che lei si svegliasse, e avrebbero potuto addurre la violenza della tempesta che li aveva sorpresi, come una buona scusa per la loro assenza—decise, dopo molte esitazioni, di rimanere. Perciò prese da parte suo nonno, e dicendogli che aveva ancora abbastanza per pagare il costo del loro alloggio, propose che rimanessero lì per la notte.

«Se solo avessi avuto quei soldi prima. Se solo li avessi saputi un paio di minuti fa!» mormorò il vecchio.

«Decideremo di fermarci qui, se non le dispiace», disse Nell, rivolgendosi in fretta al locandiere.

«Penso che sia prudente», rispose il signor Groves. «Avrete la vostra cena tra poco.»

Di conseguenza, quando il signor Groves ebbe finito di fumare la pipa, ne aveva battuto via la cenere e l’aveva riposta con cura in un angolo del camino, col fornello in giù, portò dentro il pane e il formaggio, e la birra, con molti elogi sulla loro eccellenza, e invitò i suoi ospiti a servirsi e a mettersi a loro agio. Nell e suo nonno mangiarono poco, perché entrambi erano presi dai propri pensieri; gli altri signori, per le cui costituzioni la birra era un liquido troppo debole e insipido, si consolarono con liquori e tabacco.

Dato che avrebbero lasciato la casa molto presto la mattina, il bambino era ansioso di pagare per il loro divertimento prima di ritirarsi a letto. Ma poiché sentiva la necessità di nascondere il suo piccolo tesoro al nonno, e doveva cambiare il pezzo d’oro, lo prese segretamente dal suo nascondiglio, e approfittò di un’occasione per seguire il locandiere quando uscì dalla stanza, e glielo consegnò al piccolo bar.

«Mi darà il resto qui, per favore?» disse il bambino.

Il signor James Groves era evidentemente sorpreso, guardò il denaro, lo fece tintinnare, guardò la bambina e di nuovo il denaro, come se avesse in mente di chiedere come l’avesse ottenuto. Tuttavia, poiché la moneta era autentica e cambiata nella sua casa, probabilmente sentì, come un padrone di casa saggio, che non era affar suo. In ogni caso, contò il resto e glielo diede. La bambina stava tornando nella stanza dove avevano trascorso la serata, quando le parve di vedere una figura che si insinuava appena dalla porta. Non c’era nulla tra quella porta e il luogo dove aveva cambiato i soldi se non un lungo corridoio buio, e, essendo certa che nessuno fosse passato né entrando né uscendo mentre stava lì, le venne il sospetto di essere stata spiata.

Ma da chi? Quando rientrò nella stanza, trovò gli occupanti esattamente come li aveva lasciati. Il tizio robusto giaceva su due sedie, appoggiando la testa sulla mano, e l’uomo strabico riposava in una posizione simile sul lato opposto del tavolo. Tra loro sedeva suo nonno, che guardava intensamente il vincitore con una specie di ammirazione affamata, e si attaccava alle sue parole come se fosse un essere superiore. Fu perplessa per un momento, e guardò intorno per vedere se ci fosse qualcun altro. No. Allora chiese a suo nonno in un sussurro se qualcuno avesse lasciato la stanza mentre lei era assente. «No», disse, «nessuno.»

Dunque doveva essere stata una sua fantasia; eppure era strano che, senza nulla nei suoi pensieri precedenti che la portasse a immaginarla, avesse visto quella figura così distintamente. Era ancora lì a chiedersi e pensarci su, quando una ragazza arrivò per accompagnarla a letto.

The old man took leave of the company at the same time, and they went up stairs together. It was a great, rambling house, with dull corridors and wide staircases which the flaring candles seemed to make more gloomy. She left her grandfather in his chamber, and followed her guide to another, which was at the end of a passage, and approached by some half-dozen crazy steps. This was prepared for her. The girl lingered a little while to talk, and tell her grievances. She had not a good place, she said; the wages were low, and the work was hard. She was going to leave it in a fortnight; the child couldn’t recommend her to another, she supposed? Instead she was afraid another would be difficult to get after living there, for the house had a very indifferent character; there was far too much card-playing, and such like. She was very much mistaken if some of the people who came there oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she wouldn’t have it known that she had said so, for the world. Then there were some rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who had threatened to go a soldiering—a final promise of knocking at the door early in the morning—and ‘Good night.’

The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She could not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage down stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure her. The men were very ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and murdering travellers. Who could tell?

Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the night gave rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in her grandfather’s breast, and to what further distraction it might tempt him Heaven only knew. What fears their absence might have occasioned already! Persons might be seeking for them even then. Would they be forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again! Oh! why had they stopped in that strange place? It would have been better, under any circumstances, to have gone on!

At last, sleep gradually stole upon her—a broken, fitful sleep, troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this—and then—What! That figure in the room.

A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it.

On it came—on, silently and stealthily, to the bed’s head. The breath so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those wandering hands should light upon her face. Back again it stole to the window—then turned its head towards her.

The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the room, but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how the eyes looked and the ears listened. There it remained, motionless as she. At length, still keeping the face towards her, it busied its hands in something, and she heard the chink of money.

Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and replacing the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon its hands and knees, and crawled away. How slowly it seemed to move, now that she could hear but not see it, creeping along the floor! It reached the door at last, and stood upon its feet. The steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it was gone.

The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being by herself in that room—to have somebody by—not to be alone—and then her power of speech would be restored. With no consciousness of having moved, she gained the door.

There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.

She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the darkness without being seized, but her blood curdled at the thought. The figure stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly, but of necessity; for going back into the room was hardly less terrible than going on.

The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing streams from the thatched roof. Some summer insect, with no escape into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs. The figure moved again. The child involuntarily did the same. Once in her grandfather’s room, she would be safe.

It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she longed so ardently to reach. The child, in the agony of being so near, had almost darted forward with the design of bursting into the room and closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.

The idea flashed suddenly upon her—what if it entered there, and had a design upon the old man’s life! She turned faint and sick. It did. It went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now within the chamber, and she, still dumb—quite dumb, and almost senseless—stood looking on.

The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and looked in. What sight was that which met her view!

The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a table sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright—counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.

Il vecchio si congedò dalla compagnia nello stesso momento, e salirono insieme le scale. Era una grande, vasta casa, con corridoi scuri e ampi scaloni che le candele fiammeggianti sembravano rendere ancora più tetri. Lei lasciò suo nonno nella sua camera, e seguì la sua guida in un’altra, che si trovava in fondo a un corridoio, e si raggiungeva con una mezza dozzina di gradini traballanti. Questa era stata preparata per lei. La ragazza indugiò un po’ a parlare e a raccontare le sue lamentele. Non aveva un buon posto, disse; lo stipendio era basso e il lavoro era duro. Stava per lasciarlo tra due settimane; il bambino non poteva consigliarla a un altro, immaginava? Invece aveva paura che sarebbe stato difficile trovarne un altro dopo aver vissuto lì, perché la casa aveva una reputazione molto dubbia; c’era troppo gioco di carte e cose del genere. Si sbagliava di grosso se pensava che alcune delle persone che venivano lì più spesso fossero altrettanto oneste di quanto avrebbero potuto essere, ma non avrebbe voluto che si sapesse che aveva detto così, per nulla al mondo. Poi ci furono alcune allusioni vaghe a un innamorato respinto, che aveva minacciato di arruolarsi nell’esercito, un’ultima promessa di bussare alla porta la mattina presto, e “Buona notte.”

La bambina non si sentiva a suo agio quando era lasciata sola. Non poteva fare a meno di pensare alla figura che si muoveva furtivamente nel passaggio al piano di sotto; e ciò che la ragazza aveva detto non tendeva a rassicurarla. Gli uomini avevano un aspetto molto losco. Potevano guadagnarsi da vivere derubando e uccidendo i viaggiatori. Chi poteva dirlo?

Ragionando da sé stessa fuori da queste paure, o perdendone la vista per un po’, arrivò l’ansia a cui le avventure della notte davano origine. Ecco la vecchia passione risvegliata di nuovo nel petto di suo nonno, e a quale ulteriore distrazione potesse tentarlo solo il Cielo lo sapeva. Quali paure la loro assenza potesse aver già provocato! Persone potrebbero essere alla ricerca di loro anche in quel momento. Sarebbero stati perdonati al mattino, o lasciati alla deriva di nuovo! Oh! perché si erano fermati in quel posto strano? Sarebbe stato meglio, in ogni circostanza, continuare!

Alla fine, il sonno si impossessò gradualmente di lei - un sonno spezzato e intermittente, agitato da sogni di caduta da alte torri, e da risvegli con un sussulto e in grande terrore. Un sonno più profondo seguì a questo - e poi - Che cosa! Quella figura nella stanza.

C’era una figura. Sì, aveva alzato la tenda per far entrare la luce quando sarebbe stato alba, e lì, tra il piede del letto e la finestra oscura, si accovacciava e si insinuava, tastando la strada con mani silenziose, e girando intorno al letto. Non aveva voce per chiedere aiuto, né la forza di muoversi, ma rimase immobile, osservandola.

Avanzava - avanti, silenziosamente e furtivamente, fino alla testata del letto. Il respiro così vicino al suo cuscino che si ritrasse dentro di esso, per timore che quelle mani erranti potessero toccarle il viso. Si ritirò di nuovo verso la finestra - poi girò la testa verso di lei.

La forma scura era una semplice macchia sulla penombra più chiara della stanza, ma lei vide la testa che si girava, e sentì e seppe come gli occhi la guardavano e le orecchie ascoltavano. Rimase lì, immobile come lei. Alla fine, mantenendo ancora il volto rivolto verso di lei, si mise a trafficare con le mani su qualcosa, e lei udì il tintinnio del denaro.

Poi, eccolo tornare di nuovo, silenzioso e furtivo come prima, e dopo aver riposto gli indumenti che aveva preso dal comodino, si abbassò sulle mani e sulle ginocchia e strisciò via. Com’era lento il suo movimento, ora che lei poteva sentirlo ma non vederlo, mentre strisciava lungo il pavimento! Alla fine raggiunse la porta, e si alzò in piedi. I passi scricchiolarono sotto il suo passo silenzioso, e se ne andò.

Il primo impulso del bambino fu quello di fuggire dal terrore di trovarsi da solo in quella stanza, di avere qualcuno accanto, di non essere solo e allora la sua capacità di parlare sarebbe tornata. Senza rendersi conto di essersi mosso, raggiunse la porta.

C’era l’orribile ombra, ferma in fondo ai gradini.

Non poteva passarvi accanto; forse avrebbe potuto farlo, forse, al buio senza essere catturata, ma il suo sangue si gelò al solo pensiero. La figura rimase immobile, e così fece lei; non per coraggio, ma per necessità; perché rientrare nella stanza era quasi altrettanto terribile che andare avanti.

La pioggia batteva veloce e furiosamente all’esterno, e scorreva in ruscelli gorgoglianti dal tetto di paglia. Un insetto estivo, senza via di fuga nell’aria, volava ciecamente avanti e indietro, battendo il suo corpo contro le pareti e il soffitto, riempiendo il luogo silenzioso di mormorii. La figura si mosse di nuovo. La bambina fece involontariamente lo stesso. Una volta nella stanza di suo nonno, sarebbe stata al sicuro.

Si insinuò lungo il corridoio fino a raggiungere la porta che desiderava così ardentemente di raggiungere. La bambina, nell’agonia di essere così vicina, era quasi balzata in avanti con l’intenzione di irrompere nella stanza e chiudersi dentro, quando la figura si fermò di nuovo.

L’idea le balenò in mente all’improvviso: e se fosse entrato lì, e avesse in mente di togliere la vita al vecchio! Si sentì svenire e le venne la nausea. Era così. Era entrato. C’era una luce all’interno. La figura era ormai nella stanza, e lei, ancora muta, completamente muta, e quasi senza senso, rimase lì a guardare.

La porta era in parte aperta. Non sapendo cosa intendesse fare, ma decisa a proteggerlo o a morire, barcollò in avanti e guardò dentro. Che spettacolo era quello che le si presentò!

Il letto non era stato usato, ma era liscio e vuoto. E seduto a un tavolo c’era lo stesso vecchio; l’unica creatura vivente lì; il suo viso bianco era tirato e affilato dall’avidità che rendeva i suoi occhi innaturalmente luminosi — contando il denaro che le sue mani le avevano rubato.

CHAPTER 31

With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her way back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. No strange robber, no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread which the recognition of her silent visitor inspired. The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse—immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon—than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested. If he should return—there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if, distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come back to seek for more—a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea of his slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face toward the empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to avoid his touch, which was almost insupportable. She sat and listened. Hark! A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was slowly opening. It was but imagination, yet imagination had all the terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would have come and gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never went away.

The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror. She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this disease of the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his shape, a monstrous distortion of his image, a something to recoil from, and be the more afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as he did. She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him. She had wept to see him dull and quiet. How much greater cause she had for weeping now!

The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be a relief to hear the old man’s voice, or, if he were asleep, even to see him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image. She stole down the stairs and passage again. The door was still ajar as she had left it, and the candle burning as before.

She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking, that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were still alight. Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his bed, and so took courage to enter.

Fast asleep. No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace. This was not the gambler, or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning light; this was her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind grandfather.

She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.

‘God bless him!’ said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid cheek. ‘I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. He has only me to help him. God bless us both!’

Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and, gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that long, long, miserable night.

At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep. She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed; and, as soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather. But first she searched her pocket and found that her money was all gone—not a sixpence remained.

The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road. The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to expect that she would tell him of her loss. She felt she must do that, or he might suspect the truth.

‘Grandfather,’ she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked about a mile in silence, ‘do you think they are honest people at the house yonder?’

‘Why?’ returned the old man trembling. ‘Do I think them honest—yes, they played honestly.’

‘I’ll tell you why I ask,’ rejoined Nell. ‘I lost some money last night—out of my bedroom, I am sure. Unless it was taken by somebody in jest—only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh heartily if I could but know it—’

‘Who would take money in jest?’ returned the old man in a hurried manner. ‘Those who take money, take it to keep. Don’t talk of jest.’

‘Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,’ said the child, whose last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.

‘But is there no more, Nell?’ said the old man; ‘no more anywhere? Was it all taken—every farthing of it—was there nothing left?’

‘Nothing,’ replied the child.

‘We must get more,’ said the old man, ‘we must earn it, Nell, hoard it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow. Never mind this loss. Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don’t ask how;—we may regain it, and a great deal more;—but tell nobody, or trouble may come of it. And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert asleep!’ he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now. ‘Poor Nell, poor little Nell!’

CAPITOLO 31

Con passi più incerti e vacillanti di quelli con cui si era avvicinata alla stanza, la bambina si allontanò dalla porta e tastò il cammino di ritorno verso la sua camera. Il terrore che aveva provato poco prima era nulla in confronto a quello che ora la opprimeva. Nessun ladro straniero, nessun ospite infido che complotta per derubare i suoi ospiti, o che si avvicina furtivamente ai loro letti per ucciderli nel loro sonno, nessun brigante notturno, per quanto terribile e crudele, avrebbe potuto suscitare nel suo cuore la metà della paura che le ispirava il riconoscimento del suo silenzioso visitatore. Il vecchio dai capelli grigi che si insinuava nella sua stanza come un fantasma e si comportava da ladro mentre credeva che lei dormisse profondamente, portando poi via il suo bottino e sovrastandolo con quell’esultanza spettrale che aveva visto, era peggio — infinitamente peggio, e molto più spaventoso, al momento, da contemplare — di qualsiasi cosa la sua fantasia più selvaggia avrebbe potuto suggerire. Se fosse tornato — non c’era nessuna serratura o catenella sulla porta, e se, diffidando di aver lasciato ancora qualche soldo, fosse tornato a cercarne di più — un vago timore e orrore circondavano l’idea che si insinuasse di nuovo con passo furtivo, e girasse il viso verso il letto vuoto, mentre lei si rannicchiava vicino ai suoi piedi per evitare il suo tocco, che era quasi insopportabile. Sedette e ascoltò. Ascolta! Un passo sulle scale, e ora la porta si apriva lentamente. Era solo immaginazione, eppure l’immaginazione aveva tutti i terrori della realtà; anzi, era peggio, perché la realtà sarebbe venuta e andata, e tutto sarebbe finito, ma nell’immaginazione era sempre in arrivo, e non se ne andava mai.

Il sentimento che assaliva la bambina era di un orrore vago e incerto. Non aveva paura del caro vecchio nonno, in cui per il suo amore per lei era nata questa malattia del cervello; ma l’uomo che aveva visto quella notte, avvolto nel gioco d’azzardo, in agguato nella sua stanza, e che contava i soldi alla luce tremolante, sembrava un’altra creatura nella sua forma, una mostruosa distorsione della sua immagine, qualcosa da cui ritrarsi e temere ancora di più, perché gli somigliava e si teneva vicino a lei, come faceva lui. A malapena poteva associare il suo affettuoso compagno, se non per la sua assenza, a questo vecchio, così simile eppure così diverso da lui. Aveva pianto nel vederlo ottuso e tranquillo. Quanto più grande era ora la ragione per cui piangeva!

La bambina sedeva, osservando e pensando a queste cose, finché il fantasma nella sua mente divenne così cupo e spaventoso che sentì che sarebbe stato un sollievo sentire la voce del vecchio, o, se dormiva, anche solo vederlo, e scacciare alcune delle paure che si addensavano attorno alla sua immagine. Si avventurò di nuovo giù per le scale e lungo il corridoio. La porta era ancora socchiusa come l’aveva lasciata, e la candela ardeva come prima.

Aveva una candela in mano, pronta a dire, se lui fosse stato sveglio, che era inquieta e non riusciva a riposare, e che era venuta a vedere se la sua era ancora accesa. Guardando nella stanza, lo vide giacere tranquillo sul suo letto, e così prese coraggio per entrare.

Addormentato. Nessuna passione sul volto, nessuna avarizia, nessuna ansia, nessun selvaggio desiderio; tutto dolce, tranquillo e in pace. Questo non era il giocatore, o l’ombra nella sua stanza; questo non era nemmeno l’uomo logorato e stanco il cui volto si era così spesso incontrato con il suo nella luce grigia del mattino; questo era il suo caro vecchio amico, il suo innocuo compagno di viaggio, il suo buono, gentile nonno.

Non aveva paura mentre guardava i suoi tratti addormentati, ma provava un profondo e grave dolore, e trovava sollievo nelle lacrime.

«Dio lo benedica!» disse il bambino, chinandosi dolcemente per baciarlo sulla guancia placida. «Ora vedo troppo bene che ci separerebbero davvero se ci scoprissero, e lo rinchiuderebbero lontano dalla luce del sole e del cielo. Ha solo me per aiutarlo. Dio benedica entrambi!»

Accendendo la sua candela, si ritirò in silenzio come era venuta, e, una volta rientrata nella sua stanza, rimase seduta per il resto di quella lunga, lunga, miserabile notte.

Finalmente il giorno spense la sua candela morente, e lei si addormentò. Fu presto svegliata dalla ragazza che l’aveva accompagnata in camera; e, non appena vestita, si preparò a scendere dal nonno. Ma prima frugò nelle tasche e scoprì che i suoi soldi erano spariti — non era rimasto neanche un soldo.

Il vecchio era pronto, e in pochi secondi erano sulla strada. Il bambino pensò che lui evitasse piuttosto il suo sguardo, e sembrava aspettarsi che lei gli raccontasse della sua perdita. Lei sentiva che doveva farlo, altrimenti avrebbe potuto sospettare la verità.

«Nonno», disse con voce tremante, dopo che avevano camminato per circa un miglio in silenzio, «pensi che siano persone oneste nella casa laggiù?»

«Perché?» rispose il vecchio tremando. «Credo che siano onesti? Sì, hanno giocato onestamente.»

«Vi dirò perché lo chiedo», riprese Nell. «Ho perso dei soldi ieri notte—dalla mia camera da letto, ne sono sicura. A meno che non li abbia presi qualcuno per scherzo—solo per scherzo, caro nonno, il che mi farebbe ridere di gusto se solo potessi saperlo—»

«Chi mai prenderebbe del denaro per scherzo?» rispose l’anziano uomo in tono affrettato. «Chi prende del denaro, lo prende per tenerlo. Non parliamo di scherzi.»

«Allora è stato rubato dalla mia stanza, caro», disse il bambino, la cui ultima speranza fu distrutta dal tono di questa risposta.

«Ma non c’è altro, Nell?» disse il vecchio; «non c’è altro da nessuna parte? È stato preso tutto, ogni centesimo? Non è rimasto nulla?»

«Nulla», rispose il bambino.

«Dobbiamo guadagnare di più», disse il vecchio, «dobbiamo guadagnarlo, Nell, accumularlo, raccoglierlo, ottenerlo in qualche modo. Non importa questa perdita. Non dirlo a nessuno, e forse potremo recuperarlo. Non chiedere come; forse potremo recuperarlo, e molto di più; ma non dirlo a nessuno, o potrebbero venire guai. E così l’hanno preso dalla tua stanza, mentre dormivi!», aggiunse con tono compassionevole, molto diverso dal modo segreto e astuto in cui aveva parlato fino ad allora. «Povera Nell, povera piccola Nell!»

The child hung down her head and wept. The sympathising tone in which he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that. It was not the lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.

‘Not a word about it to any one but me,’ said the old man, ‘no, not even to me,’ he added hastily, ‘for it can do no good. All the losses that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling. Why should they be, when we will win them back?’

‘Let them go,’ said the child looking up. ‘Let them go, once and for ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had been a thousand pounds.’

‘Well, well,’ returned the old man, checking himself as some impetuous answer rose to his lips, ‘she knows no better. I ought to be thankful of it.’

‘But listen to me,’ said the child earnestly, ‘will you listen to me?’

‘Aye, aye, I’ll listen,’ returned the old man, still without looking at her; ‘a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to me. It always had when it was her mother’s, poor child.’

‘Let me persuade you, then—oh, do let me persuade you,’ said the child, ‘to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue together.’

‘We pursue this aim together,’ retorted her grandfather, still looking away and seeming to confer with himself. ‘Whose image sanctifies the game?’

‘Have we been worse off,’ resumed the child, ‘since you forgot these cares, and we have been travelling on together? Have we not been much better and happier without a home to shelter us, than ever we were in that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?’

‘She speaks the truth,’ murmured the old man in the same tone as before. ‘It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it is.’

‘Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we turned our backs upon it for the last time,’ said Nell, ‘only remember what we have been since we have been free of all those miseries—what peaceful days and quiet nights we have had—what pleasant times we have known—what happiness we have enjoyed. If we have been tired or hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and slept the sounder for it. Think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have felt. And why was this blessed change?’

He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no more just then, for he was busy. After a time he kissed her cheek, still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far before him, and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow upon the ground, as if he were painfully trying to collect his disordered thoughts. Once she saw tears in his eyes. When he had gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his as he was accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his late manner; and so, by degrees so fine that the child could not trace them, he settled down into his usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would.

When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous collection, they found, as Nell had anticipated, that Mrs Jarley was not yet out of bed, and that, although she had suffered some uneasiness on their account overnight, and had indeed sat up for them until past eleven o’clock, she had retired in the persuasion, that, being overtaken by storm at some distance from home, they had sought the nearest shelter, and would not return before morning. Nell immediately applied herself with great assiduity to the decoration and preparation of the room, and had the satisfaction of completing her task, and dressing herself neatly, before the beloved of the Royal Family came down to breakfast.

‘We haven’t had,’ said Mrs Jarley when the meal was over, ‘more than eight of Miss Monflathers’s young ladies all the time we’ve been here, and there’s twenty-six of ‘em, as I was told by the cook when I asked her a question or two and put her on the free-list. We must try ‘em with a parcel of new bills, and you shall take it, my dear, and see what effect that has upon ‘em.’

The proposed expedition being one of paramount importance, Mrs Jarley adjusted Nell’s bonnet with her own hands, and declaring that she certainly did look very pretty, and reflected credit on the establishment, dismissed her with many commendations, and certain needful directions as to the turnings on the right which she was to take, and the turnings on the left which she was to avoid. Thus instructed, Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss Monflathers’s Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a large house, with a high wall, and a large garden-gate with a large brass plate, and a small grating through which Miss Monflathers’s parlour-maid inspected all visitors before admitting them; for nothing in the shape of a man—no, not even a milkman—was suffered, without special license, to pass that gate. Even the tax-gatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating. More obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss Monflathers’s frowned on all mankind. The very butcher respected it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the bell.

As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges with a creaking noise, and, forth from the solemn grove beyond, came a long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books in their hands, and some with parasols likewise. And last of the goodly procession came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally envious of the other, and devoted unto Miss Monflathers.

Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she curtseyed and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss Monflathers commanded that the line should halt.

La bambina chinò il capo e pianse. Il tono compassionevole con cui lui parlava era del tutto sincero; ne era certa. Non era la parte più lieve del suo dolore sapere che tutto ciò era fatto per lei.

«Non una parola a nessuno al riguardo, tranne che a me», disse il vecchio, «no, nemmeno a me», aggiunse in fretta, «perché non può fare altro che del male. Tutte le perdite che ci sono mai state non valgono le lacrime dei tuoi occhi, tesoro. Perché dovrebbero, quando le riavremo indietro?»

«Lasciateli andare», disse il bambino alzando lo sguardo. «Lasciateli andare, una volta per tutte, e non verserei mai più un’altra lacrima se ogni penny fosse stato un migliaio di sterline».

«Bene, bene», rispose il vecchio, trattenendosi mentre una risposta impetuosa saliva alle sue labbra, «non sa di meglio. Dovrei esserne grato.»

«Ma ascoltami», disse il bambino con fervore, «mi ascolterai?»

«Sì, sì, ascolterò», rispose il vecchio, senza ancora guardarla; «una bella voce. Ha sempre un suono dolce per me. Lo aveva già quando era quella di sua madre, povera bambina.»

«Lasciate che vi persuada, allora — oh, lasciate che vi persuada», disse il bambino, «a non pensare più a guadagni o perdite, e a non tentare nessuna sorte se non la sorte che inseguiremo insieme.»

«Perseguiamo questo scopo insieme», ribatté il nonno, continuando a guardare altrove e sembrando discutere con se stesso. «Chi è la persona la cui immagine santifica il gioco?»

«Siamo stati peggio», riprese il bambino, «da quando hai dimenticato queste preoccupazioni e siamo andati avanti insieme? Non siamo stati molto migliori e più felici senza una casa che ci riparasse, di quanto non fossimo mai stati in quella sventurata casa, quando erano nel tuo pensiero?»

«Dice la verità», mormorò il vecchio con lo stesso tono di prima. «Non deve influenzarmi, ma è la verità; non c’è dubbio.»

«Ricordate solo quello che siamo stati da quella mattina luminosa in cui ci siamo voltati le spalle per l’ultima volta,» disse Nell, «ricordate solo quello che siamo stati da quando siamo stati liberi da tutte quelle miserie—che giorni tranquilli e notti serene abbiamo avuto—che bei tempi abbiamo conosciuto—che felicità abbiamo goduto. Se siamo stati stanchi o affamati, siamo stati presto ristorati, e abbiamo dormito più profondamente per questo. Pensate a tutte le belle cose che abbiamo visto, e a quanto ci siamo sentiti contenti. E perché è avvenuto questo benedetto cambiamento?»

La fermò con un gesto della mano e le disse di non parlargli più in quel momento, perché era occupato. Dopo un po’ la baciò sulla guancia, facendole ancora cenno di silenzio, e proseguì, guardando lontano davanti a sé, e talvolta fermandosi e fissando il terreno con la fronte aggrottata, come se stesse cercando dolorosamente di raccogliere i suoi pensieri confusi. Una volta vide delle lacrime nei suoi occhi. Quando continuò così per un po’ di tempo, le prese la mano come era solito fare, senza nulla della violenza o dell’animazione del suo comportamento precedente; e così, a poco a poco, in modo così sottile che la bambina non riusciva a seguirlo, si ristabilì nel suo solito modo tranquillo, e le permise di condurlo dove voleva.

Quando si presentarono in mezzo alla stupenda collezione, trovarono, come Nell aveva previsto, che la signora Jarley non era ancora uscita dal letto, e che, sebbene avesse provato un po’ di inquietudine per loro la sera prima, e fosse rimasta in piedi ad aspettarli fino a dopo le undici, si era ritirata nella persuasione che, avendo incontrato la tempesta a una certa distanza da casa, avessero cercato il riparo più vicino e non sarebbero tornati prima del mattino. Nell si dedicò immediatamente con grande assiduità alla decorazione e alla preparazione della stanza, e ebbe la soddisfazione di completare il suo compito e di vestirsi con cura prima che l’amato della Famiglia Reale scendesse a fare colazione.

«Non abbiamo avuto», disse la signora Jarley quando il pasto fu terminato, «più di otto delle giovani signorine della signorina Monflathers per tutto il tempo che siamo stati qui, e ce ne sono ventisei, come mi disse la cuoca quando le feci qualche domanda e la misi nella lista dei clienti abituali. Dobbiamo provarle con un pacco di nuovi volantini, e tu li porterai, mia cara, e vedrai quale effetto avranno su di loro.»

Poiché l’impresa proposta era di importanza fondamentale, la signora Jarley aggiustò con le sue stesse mani il cappellino di Nell, e dichiarando che aveva un aspetto davvero molto grazioso, e che faceva onore all’istituto, la congedò con molte lodi e certe istruzioni necessarie sui giri a destra che avrebbe dovuto fare, e sui giri a sinistra che avrebbe dovuto evitare. In tal modo istruita, Nell non ebbe difficoltà a trovare l’Istituto di Pensione e di Giorno della signorina Monflathers, che era una grande casa, con un alto muro, e un grande cancello del giardino con una grande targa di ottone, e una piccola grata attraverso la quale la cameriera della signorina Monflathers ispezionava tutti i visitatori prima di ammetterli; poiché nulla di forma umana — no, nemmeno un latteiere — era ammesso, senza licenza speciale, a passare quel cancello. Anche il riscossore delle tasse, che era robusto, portava gli occhiali e un cappello a larghe tese, riceveva le tasse passate attraverso la grata. Più ostinato del cancello di adamantio o di ottone, questo cancello della signorina Monflathers si mostrava ostile a tutta l’umanità. Anche il macellaio lo rispettava come un cancello di mistero, e smetteva di fischiettare quando suonava il campanello.

Quando Nell si avvicinò alla terribile porta, questa si aprì lentamente sui cardini con un cigolio, e, dal solenne boschetto oltre, uscì una lunga fila di giovani signorine, due a due, tutte con libri aperti in mano, e alcune con ombrellini. E ultima della bella processione veniva Miss Monflathers, che portava un ombrellino di seta color lilla, e sostenuta da due insegnanti sorridenti, ciascuna mortalmente invidiosa dell’altra, e devote a Miss Monflathers.

Confusa dagli sguardi e dai bisbigli delle ragazze, Nell rimase con gli occhi bassi e subì il passaggio della processione, finché Miss Monflathers, che chiudeva la fila, si avvicinò a lei, e allora Nell fece una riverenza e le presentò il suo pacchettino; ricevutolo, Miss Monflathers ordinò che la fila si fermasse.

‘You’re the wax-work child, are you not?’ said Miss Monflathers.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were fixed.

‘And don’t you think you must be a very wicked little child,’ said Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the young ladies, ‘to be a wax-work child at all?’

Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before.

‘Don’t you know,’ said Miss Monflathers, ‘that it’s very naughty and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation?’

The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard. Then they smiled and glanced at Miss Monflathers, and then, their eyes meeting, they exchanged looks which plainly said that each considered herself smiler in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and regarded the other as having no right to smile, and that her so doing was an act of presumption and impertinence.

‘Don’t you feel how naughty it is of you,’ resumed Miss Monflathers, ‘to be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of the steam-engine; and of earning a comfortable and independent subsistence of from two-and-ninepence to three shillings per week? Don’t you know that the harder you are at work, the happier you are?’

‘“How doth the little—“’ murmured one of the teachers, in quotation from Doctor Watts.

‘Eh?’ said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round. ‘Who said that?’

Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who had, whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace; by that means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.

‘The little busy bee,’ said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up, ‘is applicable only to genteel children.

“In books, or work, or healthful play”

is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery. In such cases as these,’ pointing to Nell, with her parasol, ‘and in the case of all poor people’s children, we should read it thus:

“In work, work, work. In work alway Let my first years be past, That I may give for ev’ry day Some good account at last.”’

A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but from all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss Monflathers improvising after this brilliant style; for although she had been long known as a politician, she had never appeared before as an original poet. Just then somebody happened to discover that Nell was crying, and all eyes were again turned towards her.

There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief to brush them away, she happened to let it fall. Before she could stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who had been standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no recognised place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand. She was gliding timidly away again, when she was arrested by the governess.

‘It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,’ said Miss Monflathers predictively. ‘Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.’

It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss Edwards herself admitted that it was.

‘Is it not,’ said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a severer view of the offender, ‘a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that all I say and do will not wean you from propensities which your original station in life have unhappily rendered habitual to you, you extremely vulgar-minded girl?’

‘I really intended no harm, ma’am,’ said a sweet voice. ‘It was a momentary impulse, indeed.’

‘An impulse!’ repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully. ‘I wonder that you presume to speak of impulses to me’—both the teachers assented—‘I am astonished’—both the teachers were astonished—‘I suppose it is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and debased person that comes in your way’—both the teachers supposed so too.

‘But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,’ resumed the governess in a tone of increased severity, ‘that you cannot be permitted—if it be only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this establishment—that you cannot be permitted, and that you shall not be permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in this exceedingly gross manner. If you have no reason to feel a becoming pride before wax-work children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, Miss Edwards.’

This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the school—taught for nothing—teaching others what she learnt, for nothing—boarded for nothing—lodged for nothing—and set down and rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers in the house. The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for they were better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations with much more respect. The teachers were infinitely superior, for they had paid to go to school in their time, and were paid now. The pupils cared little for a companion who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to come with post-horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and nothing to display. But why was Miss Monflathers always vexed and irritated with the poor apprentice—how did that come to pass?

«Sei la bambina di cera bambina, non è così?» disse Miss Monflathers.

«Sì, signora», rispose Nell, arrossendo profondamente, poiché le giovani signore si erano radunate intorno a lei, e lei era al centro di tutti gli sguardi.

«E non credi di essere un bambino molto cattivo,» disse Miss Monflathers, che aveva un carattere piuttosto incerto e non perdeva occasione per imprimere verità morali nelle giovani menti delle ragazze, «per essere un bambino di cera bambino del tutto?»

La povera Nell non aveva mai considerato la sua posizione sotto questa luce, e non sapendo cosa dire, rimase in silenzio, arrossendo più intensamente di prima.

«Non sapete forse», disse Miss Monflathers, «che è molto cattivo e poco femminile, e una perversione delle proprietà saggiamente e benignamente trasmesse a noi, con poteri espansivi da risvegliare dal loro stato di dormienza attraverso la coltivazione?»

Le due maestre mormorarono il loro rispettoso assenso a questo colpo di casa, e guardarono Nell come se avessero voluto dire che lì Miss Monflathers l’aveva colpita davvero duramente. Poi sorrisero e guardarono Miss Monflathers, e poi, i loro sguardi si incontrarono, scambiarono occhiate che dicevano chiaramente che ciascuna si considerava la sorridente ordinaria di Miss Monflathers, e considerava l’altra come non avendo il diritto di sorridere, e che il suo farlo era un atto di presunzione e impertinenza.

«Non sentite quanto è cattivo da parte vostra», riprese Miss Monflathers, «essere un bambino di cera bambino, quando potreste avere la nobile consapevolezza di aiutare, nella misura delle vostre forze infantili, le industrie del vostro paese; di migliorare la vostra mente con la costante contemplazione della macchina a vapore; e di guadagnarvi un’esistenza comoda e indipendente di due scellini e nove pence a tre scellini a settimana? Non sapete che più siete al lavoro, più siete felici?»

«“Come fa il piccolo—“» mormorò uno degli insegnanti, citando il dottor Watts.

“Eh?” disse Miss Monflathers, girandosi rapidamente. “Chi ha detto questo?”

Naturalmente l’insegnante che non l’aveva detto, indicò la rivale che l’aveva detto, e la signorina Monflathers, aggrottando la fronte, le chiese di tacere; con ciò gettando l’insegnante informatrice in rapimenti di gioia.

«L’operosa ape», disse Miss Monflathers, raddrizzandosi, «si applica solo ai bambini ben educati.

Nei libri, nel lavoro o nel gioco sano

è del tutto corretto per quanto li riguarda; e il lavoro significa dipingere su velluto, lavori all’uncinetto o ricamo. In casi come questi», indicando Nell con il suo ombrello, «e nel caso di tutti i figli dei poveri, dovremmo leggerlo così:

«Lavora, lavora, lavora. Lavora sempre Che i miei primi anni siano trascorsi, Che io possa dare per ogni giorno Almeno un buon resoconto.»

Un profondo mormorio di applausi si levò non solo dai due insegnanti, ma da tutti gli alunni, che erano ugualmente stupiti di sentire Miss Monflathers improvvisare in questo stile brillante; poiché, sebbene fosse da tempo conosciuta come politica, non si era mai presentata prima come poetessa originale. Proprio in quel momento qualcuno si accorse che Nell stava piangendo, e tutti gli occhi si rivolsero di nuovo verso di lei.

C’erano davvero lacrime nei suoi occhi, e mentre tirava fuori il fazzoletto per asciugarle, le capitò di farlo cadere. Prima che potesse chinarsi a raccoglierlo, una giovane signorina di circa quindici o sedici anni, che era stata in piedi un po’ in disparte dalle altre, come se non avesse un posto riconosciuto tra loro, si fece avanti e glielo mise in mano. Stava allontanandosi timidamente di nuovo, quando fu fermata dall’insegnante.

«È stata la signorina Edwards a farlo, LO SO», disse la signorina Monflathers con tono profetico. «Ora sono sicura che è stata la signorina Edwards.»

Era la signorina Edwards, e tutti dicevano che era la signorina Edwards, e la stessa signorina Edwards ammise che lo era.

«Non è forse», disse Miss Monflathers, posando il suo ombrello per osservare con maggiore severità l’offensore, «una cosa davvero notevole, Miss Edwards, che lei abbia un attaccamento per le classi inferiori che la spinge sempre dalla loro parte; o, piuttosto, non è forse una cosa davvero straordinaria che tutto ciò che dico e faccio non riesca a distoglierla da propensioni che la sua originaria condizione sociale ha sfortunatamente reso abituali in lei, ragazza di mentalità estremamente volgare?»

«Non avevo davvero intenzione di fare del male, signora», disse una voce dolce. «È stato davvero un impulso momentaneo.»

«Un impulso!» ripeté Miss Monflathers con disprezzo. «Mi stupisco che tu presuma di parlarmi di impulsi» — entrambe le insegnanti annuirono — «sono sbalordita» — entrambe le insegnanti erano sbalordite — «suppongo che sia un impulso a spingerti a prendere le difese di ogni persona meschina e degradata che ti capita a tiro» — anche le due insegnanti lo supponevano.

«Ma voglio che lei sappia, Miss Edwards», riprese la governante con un tono di severità ancora maggiore, «che non le sarà permesso - se non altro per mantenere un esempio adeguato e il decoro in questa istituzione - che non le sarà permesso, e che non le sarà permesso, di sfidare i suoi superiori in questo modo estremamente grossolano. Se non ha motivo di provare un orgoglio appropriato davanti a bambini di cera, ci sono giovani signore qui che ce l’hanno, e lei deve o rispettare quelle giovani signore o lasciare l’istituto, Miss Edwards.»

Questa giovane, essendo senza madre e povera, era apprendista alla scuola — istruita gratis — insegnava agli altri ciò che imparava, gratis — alloggiata gratis — vitto gratis — e considerata e catalogata come qualcosa di infinitamente meno che niente, da tutti gli abitanti della casa. Le cameriere sentivano la sua inferiorità, perché erano trattate meglio; libere di andare e venire, e considerate nei loro posti con molto più rispetto. Le insegnanti erano infinitamente superiori, perché avevano pagato per andare a scuola nel loro tempo, e venivano pagate adesso. Le allieve non si curavano di una compagna che non aveva grandi storie da raccontare sulla casa; nessun amico che arrivasse con cavalli di posta, e fosse ricevuto con tutta umiltà, con dolci e vino, dalla governante; nessun servitore deferente che la accompagnasse e portasse a casa per le vacanze; nulla di gentile da raccontare, e nulla da mostrare. Ma perché la signorina Monflathers era sempre irritata e infastidita dalla povera apprendista — come era successo?

Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers’s cap, and the brightest glory of Miss Monflathers’s school, was a baronet’s daughter—the real live daughter of a real live baronet—who, by some extraordinary reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only plain in features but dull in intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit, and a handsome face and figure. It seems incredible. Here was Miss Edwards, who only paid a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and excelling the baronet’s daughter, who learned all the extras (or was taught them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to double that of any other young lady’s in the school, making no account of the honour and reputation of her pupilage. Therefore, and because she was a dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss Edwards, and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as we have already seen.

‘You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,’ said Miss Monflathers. ‘Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to leave it without permission.’

The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in nautical phrase, ‘brought to’ by a subdued shriek from Miss Monflathers.

‘She has passed me without any salute!’ cried the governess, raising her eyes to the sky. ‘She has actually passed me without the slightest acknowledgment of my presence!’

The young lady turned and curtsied. Nell could see that she raised her dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most touching appeal against this ungenerous usage. Miss Monflathers only tossed her head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting heart.

‘As for you, you wicked child,’ said Miss Monflathers, turning to Nell, ‘tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty of sending to me any more, I will write to the legislative authorities and have her put in the stocks, or compelled to do penance in a white sheet; and you may depend upon it that you shall certainly experience the treadmill if you dare to come here again. Now ladies, on.’

The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols, and Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet’s daughter to walk with her and smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers—who by this time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy—and left them to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little more for being obliged to walk together.

Dunque, la piuma più gaia del cappello di Miss Monflathers e la più splendente gloria della scuola di Miss Monflathers era la figlia di un baronetto, la vera figlia vivente di un vero baronetto vivente, che, per una straordinaria inversione delle Leggi della Natura, non era solo priva di bellezza nei tratti ma ottusa nell’intelletto, mentre la povera apprendista aveva sia un’arguta prontezza d’ingegno, sia un viso e una figura attraenti. Sembra incredibile. Ecco Miss Edwards, che pagava solo un piccolo corrispettivo che era stato speso da tempo, che ogni giorno oscurava e superava la figlia del baronetto, che imparava tutti gli extra (o gli venivano insegnati tutti) e la cui bolletta semestrale ammontava al doppio di quella di qualsiasi altra giovane signora della scuola, senza tener conto dell’onore e della reputazione del suo allievo. Pertanto, e perché era una dipendente, Miss Monflathers aveva una grande avversione per Miss Edwards, e le era maligna, e ne era esasperata, e, quando aveva compassione per la piccola Nell, la aggrediva verbalmente e la maltrattava come abbiamo già visto.

«Non uscirà a prendere aria oggi, Miss Edwards», disse Miss Monflathers. «Avrà la gentilezza di ritirarsi nella sua stanza e di non uscirne senza permesso.»

La povera ragazza si stava allontanando in fretta, quando fu improvvisamente, per usare un’espressione nautica, “fermata” da un grido soffocato della signorina Monflathers.

«Mi ha superata senza salutarmi!» esclamò la governante, alzando gli occhi al cielo. «Mi ha effettivamente superata senza il minimo riconoscimento della mia presenza!»

La giovane signorina si voltò e fece una riverenza. Nell poteva vedere che alzava i suoi occhi scuri al volto della sua superiore, e che la loro espressione, e quella del suo atteggiamento complessivo in quell’istante, era un appello muto ma estremamente commovente contro questo comportamento meschino. Miss Monflathers rispose solo con un movimento della testa, e il grande cancello si chiuse su un cuore in pezzi.

«Quanto a te, tu cattivo bambino», disse Miss Monflathers, rivolgendosi a Nell, «di’ alla tua padrona che se si permette di prendersi la libertà di mandarmi altro, scriverò alle autorità legislative e la farò mettere ai ceppi, o costretta a fare penitenza in un lenzuolo bianco; e puoi star certo che proverai certamente la ruota se osi tornare qui di nuovo. Ora, signore, andiamo.»

La processione si allontanò, due a due, con i libri e gli ombrelli, e la signorina Monflathers, chiamando la figlia del baronetto a passeggiare con lei e a lenire i suoi sentimenti turbati, scartò le due insegnanti — che a quest’ora avevano scambiato i loro sorrisi per sguardi di simpatia — e le lasciò per chiudere la fila, e odiarsi un po’ di più per essere obbligate a camminare insieme.

CHAPTER 32

Mrs Jarley’s wrath on first learning that she had been threatened with the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description. The genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by children, and flouted by beadles! The delight of the Nobility and Gentry shorn of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to wear, and arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification and humility! And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who presumed, even in the dimmest and remotest distance of her imagination, to conjure up the degrading picture, ‘I am a’most inclined,’ said Mrs Jarley, bursting with the fulness of her anger and the weakness of her means of revenge, ‘to turn atheist when I think of it!’

But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them several times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had received. This done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to drink; then laughed, then cried, then took a little sip herself, then laughed and cried again, and took a little more; and so, by degrees, the worthy lady went on, increasing in smiles and decreasing in tears, until at last she could not laugh enough at Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object of dire vexation, became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity.

‘For which of us is best off, I wonder,’ quoth Mrs Jarley, ‘she or me! It’s only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks of me in the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is a good deal funnier if we come to that. Lord, what does it matter, after all!’

Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had been greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of the philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind words, and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought of Miss Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her, all the days of her life.

So ended Mrs Jarley’s wrath, which subsided long before the going down of the sun. Nell’s anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind, and the checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so easily removed.

That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and did not come back until the night was far spent. Worn out as she was, and fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the minutes, until he returned—penniless, broken-spirited, and wretched, but still hotly bent upon his infatuation.

‘Get me money,’ he said wildly, as they parted for the night. ‘I must have money, Nell. It shall be paid thee back with gallant interest one day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must be mine—not for myself, but to use for thee. Remember, Nell, to use for thee!’

What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him every penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to rob their benefactress? If she told the truth (so thought the child) he would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with money, he would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that burnt him up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery. Distracted by these thoughts, borne down by the weight of the sorrow which she dared not tell, tortured by a crowd of apprehensions whenever the old man was absent, and dreading alike his stay and his return, the colour forsook her cheek, her eye grew dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy. All her old sorrows had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and doubts; by day they were ever present to her mind; by night they hovered round her pillow, and haunted her in dreams.

It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should often revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a hasty glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief action, dwelt in her memory like the kindnesses of years. She would often think, if she had such a friend as that to whom to tell her griefs, how much lighter her heart would be—that if she were but free to hear that voice, she would be happier. Then she would wish that she were something better, that she were not quite so poor and humble, that she dared address her without fearing a repulse; and then feel that there was an immeasurable distance between them, and have no hope that the young lady thought of her any more.

It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had gone home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in London, and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but nobody said anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home, or whether she had any home to go to, whether she was still at the school, or anything about her. But one evening, as Nell was returning from a lonely walk, she happened to pass the inn where the stage-coaches stopped, just as one drove up, and there was the beautiful girl she so well remembered, pressing forward to embrace a young child whom they were helping down from the roof.

Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than Nell, whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five years, and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had been saving her poor means all that time. Nell felt as if her heart would break when she saw them meet. They went a little apart from the knot of people who had congregated about the coach, and fell upon each other’s neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy. Their plain and simple dress, the distance which the child had come alone, their agitation and delight, and the tears they shed, would have told their history by themselves.

CAPITOLO 32

L’ira della signora Jarley quando apprese per la prima volta che le era stata minacciata l’onta della Gogna e della Penitenza, superò ogni descrizione. La vera e unica Jarley esposta allo scherno pubblico, derisa dai bambini e beffata dai sagrestani! Il diletto della Nobiltà e del Ceto superiore privato di un cappello che una signora sindaca avrebbe sospirato di indossare, e vestito di un lenzuolo bianco come spettacolo di mortificazione e umiltà! E la signorina Monflathers, la creatura audace che osò, anche nella più remota e oscura distanza della sua immaginazione, evocare l’immagine degradante, «Sono quasi incline», disse la signora Jarley, scoppiando per la pienezza della sua rabbia e la debolezza dei suoi mezzi di vendetta, «a diventare atea quando ci penso!»

Ma invece di adottare questo corso di rappresaglia, la signora Jarley, dopo averci ripensato, tirò fuori la bottiglia sospetta e ordinò che venissero messi dei bicchieri sul suo tamburo preferito, e sprofondando in una sedia dietro di esso, chiamò i suoi satelliti intorno a sé e a loro raccontò più volte, parola per parola, gli affronti che aveva ricevuto. Fatto ciò, li pregò in una specie di profondo dispero di bere; poi rise, poi pianse, poi prese un piccolo sorso anche lei, poi rise e pianse di nuovo, e ne prese un po’ di più; e così, a poco a poco, la degna signora andò avanti, aumentando nei sorrisi e diminuendo nelle lacrime, finché alla fine non poté ridere abbastanza di Miss Monflathers, che, dall’essere un oggetto di terribile irritazione, divenne uno di puro ridicolo e assurdità.

«Di noi due, chi è più fortunato, mi domando,» disse la signora Jarley, «lei o io! È solo chiacchiera, quando tutto è detto e fatto, e se lei parla di me nei ceppi, io posso parlare di lei nei ceppi, il che è molto più divertente, se ci pensiamo. Signore, in fondo che importanza ha!»

Essendo giunta a questo confortante stato d’animo (a cui l’avevano molto contribuito certi brevi commenti interlocutori del filosofico George), la signora Jarley consolò Nell con molte parole gentili, e le chiese come un favore personale che ogni volta che pensasse alla signorina Monflathers, non facesse altro che ridere di lei, tutti i giorni della sua vita.

Così finì l’ira della signora Jarley, che si placò ben prima del tramonto del sole. Le ansie di Nell, tuttavia, erano di natura più profonda, e i freni che imponevano alla sua allegria non erano così facili da rimuovere.

Quella sera, come temeva, suo nonno se ne andò e non tornò finché la notte non era molto avanzata. Stanca com’era, e affaticata nello spirito e nel corpo, rimase seduta sola, contando i minuti, finché non tornò, senza un soldo, con lo spirito spezzato e infelice, ma ancora appassionatamente attaccato alla sua infatuazione.

«Procurami dei soldi», disse in modo selvaggio, mentre si separavano per la notte. «Devo avere dei soldi, Nell. Un giorno ti saranno restituiti con un interesse generoso, ma tutti i soldi che ti capitano tra le mani devono essere miei, non per me stesso, ma per usarli per te. Ricordati, Nell, per usarli per te!»

Che cosa poteva fare la bambina con la conoscenza che aveva, se non dargli ogni soldo che le capitava tra le mani, per timore che fosse tentato di derubare la loro benefattrice? Se avesse detto la verità (così pensava la bambina) lui sarebbe stato trattato come un pazzo; se non gli avesse fornito denaro, lui se lo sarebbe procurato da solo; fornendoglielo, alimentava il fuoco che lo consumava, e forse lo metteva al di là di ogni possibilità di guarigione. Distratta da questi pensieri, schiacciata dal peso del dolore che non osava confessare, torturata da una moltitudine di apprensioni ogni volta che il vecchio era assente, e temendo tanto il suo soggiorno quanto il suo ritorno, il colore abbandonò la sua guancia, il suo sguardo si offuscò, e il suo cuore fu oppresso e pesante. Tutti i suoi vecchi dolori erano tornati a perseguitarla, aumentati da nuove paure e dubbi; di giorno erano sempre presenti alla sua mente; di notte aleggiavano intorno al suo cuscino, e la perseguitavano nei sogni.

Era naturale che, nel mezzo del suo dolore, tornasse spesso con il pensiero a quella giovane signorina di cui aveva colto solo uno sguardo fugace, ma la cui simpatia, espressa in un piccolo gesto, le rimaneva impressa nella memoria come fosse stata la gentilezza di anni. Spesso pensava che, se avesse avuto un’amica come quella a cui confidare le sue pene, il suo cuore sarebbe stato molto più leggero; che se solo avesse potuto ascoltare quella voce, sarebbe stata più felice. Poi desiderava di essere qualcosa di meglio, di non essere così povera e umile, di osare rivolgersi a lei senza temere un rifiuto; e poi si rendeva conto che c’era un’immensa distanza tra loro, e non aveva speranza che la giovane signorina pensasse ancora a lei.

Era ora di vacanza nelle scuole, e le giovani signore erano tornate a casa, e la signorina Monflathers si diceva stesse prosperando a Londra, e stesse spezzando il cuore di signori di mezza età, ma nessuno diceva nulla della signorina Edwards, se fosse tornata a casa, o se avesse una casa dove andare, se fosse ancora a scuola, o qualsiasi altra cosa su di lei. Ma una sera, mentre Nell tornava da una passeggiata solitaria, le capitò di passare dall’osteria dove si fermavano i corrieri, proprio mentre ne arrivava uno, e c’era la bella ragazza che ricordava così bene, che si faceva avanti per abbracciare una giovane bambina che aiutavano a scendere dal tetto.

Ecco, questa era sua sorella, la sua sorellina, molto più giovane di Nell, che non aveva più visto (così si raccontò in seguito) da cinque anni, e per portarla in quel luogo per una breve visita, aveva risparmiato i suoi miseri mezzi per tutto quel tempo. Nell sentì come se il suo cuore stesse per spezzarsi quando li vide incontrarsi. Si allontanarono un po’ dal gruppo di persone che si erano radunate intorno al carro, e si gettarono l’una al collo dell’altra, singhiozzando e piangendo di gioia. Il loro abito semplice e modesto, la distanza che il bambino aveva percorso da solo, la loro agitazione e gioia, e le lacrime che versavano, avrebbero raccontato da sole la loro storia.

They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away, not so much hand in hand as clinging to each other. ‘Are you sure you’re happy, sister?’ said the child as they passed where Nell was standing. ‘Quite happy now,’ she answered. ‘But always?’ said the child. ‘Ah, sister, why do you turn away your face?’

Nell could not help following at a little distance. They went to the house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a bed-room for the child. ‘I shall come to you early every morning,’ she said, ‘and we can be together all the day.’

‘Why not at night-time too? Dear sister, would they be angry with you for that?’

Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like those of the two sisters? Why did she bear a grateful heart because they had met, and feel it pain to think that they would shortly part? Let us not believe that any selfish reference—unconscious though it might have been—to her own trials awoke this sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys of others can strongly move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature, have one source of pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!

By morning’s cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening’s gentle light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy intercourse of these two sisters which forbade her to approach and say a thankful word, although she yearned to do so, followed them at a distance in their walks and rambles, stopping when they stopped, sitting on the grass when they sat down, rising when they went on, and feeling it a companionship and delight to be so near them. Their evening walk was by a river’s side. Here, every night, the child was too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded; but feeling as if they were her friends, as if they had confidences and trusts together, as if her load were lightened and less hard to bear; as if they mingled their sorrows, and found mutual consolation. It was a weak fancy perhaps, the childish fancy of a young and lonely creature; but night after night, and still the sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child followed with a mild and softened heart.

She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that Mrs Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the effect that the stupendous collection would only remain in its present quarters one day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for all announcements connected with public amusements are well known to be irrevocable and most exact), the stupendous collection shut up next day.

‘Are we going from this place directly, ma’am?’ said Nell.

‘Look here, child,’ returned Mrs Jarley. ‘That’ll inform you.’ And so saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it was stated, that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the wax-work door, and in consequence of crowds having been disappointed in obtaining admission, the Exhibition would be continued for one week longer, and would re-open next day.

‘For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers exhausted,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘we come to the General Public, and they want stimulating.’

Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public. But the first day’s operations were by no means of a successful character, inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected by any impulses moving them to the payment of sixpence a head. Thus, notwithstanding that a great many people continued to stare at the entry and the figures therein displayed; and remained there with great perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ played and to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were kind enough to recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition in the like manner, until the door-way was regularly blockaded by half the population of the town, who, when they went off duty, were relieved by the other half; it was not found that the treasury was any the richer, or that the prospects of the establishment were at all encouraging.

In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the popular curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way, who looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the degrading effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of the Romish Church and discoursed upon that theme with great eloquence and morality. The two carters constantly passed in and out of the exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting aloud that the sight was better worth the money than anything they had beheld in all their lives, and urging the bystanders, with tears in their eyes, not to neglect such a brilliant gratification. Mrs Jarley sat in the pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon till night, and solemnly calling upon the crowd to take notice that the price of admission was only sixpence, and that the departure of the whole collection, on a short tour among the Crowned Heads of Europe, was positively fixed for that day week.

‘So be in time, be in time, be in time,’ said Mrs Jarley at the close of every such address. ‘Remember that this is Jarley’s stupendous collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that it is the only collection in the world; all others being imposters and deceptions. Be in time, be in time, be in time!’

Si calmarono un po’ dopo poco tempo e se ne andarono, non tanto mano nella mano quanto aggrappandosi l’uno all’altra. «Sei sicura di essere felice, sorella?» disse il bambino mentre passavano vicino a dove Nell era in piedi. «Sono felice adesso» rispose lei. «Ma sempre?» disse il bambino. «Ah, sorella, perché distogli il viso?»

Nell non poté fare a meno di seguirli a poca distanza. Andarono alla casa di una vecchia balia, dove la sorella maggiore aveva preso una camera da letto per la bambina. «Verrò da voi ogni mattina presto», disse, «e potremo stare insieme tutto il giorno».

«Perché non anche di notte-tempo? Cara sorella, sarebbero arrabbiati con te per questo?»

Perché gli occhi di piccola Nell erano bagnati, quella notte, di lacrime come quelle delle due sorelle? Perché portava un cuore grato perché si erano incontrate, e provava dolore al pensiero che presto si sarebbero separate? Non crediamo che un riferimento egoista—per quanto inconscio—ai suoi stessi dolori abbia suscitato questa simpatia, ma ringraziamo Dio che le gioie innocenti degli altri possano commuoverci profondamente, e che noi, anche nella nostra caduta natura, abbiamo una fonte di pura emozione che deve essere apprezzata in Cielo!

Alla luce allegra del mattino, ma più spesso ancora alla luce dolce della sera, la bambina, con un rispetto per il breve e felice rapporto tra le due sorelle che le vietava di avvicinarsi e dire una parola di ringraziamento, anche se lo desiderava ardentemente, le seguiva a distanza nelle loro passeggiate e gite, fermandosi quando si fermavano, sedendosi sull’erba quando si sedevano, alzandosi quando riprendevano a camminare, e sentendo che era una compagnia e un piacere essere così vicina a loro. La loro passeggiata serale era lungo un fiume. Qui, ogni sera, la bambina era anche lei, invisibile ai loro occhi, non pensata, non considerata; ma sentendosi come se fossero sue amiche, come se avessero confidenze e fiducia reciproca, come se il suo carico fosse alleggerito e meno difficile da sopportare; come se mescolassero i loro dolori e trovassero reciproca consolazione. Era forse una debole fantasia, la fantasia infantile di una creatura giovane e solitaria; ma sera dopo sera, e ancora le sorelle si soffermavano nello stesso posto, e ancora la bambina le seguiva con un cuore mite e addolcito.

Fu molto sorpresa, al suo ritorno a casa una sera, di scoprire che la signora Jarley aveva ordinato di preparare un annuncio che recitava che la stupenda collezione sarebbe rimasta nella sua attuale sede per un solo giorno in più; e in adempimento a questa minaccia (perché tutti gli annunci relativi agli spettacoli pubblici sono ben noti per essere irrevocabili e rigorosamente eseguiti), la stupenda collezione chiuse i battenti il giorno successivo.

«Stiamo andando via da questo posto direttamente, signora?» disse Nell.

«Guarda qui, bambino», rispose la signora Jarley. «Questo ti informerà.» E così dicendo la signora Jarley produsse un altro annuncio, nel quale si affermava che, a seguito di numerose richieste alla porta della mostra di cera e a causa delle delusioni della folla che non era riuscita ad ottenere l’ingresso, la mostra sarebbe stata prolungata per un’altra settimana e sarebbe stata riaperta il giorno successivo.

«Per ora che le scuole sono chiuse e i visitatori abituali sono esauriti», disse la signora Jarley, «ci rivolgiamo al Grande Pubblico, e questo ha bisogno di essere stimolato.»

Il giorno seguente, a mezzogiorno, la signora Jarley si sistemò dietro il tavolo altamente decorato, in compagnia delle distinte effigi precedentemente menzionate, e ordinò che le porte venissero spalancate per la riammissione di un pubblico esigente e illuminato. Ma le operazioni del primo giorno non ebbero affatto un carattere di successo, in quanto il pubblico in generale, sebbene manifestasse un vivo interesse per la signora Jarley in persona, e per i suoi satelliti di cera che potevano essere visti gratuitamente, non fu spinto da alcun impulso a pagare sei pence a testa. Così, nonostante che un gran numero di persone continuasse a fissare l’ingresso e le figure ivi esposte; e vi rimanesse con grande perseveranza, per ore e ore a volta, per ascoltare il carillon e leggere i manifesti; e nonostante che fossero abbastanza gentili da raccomandare ai loro amici di sostenere l’esposizione allo stesso modo, fino a quando il passaggio era regolarmente bloccato da metà della popolazione della città, che, quando finiva il turno, veniva rimpiazzata dall’altra metà; non si scoprì che il tesoro fosse più ricco, né che le prospettive dell’istituto fossero affatto incoraggianti.

In questo stato di depressione del mercato classico, la signora Jarley fece sforzi straordinari per stimolare il gusto popolare e acuire la curiosità del pubblico. Una certa macchina nel corpo della suora sul tetto sopra la porta fu ripulita e messa in moto, così che la figura scuoteva la testa paraliticamente tutto il giorno, suscitando grande ammirazione in un barbiere ubriaco, ma molto protestante, dall’altra parte della strada, che considerava quel movimento paralitico come tipico dell’effetto degradante che le cerimonie della Chiesa Romana avevano sulla mente umana e discettava su quel tema con grande eloquenza e moralità. I due carrettieri passavano costantemente dentro e fuori dalla sala espositiva, sotto vari travestimenti, protestando ad alta voce che lo spettacolo valeva più del denaro che avevano speso di qualsiasi cosa avessero mai visto in tutta la loro vita, e esortando i presenti, con lacrime agli occhi, a non trascurare una gratificazione così brillante. La signora Jarley sedeva al banco dei pagamenti, facendo tintinnare monete d’argento da mezzogiorno a notte, e solennemente invitando la folla a notare che il prezzo di ingresso era solo di sei pence, e che la partenza dell’intera collezione, per un breve tour tra le Teste Coronate d’Europa, era fissata positivamente per quel giorno della settimana.

«Siate puntuali, siate puntuali, siate puntuali,» diceva la signora Jarley alla fine di ogni discorso del genere. «Ricordate che questa è la stupenda collezione di Jarley, composta da oltre cento figure, e che è l’unica collezione al mondo; tutte le altre sono impostori e inganni. Siate puntuali, siate puntuali, siate puntuali!»

CHAPTER 33

As the course of this tale requires that we should become acquainted, somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected with the domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more convenient place than the present is not likely to occur for that purpose, the historian takes the friendly reader by the hand, and springing with him into the air, and cleaving the same at a greater rate than ever Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar travelled through that pleasant region in company, alights with him upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.

The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the residence of Mr Sampson Brass.

In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close upon the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the dim glass with his coat sleeve—much to its improvement, for it is very dirty—in this parlour window in the days of its occupation by Sampson Brass, there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured by the sun, a curtain of faded green, so threadbare from long service as by no means to intercept the view of the little dark room, but rather to afford a favourable medium through which to observe it accurately. There was not much to look at. A rickety table, with spare bundles of papers, yellow and ragged from long carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a couple of stools set face to face on opposite sides of this crazy piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the fire-place, whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and helped to squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository for blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with the tightness of desperation to its tacks—these, with the yellow wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of Mr Sampson Brass.

But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the plate, ‘BRASS, Solicitor,’ upon the door, and the bill, ‘First floor to let to a single gentleman,’ which was tied to the knocker. The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest and more particular concern.

Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in these pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of cost increaser, Miss Brass—a kind of amazon at common law, of whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.

Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her. In face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson—so exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass’s maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have assumed her brother’s clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him, it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in all probability, nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies. In complexion Miss Brass was sallow—rather a dirty sallow, so to speak—but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her voice was exceedingly impressive—deep and rich in quality, and, once heard, not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a peculiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress.

Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross, fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in short, transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a skin of parchment or mending a pen. It is difficult to understand how, possessed of these combined attractions, she should remain Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart against mankind, or whether those who might have wooed and won her, were deterred by fears that, being learned in the law, she might have too near her fingers’ ends those particular statutes which regulate what are familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she was still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson. And equally certain it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great many people had come to the ground.

CAPITOLO 33

Poiché il corso di questo racconto richiede che ci familiarizziamo, da qualche parte qui intorno, con alcuni particolari connessi all’economia domestica del signor Sampson Brass, e poiché un luogo più comodo di quello attuale non è probabile che si presenti a tale scopo, lo storico prende per mano il lettore amico, e saltando con lui in aria, fendendo lo stesso a una velocità maggiore di quella con cui Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo e il suo familiare viaggiavano attraverso quella piacevole regione in compagnia, atterra con lui sul marciapiede di Bevis Marks.

Gli intrepidi aeronauti scendono davanti a una piccola casa scura, un tempo residenza del signor Sampson Brass.

Nella finestra del salotto di questa piccola abitazione, che si trova così vicina al marciapiede che il passante che cammina lungo il muro sfiora il vetro opaco con la manica del cappotto - molto a suo vantaggio, perché è molto sporco - in questa finestra del salotto, ai tempi in cui era occupata da Sampson Brass, pendeva, tutta storta e lasca, e sbiadita dal sole, una tenda verde sbiadita, così logora per il lungo uso da non intercettare affatto la vista della piccola stanza buia, ma piuttosto offrire un mezzo favorevole per osservarla con precisione. Non c’era molto da guardare. Un tavolo traballante, con fasci di documenti sparsi, gialli e strappati per essere stati a lungo in tasca, esposti in modo ostentato sulla sua superficie; una coppia di sgabelli posti uno di fronte all’altro sui lati opposti di questo pezzo di mobilio malandato; una vecchia sedia traditrice accanto al fuoco, le cui braccia avvizzite avevano abbracciato molti clienti e li avevano aiutati a spremere fino all’ultima goccia; una scatola per parrucche di seconda mano, usata come deposito per mandati in bianco e dichiarazioni e altri piccoli moduli legali, che un tempo erano l’unico contenuto della testa a cui apparteneva la parrucca a cui apparteneva la scatola, come lo erano ora della scatola stessa; due o tre comuni libri di pratica; un barattolo di inchiostro, una scatola di polvere per cancellare, una scopa da camino stentata, un tappeto ridotto a brandelli ma che ancora si aggrappava con la disperazione alle sue viti - questi, con il rivestimento giallo delle pareti, il soffitto annerito dal fumo, la polvere e le ragnatele, erano tra le decorazioni più prominenti dell’ufficio del signor Sampson Brass.

Ma si trattava solo di natura morta, di nessuna maggiore importanza del piatto, ‘BRASS, Avvocato’, sulla porta, e della scritta, ‘Primo piano in affitto a un gentiluomo single’, che era legata al batacchio. L’ufficio conteneva comunemente due esempi di natura animata, più pertinenti allo scopo di questa storia, e nei quali essa ha un interesse più forte e una preoccupazione più particolare.

Tra questi c’era lo stesso signor Brass, già apparso in queste pagine. L’altro era la sua impiegata, assistente, governante, segretaria, complice fidata, consigliera, intrigante e aumentatrice di fatture, la signorina Brass, una specie di amazzone del diritto comune, della quale potrebbe essere utile offrire una breve descrizione.

La signorina Sally Brass, dunque, era una signora di trentacinque anni circa, di figura magra e ossuta, e di portamento risoluto, che se da un lato reprimesse le più tenere emozioni dell’amore, e tenesse gli ammiratori a distanza, certamente ispirava un sentimento di timore reverenziale nel cuore di quegli estranei di sesso maschile che avevano la fortuna di avvicinarla. Nel viso, somigliava in modo sorprendente a suo fratello, Sampson: la somiglianza era così esatta, infatti, che se la modestia da nubile e la gentile femminilità della signorina Brass le avessero consentito di indossare i vestiti del fratello per scherzo e di sedersi accanto a lui, sarebbe stato difficile anche per il più vecchio amico della famiglia determinare chi fosse Sampson e chi Sally, specialmente perché la signorina portava sul labbro superiore certe manifestazioni rossicce che, se l’immaginazione fosse stata aiutata dal suo abbigliamento, avrebbero potuto essere scambiate per un pizzetto. Tuttavia, con ogni probabilità, non erano altro che ciglia fuori posto, dato che gli occhi della signorina Brass erano del tutto privi di tali naturali impertinenze. La carnagione della signorina Brass era giallastra, anzi, per così dire, piuttosto sporca, ma questo colore era piacevolmente alleviato dal rossore sano che si diffondeva sulla punta estrema del suo naso sorridente. La sua voce era estremamente impressionante, profonda e ricca di qualità, e, una volta sentita, non facilmente dimenticabile. Il suo abito abituale era un vestito verde, di colore non dissimile dalla tenda della finestra dell’ufficio, aderente al corpo e che terminava al collo, dove era fissato dietro da un bottone particolarmente grande e massiccio. Sentendo, senza dubbio, che la semplicità e la sobrietà sono l’anima dell’eleganza, la signorina Brass non indossava né colletto né fazzoletto, tranne che sulla testa, che era sempre ornata con una sciarpa di mussola marrone, simile all’ala del vampiro leggendario, e che, avvolta in qualsiasi forma le venisse in mente, formava un copricapo facile ed elegante.

Tale era la signorina Brass in persona. Per indole, era di un carattere forte e vigoroso, avendo fin dalla più tenera età dedicato se stessa con ardore straordinario allo studio del diritto; non sprecando le sue speculazioni nei suoi voli d’aquila, che sono rari, ma seguendolo attentamente attraverso tutti i suoi giri scivolosi e simili a quelli delle anguille in cui comunemente persegue la sua via. E non si era, come molte persone di grande intelligenza, limitata alla teoria, o fermata dove inizia l’utilità pratica; in quanto poteva trascrivere, fare copie pulite, compilare moduli stampati con perfetta accuratezza, e, in breve, svolgere qualsiasi dovere ordinario dell’ufficio fino a timbrare una pelle di pergamena o riparare una penna. È difficile capire come, possedendo queste attrattive combinate, dovesse rimanere la signorina Brass; ma se si fosse indurita il cuore contro l’umanità, o se coloro che avrebbero potuto corteggiarla e conquistarla, fossero stati scoraggiati dalla paura che, essendo istruita in diritto, potesse avere troppo a portata di mano quegli statuti particolari che regolano ciò che sono comunemente chiamati azioni per rottura, è certo che era ancora in stato di celibato, e ancora in quotidiana occupazione della sua vecchia sedia di fronte a quella di suo fratello Sampson. E altrettanto certo è, tra l’altro, che tra queste due sedie molte persone erano cadute a terra.

One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if he were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it was directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new pen preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her favourite occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time, until Miss Brass broke silence.

‘Have you nearly done, Sammy?’ said Miss Brass; for in her mild and feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened down.

‘No,’ returned her brother. ‘It would have been all done though, if you had helped at the right time.’

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ cried Miss Sally; ‘you want my help, don’t you?—YOU, too, that are going to keep a clerk!’

‘Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my own wish, you provoking rascal!’ said Mr Brass, putting his pen in his mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister. ‘What do you taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?’

It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling a lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that he was so habituated to having her near him in a man’s capacity, that he had gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though she were really a man. And this feeling was so perfectly reciprocal, that not only did Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a rascal, or even put an adjective before the rascal, but Miss Brass looked upon it as quite a matter of course, and was as little moved as any other lady would be by being called an angel.

‘What do you taunt me, after three hours’ talk last night, with going to keep a clerk for?’ repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with the pen in his mouth, like some nobleman’s or gentleman’s crest. ‘Is it my fault?’

‘All I know is,’ said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted in nothing so much as irritating her brother, ‘that if every one of your clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or not, you had better leave off business, strike yourself off the roll, and get taken in execution, as soon as you can.’

‘Have we got any other client like him?’ said Brass. ‘Have we got another client like him now—will you answer me that?’

‘Do you mean in the face!’ said his sister.

‘Do I mean in the face!’ sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to take up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly. ‘Look here—Daniel Quilp, Esquire—Daniel Quilp, Esquire—Daniel Quilp, Esquire—all through. Whether should I take a clerk that he recommends, and says, “this is the man for you,” or lose all this, eh?’

Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on with her work.

‘But I know what it is,’ resumed Brass after a short silence. ‘You’re afraid you won’t have as long a finger in the business as you’ve been used to have. Do you think I don’t see through that?’

‘The business wouldn’t go on very long, I expect, without me,’ returned his sister composedly. ‘Don’t you be a fool and provoke me, Sammy, but mind what you’re doing, and do it.’

Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister, sulkily bent over his writing again, and listened as she said:

‘If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he wouldn’t be allowed to come. You know that well enough, so don’t talk nonsense.’

Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely remarking, under his breath, that he didn’t like that kind of joking, and that Miss Sally would be ‘a much better fellow’ if she forbore to aggravate him. To this compliment Miss Sally replied, that she had a relish for the amusement, and had no intention to forego its gratification. Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to pursue the subject any further, they both plied their pens at a great pace, and there the discussion ended.

While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as by some person standing close against it. As Mr Brass and Miss Sally looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly lowered from without, and Quilp thrust in his head.

‘Hallo!’ he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and looking down into the room. ‘Is there anybody at home? Is there any of the Devil’s ware here? Is Brass at a premium, eh?’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy. ‘Oh, very good, Sir! Oh, very good indeed! Quite eccentric! Dear me, what humour he has!’

‘Is that my Sally?’ croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass. ‘Is it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword and scales? Is it the Strong Arm of the Law? Is it the Virgin of Bevis?’

‘What an amazing flow of spirits!’ cried Brass. ‘Upon my word, it’s quite extraordinary!’

‘Open the door,’ said Quilp, ‘I’ve got him here. Such a clerk for you, Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps. Be quick and open the door, or if there’s another lawyer near and he should happen to look out of window, he’ll snap him up before your eyes, he will.’

It is probable that the loss of the phoenix of clerks, even to a rival practitioner, would not have broken Mr Brass’s heart; but, pretending great alacrity, he rose from his seat, and going to the door, returned, introducing his client, who led by the hand no less a person than Mr Richard Swiveller.

‘There she is,’ said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and wrinkling up his eyebrows as he looked towards Miss Sally; ‘there is the woman I ought to have married—there is the beautiful Sarah—there is the female who has all the charms of her sex and none of their weaknesses. Oh Sally, Sally!’

To this amorous address Miss Brass briefly responded ‘Bother!’

‘Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,’ said Quilp. ‘Why don’t she change it—melt down the brass, and take another name?’

Una mattina il signor Sampson Brass sedeva sulla sua sedia copiando un atto legale, e affondava con cattiveria la penna nel foglio, come se stesse scrivendo sul cuore stesso della persona contro cui era diretto; e la signorina Sally Brass sedeva sulla sua sedia preparando una penna nuova per redigere una piccola fattura, che era il suo passatempo preferito; e così sedevano in silenzio per un lungo periodo, finché la signorina Brass non ruppe il silenzio.

«Hai quasi finito, Sammy?» disse Miss Brass; perché sulle sue labbra miti e femminili, Sampson diventava Sammy, e tutto si faceva più dolce.

‘No,’ rispose suo fratello. ‘Tuttavia, sarebbe stato tutto fatto se mi avessi aiutato al momento giusto.’

«Oh sì, davvero», esclamò Miss Sally; «avete bisogno del mio aiuto, vero?—ANCHE VOI, che dovete assumere un impiegato!»

«Devo forse assumere un impiegato per il mio piacere, o per il mio desiderio, tu provocante furfante!» disse il signor Brass, mettendosi la penna in bocca e sogghignando con cattiveria alla sorella. «Perché mi prendi in giro per il fatto che voglio assumere un impiegato?»

Si può osservare in questo punto, per evitare che il fatto che il signor Brass chiami una signora un furfante possa suscitare stupore o sorpresa, che era così abituato ad averla vicino a sé in qualità di uomo, che si era gradualmente abituato a parlarle come se fosse davvero un uomo. E questo sentimento era così perfettamente reciproco, che non solo il signor Brass chiamava spesso la signorina Brass un furfante, o addirittura metteva un aggettivo davanti al furfante, ma la signorina Brass lo considerava del tutto normale, e non si commuoveva più di qualsiasi altra signora sarebbe stata chiamata un angelo.

«Che cosa mi rimproverate, dopo aver parlato per tre ore la scorsa notte, di voler assumere un impiegato?» ripeté il signor Brass, sogghignando di nuovo con la penna in bocca, come il cimiero di qualche nobile o gentiluomo. «È forse colpa mia?»

«Tutto quello che so», disse la signorina Sally, sorridendo asciutta, perché non provava alcun piacere maggiore che quello di irritare suo fratello, «è che se ognuno dei tuoi clienti ci costringerà a tenere un impiegato, che lo vogliamo o no, è meglio che tu abbandoni l’attività, ti cancelli dall’albo e ti faccia sequestrare il prima possibile.»

«Abbiamo altri clienti come lui?» disse Brass. «Abbiamo altri clienti come lui ora, mi risponderete?»

«Volete dire in faccia!» disse sua sorella.

«Intendo forse in faccia!» schernì Sampson Brass, allungandosi per prendere il libro delle fatture e sfogliandone rapidamente le pagine. «Guardi qui: Daniel Quilp, Esquire, Daniel Quilp, Esquire, Daniel Quilp, Esquire, tutto qui. Che importa se prendo un impiegato che lui mi consiglia, e dice: “questo è l’uomo che fa per lei”, o se perdo tutto questo, eh?»

La signorina Sally degnò di non rispondere, ma sorrise di nuovo e continuò il suo lavoro.

«Ma so di che si tratta», riprese Brass dopo un breve silenzio. «Avete paura di non avere più la stessa influenza negli affari come siete stato abituato ad avere. Pensate che io non capisca?»

«Non credo che l’attività durerebbe a lungo senza di me», rispose sua sorella con calma. «Non fare il pazzo e non provocarmi, Sammy, ma pensa a quello che stai facendo e fallo».

Sampson Brass, che in cuor suo aveva grande paura di sua sorella, si chinò di nuovo scontroso sulla sua scrittura e ascoltò mentre lei diceva:

«Se avessi deciso che il commesso non doveva venire, naturalmente non gli sarebbe stato permesso di venire. Lo sai bene abbastanza, quindi non dire sciocchezze.»

Il signor Brass accolse questa osservazione con un’umiltà ancora maggiore, limitandosi a osservare sottovoce che quel genere di scherzi non gli piacevano e che la signorina Sally sarebbe stata «una persona molto migliore» se avesse evitato di irritarlo. A questo complimento la signorina Sally rispose che trovava gusto in quel divertimento e non aveva intenzione di rinunciarvi. Il signor Brass, che non sembrava voler proseguire l’argomento, si rimise a scrivere a gran velocità, e così finì la discussione.

Mentre erano così occupati, la finestra fu improvvisamente oscurata, come se qualcuno vi si fosse appoggiato contro. Mentre il signor Brass e la signorina Sally alzavano lo sguardo per accertarsi della causa, lo scuro superiore fu rapidamente abbassato dall’esterno, e Quilp vi infilò dentro la testa.

«Ehi!», disse, appoggiandosi in punta di piedi sul davanzale della finestra e guardando giù nella stanza. «C’è qualcuno in casa? C’è qualche merce del Diavolo qui? Il rame è a un prezzo elevato, eh?»

«Ah, ah, ah!» rise l’avvocato in un’estasi affettata. «Oh, molto bene, signore! Oh, davvero molto bene! Del tutto eccentrico! Caro me, che umorismo ha!»

«È la mia Sally?» gracchiò il nanerottolo, fissando con sguardo torvo la graziosa Miss Brass. «È la Giustizia con il bendaggio tolto dagli occhi, e senza la spada e la bilancia? È il Braccio Forte della Legge? È la Vergine di Bevis?»

“Che incredibile scorrere di spiriti!” esclamò Brass. “Sul mio onore, è davvero straordinario!”

«Aprite la porta», disse Quilp, «l’ho qui. Un impiegato per voi, Brass, un premio, un asso di picche. Svelto e aprite la porta, o se c’è un altro avvocato nelle vicinanze e dovesse capitare di guardare fuori dalla finestra, ve lo porterà via sotto gli occhi, sì.»

È probabile che la perdita del fenice degli impiegati, anche a favore di un professionista rivale, non avrebbe spezzato il cuore di Mr Brass; ma, fingendo grande alacrità, si alzò dalla sua sedia, andò alla porta e tornò, introducendo il suo cliente, che conduceva per mano nientemeno che il signor Richard Swiveller.

«Eccola qui», disse Quilp, fermandosi sulla porta e aggrottando le sopracciglia mentre guardava la signorina Sally; «ecco la donna che avrei dovuto sposare, ecco la bellissima Sarah, ecco la donna che ha tutti i pregi del suo sesso e nessuna delle sue debolezze. Oh Sally, Sally!»

A questa dichiarazione d’amore, Miss Brass rispose brevemente: “Che noia!”

«Dura di cuore come il metallo da cui prende il nome», disse Quilp. «Perché non lo cambia, scioglie il bronzo e si prende un altro nome?»

‘Hold your nonsense, Mr Quilp, do,’ returned Miss Sally, with a grim smile. ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself before a strange young man.’

‘The strange young man,’ said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller forward, ‘is too susceptible himself not to understand me well. This is Mr Swiveller, my intimate friend—a gentleman of good family and great expectations, but who, having rather involved himself by youthful indiscretion, is content for a time to fill the humble station of a clerk—humble, but here most enviable. What a delicious atmosphere!’

If Mr Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air breathed by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that dainty creature, he had doubtless good reason for what he said. But if he spoke of the delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass’s office in a literal sense, he had certainly a peculiar taste, as it was of a close and earthy kind, and, besides being frequently impregnated with strong whiffs of the second-hand wearing apparel exposed for sale in Duke’s Place and Houndsditch, had a decided flavour of rats and mice, and a taint of mouldiness. Perhaps some doubts of its pure delight presented themselves to Mr Swiveller, as he gave vent to one or two short abrupt sniffs, and looked incredulously at the grinning dwarf.

‘Mr Swiveller,’ said Quilp, ‘being pretty well accustomed to the agricultural pursuits of sowing wild oats, Miss Sally, prudently considers that half a loaf is better than no bread. To be out of harm’s way he prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he accepts your brother’s offer. Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.’

‘I am very glad, Sir,’ said Mr Brass, ‘very glad indeed. Mr Swiveller, Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship. You may be very proud, Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.’

Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf beyond measure. As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her hands as men of business do, and took a few turns up and down the office with her pen behind her ear.

‘I suppose,’ said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend, ‘that Mr Swiveller enters upon his duties at once? It’s Monday morning.’

‘At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,’ returned Brass.

‘Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,’ said Quilp; ‘she’ll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his Blackstone, his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer’s Best Companion.’

‘He is exceedingly eloquent,’ said Brass, like a man abstracted, and looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in his pockets; ‘he has an extraordinary flow of language. Beautiful, really.’

‘With Miss Sally,’ Quilp went on, ‘and the beautiful fictions of the law, his days will pass like minutes. Those charming creations of the poet, John Doe and Richard Roe, when they first dawn upon him, will open a new world for the enlargement of his mind and the improvement of his heart.’

‘Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Beau-ti-ful indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘It’s a treat to hear him!’

‘Where will Mr Swiveller sit?’ said Quilp, looking round.

‘Why, we’ll buy another stool, sir,’ returned Brass. ‘We hadn’t any thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were kind enough to suggest it, and our accommodation’s not extensive. We’ll look about for a second-hand stool, sir. In the meantime, if Mr Swiveller will take my seat, and try his hand at a fair copy of this ejectment, as I shall be out pretty well all the morning—’

‘Walk with me,’ said Quilp. ‘I have a word or two to say to you on points of business. Can you spare the time?’

‘Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir? You’re joking, sir, you’re joking with me,’ replied the lawyer, putting on his hat. ‘I’m ready, sir, quite ready. My time must be fully occupied indeed, sir, not to leave me time to walk with you. It’s not everybody, sir, who has an opportunity of improving himself by the conversation of Mr Quilp.’

The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a short dry cough, turned upon his heel to bid adieu to Miss Sally. After a very gallant parting on his side, and a very cool and gentlemanly sort of one on hers, he nodded to Dick Swiveller, and withdrew with the attorney.

Dick stood at the desk in a state of utter stupefaction, staring with all his might at the beauteous Sally, as if she had been some curious animal whose like had never lived. When the dwarf got into the street, he mounted again upon the window-sill, and looked into the office for a moment with a grinning face, as a man might peep into a cage. Dick glanced upward at him, but without any token of recognition; and long after he had disappeared, still stood gazing upon Miss Sally Brass, seeing or thinking of nothing else, and rooted to the spot.

Miss Brass being by this time deep in the bill of costs, took no notice whatever of Dick, but went scratching on, with a noisy pen, scoring down the figures with evident delight, and working like a steam-engine. There stood Dick, gazing now at the green gown, now at the brown head-dress, now at the face, and now at the rapid pen, in a state of stupid perplexity, wondering how he got into the company of that strange monster, and whether it was a dream and he would ever wake. At last he heaved a deep sigh, and began slowly pulling off his coat.

Mr Swiveller pulled off his coat, and folded it up with great elaboration, staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally ordered for aquatic expeditions, but had brought with him that morning for office purposes; and, still keeping his eye upon her, suffered himself to drop down silently upon Mr Brass’s stool. Then he underwent a relapse, and becoming powerless again, rested his chin upon his hand, and opened his eyes so wide, that it appeared quite out of the question that he could ever close them any more.

When he had looked so long that he could see nothing, Dick took his eyes off the fair object of his amazement, turned over the leaves of the draft he was to copy, dipped his pen into the inkstand, and at last, and by slow approaches, began to write. But he had not written half-a-dozen words when, reaching over to the inkstand to take a fresh dip, he happened to raise his eyes. There was the intolerable brown head-dress—there was the green gown—there, in short, was Miss Sally Brass, arrayed in all her charms, and more tremendous than ever.

This happened so often, that Mr Swiveller by degrees began to feel strange influences creeping over him—horrible desires to annihilate this Sally Brass—mysterious promptings to knock her head-dress off and try how she looked without it. There was a very large ruler on the table; a large, black, shining ruler. Mr Swiveller took it up and began to rub his nose with it.

From rubbing his nose with the ruler, to poising it in his hand and giving it an occasional flourish after the tomahawk manner, the transition was easy and natural. In some of these flourishes it went close to Miss Sally’s head; the ragged edges of the head-dress fluttered with the wind it raised; advance it but an inch, and that great brown knot was on the ground: yet still the unconscious maiden worked away, and never raised her eyes.

Well, this was a great relief. It was a good thing to write doggedly and obstinately until he was desperate, and then snatch up the ruler and whirl it about the brown head-dress with the consciousness that he could have it off if he liked. It was a good thing to draw it back, and rub his nose very hard with it, if he thought Miss Sally was going to look up, and to recompense himself with more hardy flourishes when he found she was still absorbed. By these means Mr Swiveller calmed the agitation of his feelings, until his applications to the ruler became less fierce and frequent, and he could even write as many as half-a-dozen consecutive lines without having recourse to it—which was a great victory.

«Tieni a freno le tue sciocchezze, signor Quilp, per favore», rispose la signorina Sally, con un sorriso cupo. «Mi meraviglio che non ti vergogni davanti a un giovane sconosciuto.»

«Il giovane strano», disse Quilp, presentando Dick Swiveller, «è troppo sensibile per non capirmi bene. Questo è il signor Swiveller, mio intimo amico, un gentiluomo di buona famiglia e con grandi prospettive, ma che, essendosi un po’ compromesso per una indiscrezione giovanile, si accontenta per un po’ di occupare l’umile posizione di impiegato, umile ma qui davvero invidiabile. Che atmosfera deliziosa!»

Se il signor Quilp parlava in senso figurato, e intendeva insinuare che l’aria respirata dalla signorina Sally Brass era addolcita e rarefatta da quella graziosa creatura, aveva senza dubbio buone ragioni per ciò che diceva. Ma se parlava dei piaceri dell’atmosfera dell’ufficio del signor Brass in senso letterale, aveva certamente un gusto particolare, poiché era di un tipo denso e terroso, e, oltre a essere frequentemente impregnato di forti sbuffi di abbigliamento usato esposto in vendita a Duke’s Place e Houndsditch, aveva un deciso sapore di topi e topolini, e un’aura di muffa. Forse qualche dubbio sulla sua pura delizia si presentò al signor Swiveller, mentre dava sfogo a uno o due brevi e bruschi respiri e guardava incredulo il ghignante nanerottolo.

«Signor Swiveller», disse Quilp, «essendo abbastanza abituato alle attività agricole di seminare avena selvatica, la signorina Sally, con prudenza, ritiene che mezzo pane sia meglio di niente. Per stare al sicuro, pensa anche lui con prudenza, è qualcosa di importante, e quindi accetta l’offerta di suo fratello. Brass, signor Swiveller, è suo.»

«Sono molto contento, signore», disse il signor Brass, «molto contento davvero. Il signor Swiveller, signore, ha la fortuna di avere la amicizia di lei. Può essere molto orgoglioso, signore, di avere l’amicizia del signor Quilp.»

Dick mormorò qualcosa sul non voler mai un amico o una bottiglia da dare, e anche ansimò la sua allusione preferita all’ala dell’amicizia e al fatto che non perdesse mai una piuma; ma le sue facoltà sembravano essere assorbite nella contemplazione della signorina Sally Brass, a cui fissava con sguardi vuoti e malinconici, che deliziavano oltre misura il nano vigile. Quanto alla divina signorina Sally stessa, si strofinava le mani come fanno gli uomini d’affari, e faceva qualche giro su e giù per l’ufficio con la penna dietro l’orecchio.

«Suppongo», disse il nanerottolo, rivolgendosi con vivacità al suo amico avvocato, «che il signor Swiveller si metta subito al lavoro? È lunedì mattina.»

«Subito, se non le dispiace, signore, per tutti i mezzi», rispose Brass.

«Miss Sally gli insegnerà il diritto, lo studio delizioso del diritto», disse Quilp; «sarà la sua guida, la sua amica, la sua compagna, il suo Blackstone, il suo Coke su Littleton, il suo Miglior Compagno del Giovane Avvocato».

«È estremamente eloquente», disse Brass, come un uomo distratto, e guardando i tetti delle case di fronte, con le mani in tasca; «ha un flusso straordinario di linguaggio. Bellissimo, davvero.»

«Con la signorina Sally», continuò Quilp, «e le belle finzioni della legge, i suoi giorni passeranno come minuti. Quelle affascinanti creazioni del poeta, John Doe e Richard Roe, quando gli appariranno per la prima volta, gli apriranno un nuovo mondo per l’espansione della sua mente e il miglioramento del suo cuore.»

“Ah, bella, bella! Bellissima davvero!” esclamò Brass. “È un piacere ascoltarlo!”

«Dove si siederà il signor Swiveller?» disse Quilp, guardandosi intorno.

«Ma certo, ne compreremo un altro, signore», rispose Brass. «Non avevamo pensato di avere un gentiluomo con noi, signore, finché lei non è stato così gentile da suggerirlo, e la nostra sistemazione non è molto ampia. Cercheremo una sedia usata, signore. Nel frattempo, se il signor Swiveller vuole prendere il mio posto e provare a fare una copia pulita di questo atto di sfratto, dato che io sarò fuori per tutta la mattina piuttosto, »

«Cammina con me», disse Quilp. «Ho una parola o due da dirti su questioni di lavoro. Puoi concedermi il tempo?»

«Posso concedermi il tempo di fare una passeggiata con voi, signore? State scherzando, signore, state scherzando con me», rispose l’avvocato, mettendosi il cappello. «Sono pronto, signore, del tutto pronto. Il mio tempo deve essere davvero completamente occupato, signore, se non mi lascia il tempo di fare una passeggiata con voi. Non tutti, signore, hanno l’opportunità di migliorarsi conversando con il signor Quilp.»

Il nanerottolo lanciò un’occhiata sarcastica al suo sfacciato amico e, con un breve colpo di tosse secco, si voltò per salutare Miss Sally. Dopo un commovente addio da parte sua, e un saluto molto freddo e da gentiluomo da parte sua, fece un cenno a Dick Swiveller e se ne andò con l’avvocato.

Dick stava in piedi alla scrivania in uno stato di totale stupore, fissando con tutta la sua forza la bellissima Sally, come se fosse stata qualche curioso animale il cui simile non fosse mai esistito. Quando il nanerottolo uscì in strada, risalì di nuovo sul davanzale della finestra e guardò nell’ufficio per un momento con un volto sorridente, come un uomo potrebbe sbirciare in una gabbia. Dick lo guardò in su, ma senza alcun segno di riconoscimento; e molto tempo dopo che era scomparso, rimase ancora a fissare la signorina Sally Brass, senza vedere o pensare ad altro, e radicato al posto.

Miss Brass, che in quel momento era immersa nella stesura del conto, non fece caso a Dick, ma continuò a scrivere con una penna rumorosa, tracciando i numeri con evidente piacere, lavorando come un’automobile. Dick rimase lì in piedi, fissando ora il vestito verde, ora il copricapo marrone, ora il viso, ora la penna veloce, in uno stato di stupida perplessità, chiedendosi come fosse finito in compagnia di quel mostro strano e se fosse un sogno e se si sarebbe mai svegliato. Alla fine sospirò profondamente e iniziò a togliersi lentamente il cappotto.

Il signor Swiveller si tolse il cappotto e lo ripiegò con grande cura, fissando la signorina Sally tutto il tempo; poi indossò una giacca blu con una doppia fila di bottoni dorati, che aveva originariamente ordinato per le spedizioni acquatiche, ma che quella mattina aveva portato con sé per motivi di lavoro; e, continuando a tenerla d’occhio, si lasciò cadere silenziosamente sulla sedia del signor Brass. Poi ebbe una ricaduta, e diventando di nuovo impotente, appoggiò il mento sulla mano e aprì tanto gli occhi, che sembrava fuori questione che potesse mai chiuderli di nuovo.

Quando aveva guardato così a lungo da non vedere più nulla, Dick distolse gli occhi dal bello oggetto del suo stupore, sfogliò le pagine del progetto che doveva copiare, intinse la penna nel calamaio e, finalmente, con lentezza, iniziò a scrivere. Ma non aveva scritto una mezza dozzina di parole quando, allungandosi verso il calamaio per intingere di nuovo la penna, alzò gli occhi. C’era l’intollerabile copricapo marrone, c’era l’abito verde, c’era, in breve, la signorina Sally Brass, in tutto il suo fascino, più imponente che mai.

Questo accadeva così spesso che il signor Swiveller, a poco a poco, cominciò a sentire strane influenze insinuarsi in lui, orribili desideri di annientare questa Sally Brass, misteriosi impulsi a farle volare via il copricapo e vedere come appariva senza. C’era un righello molto grande sul tavolo, un righello grande, nero e lucido. Il signor Swiveller lo prese e cominciò a strofinarsi il naso con quello.

Dal strofinarsi il naso con la riga, al tenerla in mano e farla sventolare di tanto in tanto alla maniera del tomahawk, il passaggio era facile e naturale. In alcuni di questi sventolii la riga passava vicino alla testa della signorina Sally; i bordi sdruciti del copricapo sventolavano con il vento che alzava; avanzarla di un pollice, e quel grande nodo marrone sarebbe stato a terra: eppure la fanciulla ignara continuava a lavorare senza mai alzare gli occhi.

Bene, questo fu un grande sollievo. Era una buona cosa scrivere con ostinazione e testardaggine finché non fosse disperato, e poi afferrare la riga e farla vorticare intorno al copricapo marrone con la consapevolezza che avrebbe potuto toglierlo se avesse voluto. Era una buona cosa tirarla indietro e strofinarsi il naso molto forte con essa, se pensava che Miss Sally stesse per alzare lo sguardo, e compensarsi con più audaci fioriture quando scopriva che era ancora assorta. Con questi mezzi il signor Swiveller calmò l’agitazione dei suoi sentimenti, finché le sue richieste alla riga divennero meno feroci e frequenti, e poteva persino scrivere fino a mezza dozzina di righe consecutive senza farvi ricorso, il che era una grande vittoria.

CHAPTER 34

In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so, of diligent application, Miss Brass arrived at the conclusion of her task, and recorded the fact by wiping her pen upon the green gown, and taking a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which she carried in her pocket. Having disposed of this temperate refreshment, she arose from her stool, tied her papers into a formal packet with red tape, and taking them under her arm, marched out of the office.

Mr Swiveller had scarcely sprung off his seat and commenced the performance of a maniac hornpipe, when he was interrupted, in the fulness of his joy at being again alone, by the opening of the door, and the reappearance of Miss Sally’s head.

‘I am going out,’ said Miss Brass.

‘Very good, ma’am,’ returned Dick. ‘And don’t hurry yourself on my account to come back, ma’am,’ he added inwardly.

‘If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say that the gentleman who attends to that matter isn’t in at present, will you?’ said Miss Brass.

‘I will, ma’am,’ replied Dick.

‘I shan’t be very long,’ said Miss Brass, retiring.

‘I’m sorry to hear it, ma’am,’ rejoined Dick when she had shut the door. ‘I hope you may be unexpectedly detained, ma’am. If you could manage to be run over, ma’am, but not seriously, so much the better.’

Uttering these expressions of good-will with extreme gravity, Mr Swiveller sat down in the client’s chair and pondered; then took a few turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again.

‘So I’m Brass’s clerk, am I?’ said Dick. ‘Brass’s clerk, eh? And the clerk of Brass’s sister—clerk to a female Dragon. Very good, very good! What shall I be next? Shall I be a convict in a felt hat and a grey suit, trotting about a dockyard with my number neatly embroidered on my uniform, and the order of the garter on my leg, restrained from chafing my ankle by a twisted belcher handkerchief? Shall I be that? Will that do, or is it too genteel? Whatever you please, have it your own way, of course.’

As he was entirely alone, it may be presumed that, in these remarks, Mr Swiveller addressed himself to his fate or destiny, whom, as we learn by the precedents, it is the custom of heroes to taunt in a very bitter and ironical manner when they find themselves in situations of an unpleasant nature. This is the more probable from the circumstance of Mr Swiveller directing his observations to the ceiling, which these bodily personages are usually supposed to inhabit—except in theatrical cases, when they live in the heart of the great chandelier.

‘Quilp offers me this place, which he says he can insure me,’ resumed Dick after a thoughtful silence, and telling off the circumstances of his position, one by one, upon his fingers; ‘Fred, who, I could have taken my affidavit, would not have heard of such a thing, backs Quilp to my astonishment, and urges me to take it also—staggerer, number one! My aunt in the country stops the supplies, and writes an affectionate note to say that she has made a new will, and left me out of it—staggerer, number two. No money; no credit; no support from Fred, who seems to turn steady all at once; notice to quit the old lodgings—staggerers, three, four, five, and six! Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent. No man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again. Then I’m very glad that mine has brought all this upon itself, and I shall be as careless as I can, and make myself quite at home to spite it. So go on my buck,’ said Mr Swiveller, taking his leave of the ceiling with a significant nod, ‘and let us see which of us will be tired first!’

Dismissing the subject of his downfall with these reflections, which were no doubt very profound, and are indeed not altogether unknown in certain systems of moral philosophy, Mr Swiveller shook off his despondency and assumed the cheerful ease of an irresponsible clerk.

As a means towards his composure and self-possession, he entered into a more minute examination of the office than he had yet had time to make; looked into the wig-box, the books, and ink-bottle; untied and inspected all the papers; carved a few devices on the table with a sharp blade of Mr Brass’s penknife; and wrote his name on the inside of the wooden coal-scuttle. Having, as it were, taken formal possession of his clerkship in virtue of these proceedings, he opened the window and leaned negligently out of it until a beer-boy happened to pass, whom he commanded to set down his tray and to serve him with a pint of mild porter, which he drank upon the spot and promptly paid for, with the view of breaking ground for a system of future credit and opening a correspondence tending thereto, without loss of time. Then, three or four little boys dropped in, on legal errands from three or four attorneys of the Brass grade: whom Mr Swiveller received and dismissed with about as professional a manner, and as correct and comprehensive an understanding of their business, as would have been shown by a clown in a pantomime under similar circumstances. These things done and over, he got upon his stool again and tried his hand at drawing caricatures of Miss Brass with a pen and ink, whistling very cheerfully all the time.

He was occupied in this diversion when a coach stopped near the door, and presently afterwards there was a loud double-knock. As this was no business of Mr Swiveller’s, the person not ringing the office bell, he pursued his diversion with perfect composure, notwithstanding that he rather thought there was nobody else in the house.

In this, however, he was mistaken; for, after the knock had been repeated with increased impatience, the door was opened, and somebody with a very heavy tread went up the stairs and into the room above. Mr Swiveller was wondering whether this might be another Miss Brass, twin sister to the Dragon, when there came a rapping of knuckles at the office door.

CAPITOLO 34

Nel corso del tempo, cioè dopo un paio d’ore circa di diligente applicazione, Miss Brass giunse alla conclusione del suo compito, e ne registrò il fatto asciugando la penna sulla veste verde, e prendendo una presa di tabacco da una piccola scatola di latta rotonda che portava in tasca. Dopo aver consumato questo temperato rinfresco, si alzò dallo sgabello, legò i suoi documenti in un pacchetto formale con dello spago rosso, e prendendoli sotto il braccio, uscì dall’ufficio.

Il signor Swiveller era appena balzato in piedi e aveva iniziato a eseguire una frenetica hornpipe, quando fu interrotto, nel pieno della sua gioia di essere di nuovo solo, dall’apertura della porta e dalla ricomparsa della testa della signorina Sally.

«Esco», disse la signorina Brass.

«Molto bene, signora», rispose Dick. «E non si affretti per me a tornare, signora», aggiunse tra sé.

«Se qualcuno venisse per questioni di ufficio, prendete i loro messaggi e dite che il signore che si occupa di tali faccende al momento non c’è, per favore?» disse Miss Brass.

«Lo farò, signora», rispose Dick.

«Non starò via molto a lungo», disse la signorina Brass, ritirandosi.

«Mi dispiace sentirlo, signora», rispose Dick quando lei ebbe chiuso la porta. «Spero che possa essere trattenuta inaspettatamente, signora. Se riuscisse a farsi investire, signora, ma non seriamente, tanto meglio».

Pronunciando queste espressioni di buona volontà con estrema gravità, il signor Swiveller si sedette sulla sedia del cliente e rifletté; poi fece qualche passo su e giù per la stanza e ricadde sulla sedia.

«Dunque sono il commesso di Brass, eh?» disse Dick. «Il commesso di Brass, eh? E il commesso della sorella di Brass, il commesso di una drago femmina. Benissimo, benissimo! Che cosa sarò dopo? Sarò un detenuto con un cappello di feltro e un abito grigio, che trotta per il cantiere navale con il mio numero ben ricamato sull’uniforme e l’ordine della giarrettiera sulla gamba, trattenuto dallo sfregamento della caviglia da un fazzoletto annodato? Sarò quello? Va bene così, o è troppo gentile? Come preferite, naturalmente.»

Poiché era completamente solo, si può presumere che, in questi commenti, il signor Swiveller si rivolgesse al suo destino, che, come apprendiamo dai precedenti, è consuetudine degli eroi deridere in modo molto amaro e ironico quando si trovano in situazioni di natura spiacevole. Questo è tanto più probabile in considerazione del fatto che il signor Swiveller rivolge le sue osservazioni al soffitto, che queste entità corporee sono solitamente ritenute abitare—tranne nei casi teatrali, quando vivono nel cuore del grande lampadario.

«Quilp mi offre questo posto, che dice di poter assicurare», riprese Dick dopo un pensieroso silenzio, e contando le circostanze della sua posizione, una per una, sulle dita; «Fred, che, potrei aver fatto la mia dichiarazione giurata, non avrebbe sentito parlare di una cosa del genere, sostiene Quilp con mio stupore, e mi esorta a prenderlo anche io—stordito, numero uno! Mia zia in campagna ferma i rifornimenti, e scrive una nota affettuosa per dire che ha fatto un nuovo testamento, e mi ha escluso da esso—stordito, numero due. Senza soldi; senza credito; senza supporto da Fred, che sembra diventare stabile all’improvviso; avviso di lasciare le vecchie stanze—storditi, tre, quattro, cinque e sei! Sotto un accumulo di stordimenti, nessun uomo può essere considerato un agente libero. Nessun uomo si butta giù; se il suo destino lo butta giù, il suo destino deve rialzarlo di nuovo. Allora sono molto contento che il mio abbia portato tutto questo su di sé, e sarò il più disinteressato possibile, e mi renderò del tutto a casa per dispetto. Quindi vai avanti, mio caro», disse Mr Swiveller, prendendo congedo dal soffitto con un cenno significativo, «e vediamo chi di noi si stancherà per primo!»

Scartando l’argomento della sua rovina con queste riflessioni, che non erano senza dubbio molto profonde, e che in effetti non sono del tutto sconosciute in certi sistemi di filosofia morale, il signor Swiveller si liberò della sua disperazione e assunse la gioiosa disinvoltura di un impiegato senza responsabilità.

Come mezzo per riacquistare la calma e il proprio autocontrollo, si mise a esaminare più minuziosamente l’ufficio di quanto avesse avuto tempo di fare finora; guardò nella scatola per parrucche, nei libri e nella boccetta dell’inchiostro; sciolse e ispezionò tutti i documenti; incise alcuni disegni sul tavolo con una lama affilata del temperino di Brass; e scrisse il suo nome all’interno del secchiello del carbone di legno. Avendo, per così dire, preso formalmente possesso della sua carica di impiegato in virtù di queste operazioni, aprì la finestra e si affacciò con noncuranza finché non passò un birraio, al quale ordinò di posare il vassoio e di servirgli una pinta di birra scura, che bevve sul posto e pagò prontamente, con l’intento di aprire la strada a un sistema di credito futuro e di instaurare una corrispondenza a tal fine, senza perdita di tempo. Poi, tre o quattro ragazzini entrarono, con commissioni legali da parte di tre o quattro avvocati del livello di Brass: Mr Swiveller li ricevette e congedò con un’aria pressappoco professionale, e con una comprensione altrettanto corretta e completa della loro faccenda, come avrebbe fatto un pagliaccio in una pantomima in circostanze simili. Fatte e terminate queste cose, risalì sul suo sgabello e provò a disegnare caricature di Miss Brass con penna e inchiostro, fischiettando allegramente tutto il tempo.

Era intento a questo passatempo quando una carrozza si fermò vicino alla porta, e poco dopo si udì un forte doppio colpo. Poiché questo non riguardava Mr Swiveller, e la persona non suonava il campanello dell’ufficio, egli proseguì il suo passatempo con perfetta calma, nonostante pensasse che non ci fosse nessun altro in casa.

In questo, però, si sbagliava; perché, dopo che il colpo era stato ripetuto con crescente impazienza, la porta si aprì e qualcuno con un passo molto pesante salì le scale ed entrò nella stanza di sopra. Il signor Swiveller si stava chiedendo se si trattasse di un’altra Miss Brass, sorella gemella del Drago, quando ci fu un bussare con le nocche alla porta dell’ufficio.

‘Come in!’ said Dick. ‘Don’t stand upon ceremony. The business will get rather complicated if I’ve many more customers. Come in!’

‘Oh, please,’ said a little voice very low down in the doorway, ‘will you come and show the lodgings?’

Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her face and feet. She might as well have been dressed in a violin-case.

‘Why, who are you?’ said Dick.

To which the only reply was, ‘Oh, please will you come and show the lodgings?’

There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and manner. She must have been at work from her cradle. She seemed as much afraid of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.

‘I hav’n’t got anything to do with the lodgings,’ said Dick. ‘Tell ‘em to call again.’

‘Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,’ returned the girl; ‘It’s eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and linen. Boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is eightpence a day.’

‘Why don’t you show ‘em yourself? You seem to know all about ‘em,’ said Dick.

‘Miss Sally said I wasn’t to, because people wouldn’t believe the attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.’

‘Well, but they’ll see how small you are afterwards, won’t they?’ said Dick.

‘Ah! But then they’ll have taken ‘em for a fortnight certain,’ replied the child with a shrewd look; ‘and people don’t like moving when they’re once settled.’

‘This is a queer sort of thing,’ muttered Dick, rising. ‘What do you mean to say you are—the cook?’

‘Yes, I do plain cooking;’ replied the child. ‘I’m housemaid too; I do all the work of the house.’

‘I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,’ thought Dick. And he might have thought much more, being in a doubtful and hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her request, and certain mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and staircase seemed to give note of the applicant’s impatience. Richard Swiveller, therefore, sticking a pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his mouth as a token of his great importance and devotion to business, hurried out to meet and treat with the single gentleman.

He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman’s trunk, which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and exceedingly heavy withal, it was no easy matter for the united exertions of the single gentleman and the coachman to convey up the steep ascent. But there they were, crushing each other, and pushing and pulling with all their might, and getting the trunk tight and fast in all kinds of impossible angles, and to pass them was out of the question; for which sufficient reason, Mr Swiveller followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus taken by storm.

To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word, but when the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon it and wiped his bald head and face with his handkerchief. He was very warm, and well he might be; for, not to mention the exertion of getting the trunk up stairs, he was closely muffled in winter garments, though the thermometer had stood all day at eighty-one in the shade.

‘I believe, sir,’ said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his mouth, ‘that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very charming apartments, sir. They command an uninterrupted view of—of over the way, and they are within one minute’s walk of—of the corner of the street. There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in the immediate vicinity, and the contingent advantages are extraordinary.’

‘What’s the rent?’ said the single gentleman.

‘One pound per week,’ replied Dick, improving on the terms.

‘I’ll take ‘em.’

‘The boots and clothes are extras,’ said Dick; ‘and the fires in winter time are—’

‘Are all agreed to,’ answered the single gentleman.

‘Two weeks certain,’ said Dick, ‘are the—’

‘Two weeks!’ cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from top to toe. ‘Two years. I shall live here for two years. Here. Ten pounds down. The bargain’s made.’

‘Why you see,’ said Dick, ‘my name is not Brass, and—’

‘Who said it was? My name’s not Brass. What then?’

‘The name of the master of the house is,’ said Dick.

‘I’m glad of it,’ returned the single gentleman; ‘it’s a good name for a lawyer. Coachman, you may go. So may you, Sir.’

Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him almost as hard as he had looked at Miss Sally. The single gentleman, however, was not in the slightest degree affected by this circumstance, but proceeded with perfect composure to unwind the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then to pull off his boots. Freed of these encumbrances, he went on to divest himself of his other clothing, which he folded up, piece by piece, and ranged in order on the trunk. Then, he pulled down the window-blinds, drew the curtains, wound up his watch, and, quite leisurely and methodically, got into bed.

‘Take down the bill,’ were his parting words, as he looked out from between the curtains; ‘and let nobody call me till I ring the bell.’

With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately.

‘This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!’ said Mr Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand. ‘She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like professional gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing mysteriously from under ground; strangers walking in and going to bed without leave or licence in the middle of the day! If he should be one of the miraculous fellows that turn up now and then, and has gone to sleep for two years, I shall be in a pleasant situation. It’s my destiny, however, and I hope Brass may like it. I shall be sorry if he don’t. But it’s no business of mine—I have nothing whatever to do with it!’

«Avanti!» disse Dick. «Non faccia complimenti. Gli affari diventeranno piuttosto complicati se avrò molti altri clienti. Avanti!»

«Oh, per favore», disse una vocina molto bassa sulla porta, «vuole venire a mostrare l’alloggio?»

Dick si chinò sul tavolo e scorse una piccola ragazza trascurata in un grembiule e un bavaglino sporco e grossolano, che lasciavano visibili solo il suo viso e i piedi. Avrebbe potuto benissimo essere vestita con una custodia per violino.

«Ebbene, chi sei?» disse Dick.

Alla quale l’unica risposta fu: “Oh, per favore, potrebbe venire a mostrare l’alloggio?”

Non c’era mai stato un bambino così vecchio stile nel suo aspetto e nei suoi modi. Doveva aver lavorato fin dalla culla. Sembrava aver paura di Dick, proprio come Dick era stupito di lei.

“Non ho nulla a che fare con l’alloggio”, disse Dick. “Dite loro di tornare.”

«Oh, ma per favore, vuole venire a vedere l’alloggio?», rispose la ragazza; «Sono diciotto scellini a settimana, e noi forniamo stoviglie e biancheria. Scarpe e vestiti sono extra, e il riscaldamento in inverno-tempo costa otto pence al giorno.»

«Perché non glieli mostri tu? Sembra che tu ne sappia tutto,» disse Dick.

«La signorina Sally ha detto che non dovevo, perché la gente non avrebbe creduto che la frequenza fosse buona se avesse visto quanto fossi piccola per prima cosa.»

«Beh, ma vedranno quanto sei piccolo dopo, no?» disse Dick.

‘Ah! Ma allora le avranno prese per due settimane sicuro,’ rispose il bambino con uno sguardo acuto; ‘e la gente non ama traslocare quando si è già sistemata.’

«Questa è una faccenda strana», borbottò Dick, alzandosi. «Volete dire che siete, la cuoca?»

«Sì, faccio cucina semplice;» rispose il bambino. «Sono anche la domestica; faccio tutto il lavoro della casa.»

«Suppongo che Brass, il Drago ed io facciamo la parte più sporca del lavoro», pensò Dick. E avrebbe potuto pensare molto di più, trovandosi in uno stato d’animo dubbioso e esitante, ma la ragazza ripeté la sua richiesta, e certi misteriosi rumori di botte nel corridoio e sulle scale sembravano dare segno dell’impazienza del richiedente. Richard Swiveller, quindi, infilando una penna dietro ogni orecchio e portandone un’altra in bocca come simbolo della sua grande importanza e dedizione al lavoro, si affrettò a uscire per incontrare e trattare con il signore.

Fu un po’ sorpreso nel rendersi conto che i rumori di botte erano dovuti al trasporto al piano superiore della valigia del signorino, che, essendo quasi due volte più larga della scala e inoltre estremamente pesante, non era facile da trasportare per lo sforzo comune del signorino e del cocchiere lungo la ripida salita. Ma eccoli lì, a schiacciarsi l’uno contro l’altro, spingendo e tirando con tutte le loro forze, e a bloccare la valigia incastrata in tutti i tipi di angoli impossibili, e superarli era fuori questione; per questo motivo sufficiente, il signor Swiveller li seguiva lentamente da dietro, formulando una nuova protesta su ogni gradino contro la casa del signor Sampson Brass che veniva così presa d’assalto.

A queste rimostranze, il signore da solo non rispose una parola, ma quando la valigia fu finalmente portata nella camera da letto, si sedette sopra e si asciugò la testa calva e il viso con il fazzoletto. Era molto caldo, e ben gli stava; infatti, senza parlare dello sforzo di portare la valigia su per le scale, era avvolto in vestiti invernali, sebbene il termometro avesse segnato tutta la giornata ottantuno gradi all’ombra.

«Credo, signore», disse Richard Swiveller, togliendosi la penna di bocca, «che lei desideri di dare un’occhiata a questi appartamenti. Sono appartamenti davvero incantevoli, signore. Offrono una vista ininterrotta su—sul lato opposto della strada, e si trovano a un minuto di cammino da—dall’angolo della strada. Nelle immediate vicinanze c’è una birra porter molto leggera, e i vantaggi accessori sono straordinari.»

«Qual è l’affitto?» disse il signore scapolo.

«Una sterlina alla settimana», rispose Dick, migliorando le condizioni.

‘Li prendo io.’

«Gli stivali e i vestiti sono extra», disse Dick; «e i fuochi in inverno tempo sono—»

«Siete tutti d’accordo?», rispose l’uomo solo.

“Due settimane sicure”, disse Dick, “sono le, ”

«Due settimane!» esclamò il signore da scapolo con tono burbero, scrutandolo da capo a piedi. «Due anni. Vivrò qui per due anni. Qui. Dieci sterline subito. L’affare è fatto.»

‘Vede, disse Dick, il mio nome non è Brass, e—’

“Chi ha detto che lo è? Il mio nome non è Brass. E allora?”

«Il nome del padrone della casa è», disse Dick.

«Ne sono lieto», rispose il signore scapolo; «è un buon nome per un avvocato. Cocchiere, può andare. E anche lei, signore.»

Il signor Swiveller era così confuso dal signorino che lo trattava in quel modo, che lo guardò quasi con la stessa intensità con cui aveva guardato la signorina Sally. Il signorino, tuttavia, non fu minimamente influenzato da questa circostanza, ma procedette con perfetta calma a sfilare lo scialle che aveva intorno al collo, e poi a togliersi gli stivali. Liberato da questi ostacoli, continuò a spogliarsi degli altri indumenti, che piegò uno per uno e dispose ordinatamente sulla cassa. Poi, abbassò le persiane, tirò le tende, caricò l’orologio, e, con estrema lentezza e metodo, si mise a letto.

«Togliete il cartello», furono le sue ultime parole, mentre guardava fuori tra le tende; «e non lasciate che nessuno mi chiami finché non suono il campanello.»

Con ciò le tende si chiusero, e lui parve addormentarsi immediatamente.

«Questa è una casa davvero straordinaria e soprannaturale!» disse il signor Swiveller, mentre entrava nell’ufficio con la fattura in mano. «Draghi femmina in affari, che si comportano come gentiluomini professionisti; cuoche semplicialte tre piedi che appaiono misteriosamente dal sottosuolo; sconosciuti che entrano e vanno a letto senza permesso o licenza a metà giornata! Se dovesse essere uno di quei tipi miracolosi che appaiono di tanto in tanto, e fosse andato a dormire per due anni, mi troverei in una situazione piacevole. È il mio destino, comunque, e spero che a Brass possa piacere. Mi dispiacerebbe se non gli piacesse. Ma non è affar mio, non ho nulla a che fare con questo!»

CHAPTER 35

Mr Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with much complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring after the ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a good and lawful note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, increased his good-humour considerably. Indeed he so overflowed with liberality and condescension, that, in the fulness of his heart, he invited Mr Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch with him at that remote and indefinite period which is currently denominated ‘one of these days,’ and paid him many handsome compliments on the uncommon aptitude for business which his conduct on the first day of his devotion to it had so plainly evinced.

It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions. And this had passed into such a habit with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at his fingers’ ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but in his face: which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, but frowned above all the smooth speeches—one of nature’s beacons, warning off those who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of that dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less treacherous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere.

While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and that of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal practice had been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings, and to whet and sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little disappointed that the single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at such an easy rate, arguing that when he was seen to have set his mind upon them, he should have been at the least charged double or treble the usual terms, and that, in exact proportion as he pressed forward, Mr Swiveller should have hung back. But neither the good opinion of Mr Brass, nor the dissatisfaction of Miss Sally, wrought any impression upon that young gentleman, who, throwing the responsibility of this and all other acts and deeds thereafter to be done by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was quite resigned and comfortable: fully prepared for the worst, and philosophically indifferent to the best.

‘Good morning, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, on the second day of Mr Swiveller’s clerkship. ‘Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir, yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She’s a rare fellow at a bargain, I can tell you, Mr Richard. You’ll find that a first-rate stool, Sir, take my word for it.’

‘It’s rather a crazy one to look at,’ said Dick.

‘You’ll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may depend,’ returned Mr Brass. ‘It was bought in the open street just opposite the hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of two, it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that’s all.’

‘I hope it hasn’t got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,’ said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson and the chaste Sally. ‘One of the legs is longer than the others.’

‘Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,’ retorted Brass. ‘Ha, ha, ha! We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that’s another advantage of my sister’s going to market for us. Miss Brass, Mr Richard is the—’

‘Will you keep quiet?’ interrupted the fair subject of these remarks, looking up from her papers. ‘How am I to work if you keep on chattering?’

‘What an uncertain chap you are!’ returned the lawyer. ‘Sometimes you’re all for a chat. At another time you’re all for work. A man never knows what humour he’ll find you in.’

‘I’m in a working humour now,’ said Sally, ‘so don’t disturb me, if you please. And don’t take him,’ Miss Sally pointed with the feather of her pen to Richard, ‘off his business. He won’t do more than he can help, I dare say.’

Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply, but was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only muttered something about aggravation and a vagabond; not associating the terms with any individual, but mentioning them as connected with some abstract ideas which happened to occur to him. They went on writing for a long time in silence after this—in such a dull silence that Mr Swiveller (who required excitement) had several times fallen asleep, and written divers strange words in an unknown character with his eyes shut, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the office by pulling out the little tin box, taking a noisy pinch of snuff, and then expressing her opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had ‘done it.’

‘Done what, ma’am?’ said Richard.

‘Do you know,’ returned Miss Brass, ‘that the lodger isn’t up yet— that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed yesterday afternoon?’

‘Well, ma’am,’ said Dick, ‘I suppose he may sleep his ten pound out, in peace and quietness, if he likes.’

‘Ah! I begin to think he’ll never wake,’ observed Miss Sally.

‘It’s a very remarkable circumstance,’ said Brass, laying down his pen; ‘really, very remarkable. Mr Richard, you’ll remember, if this gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the bed-post, or any unpleasant accident of that kind should happen—you’ll remember, Mr Richard, that this ten pound note was given to you in part payment of two years’ rent? You’ll bear that in mind, Mr Richard; you had better make a note of it, sir, in case you should ever be called upon to give evidence.’

CAPITOLO 35

Mr Brass, tornato a casa, ricevette il rapporto del suo impiegato con molta compiacenza e soddisfazione, e si informò in particolare sulla banconota da dieci sterline, che, risultando all’esame essere una buona e legittima banconota del Governatore e della Compagnia della Banca d’Inghilterra, aumentò notevolmente il suo buon umore. Anzi, tanto traboccava di liberalità e condiscendenza, che, nella pienezza del suo cuore, invitò Mr Swiveller a condividere con lui una ciotola di punch in quel periodo remoto e indefinito che viene attualmente denominato “uno di questi giorni”, e gli fece molti complimenti per l’insolita attitudine agli affari che la sua condotta nel primo giorno di dedizione al lavoro aveva così chiaramente dimostrato.

Era un principio di Mr Brass che l’abitudine di fare complimenti manteneva la lingua di un uomo ben oliata senza alcuna spesa; e, poiché quel membro utile non dovrebbe mai arrugginarsi o cigolare nel girare sui suoi cardini nel caso di un praticante del diritto, in cui dovrebbe essere sempre sciolto e facile, egli non perdeva molte occasioni di migliorarsi con l’uso di discorsi eleganti ed espressioni elogiative. E questo era diventato per lui tale abitudine, che, se non si poteva dire correttamente che aveva la lingua pronta, si poteva certamente dire che la aveva ovunque tranne che in faccia: la quale, come abbiamo già visto, essendo di un carattere aspro e repellente, non si oliava così facilmente, ma aggrottava la fronte sopra tutti i discorsi lisci, uno dei segni della natura che avverte coloro che navigano sugli scogli e le secche del Mondo, o di quel pericoloso stretto che è la Legge, e li ammonisce a cercare porti meno traditori e a tentare la fortuna altrove.

Mentre il signor Brass, alternativamente, sommerse il suo impiegato di complimenti e ispezionò la banconota da dieci sterline, la signorina Sally mostrò poca emozione e di certo non di natura piacevole, poiché, dato che la tendenza della sua pratica legale era stata quella di fissare i suoi pensieri su piccoli guadagni e avarizie, e di affilare e acuire la sua saggezza naturale, era tutt’altro che poco delusa che il signorino avesse ottenuto l’alloggio a un prezzo così agevole, sostenendo che, quando si vide che aveva messo gli occhi su di esso, avrebbe dovuto essere almeno addebitato il doppio o il triplo delle condizioni abituali, e che, in proporzione esatta del suo avanzare, il signor Swiveller avrebbe dovuto tirarsi indietro. Ma né il buon parere del signor Brass, né l’insoddisfazione della signorina Sally, produssero alcuna impressione su quel giovane signore, che, scaricando la responsabilità di questo e di tutti gli altri atti e fatti da lui successivamente compiuti, sulla sua sfortunata sorte, era del tutto rassegnato e tranquillo: pienamente preparato al peggio, e filosoficamente indifferente al meglio.

«Buongiorno, signor Richard», disse Brass, il secondo giorno dell’impiego di Swiveller. «Sally ha trovato per lei uno sgabello usato, ieri sera, a Whitechapel. È una rara compagna per un affare, glielo posso assicurare, signor Richard. Vedrà che è uno sgabello di prima qualità, mi creda».

«È piuttosto stravagante da vedere», disse Dick.

«Troverete che è uno sgabello davvero sorprendente su cui sedersi, potete contarci», rispose il signor Brass. «È stato acquistato in piena strada proprio di fronte all’ospedale, e dato che è rimasto lì per un paio di mesi, si è un po’ impolverato e un po’ scurito per effetto del sole, ecco tutto.»

«Spero che non abbia la febbre o qualcosa del genere», disse Dick, sedendosi a disagio tra il signor Sampson e la casta Sally. «Una delle gambe è più lunga delle altre.»

«Allora ci procuriamo un po’ di legname, signore», ribatté Brass. «Ah, ah, ah! Ci procuriamo un po’ di legname, signore, ed è un altro vantaggio che deriva dal fatto che mia sorella va al mercato per noi. Miss Brass, il signor Richard è il—»

«Vuoi stare zitto?» interruppe la bella protagonista di questi commenti, alzando lo sguardo dai suoi documenti. «Come faccio a lavorare se continui a chiacchierare?»

«Che tipo incerto sei!» rispose l’avvocato. «A volte sei tutto per una chiacchierata. In un altro momento sei tutto per il lavoro. Un uomo non sa mai in quale umore ti troverà.»

«Sono in vena di lavorare adesso», disse Sally, «quindi non disturbatemi, per favore. E non distraetelo», Miss Sally indicò con la penna Richard, «dal suo lavoro. Non farà più di quanto non possa evitare, ne sono sicura.»

Il signor Brass era evidentemente propenso a rispondere con rabbia, ma fu dissuaso da considerazioni prudenti o timorose, in quanto si limitò a borbottare qualcosa riguardo a un’aggravazione e a un vagabondo; non associando i termini a nessun individuo, ma menzionandoli come collegati a qualche idea astratta che gli era venuta in mente. Continuarono a scrivere per un lungo periodo nel silenzio dopo di ciò, in un silenzio così opprimente che il signor Swiveller (che aveva bisogno di eccitazione) era diversamente caduto addormentato, scrivendo parole strane in un carattere sconosciuto con gli occhi chiusi, quando la signorina Sally alla fine ruppe la monotonia dell’ufficio tirando fuori la piccola scatola di latta, prendendo un rumoroso pizzico di tabacco da fiuto e poi esprimendo la sua opinione che il signor Richard Swiveller avesse “fatto”.

«Fatto cosa, signora?» disse Richard.

«Sapete», rispose Miss Brass, «che l’inquilino non si è ancora alzato, che non si è visto né sentito nulla di lui da quando è andato a letto ieri pomeriggio?»

«Beh, signora», disse Dick, «immagino che possa dormire il suo denaro in pace e tranquillità, se lo desidera.»

«Ah! Comincio a pensare che non si sveglierà mai», osservò Miss Sally.

«È una circostanza davvero notevole», disse Brass, posando la penna; «davvero notevole. Signor Richard, ricorderà, se questo gentiluomo dovesse essere trovato impiccato al montante del letto, o se dovesse accadere qualche spiacevole incidente di quel genere—ricorderà, signor Richard, che questo biglietto da dieci sterline le è stato dato come pagamento parziale di due anni di affitto? Lo terrà a mente, signor Richard; farebbe meglio a prendere nota, signore, nel caso in cui dovesse mai essere chiamato a testimoniare.»

Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance of profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.

‘We can never be too cautious,’ said Mr Brass. ‘There is a deal of wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness. Did the gentleman happen to say, Sir—but never mind that at present, sir; finish that little memorandum first.’

Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his stool, and was walking up and down the office.

‘Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?’ said Brass, running his eye over the document. ‘Very good. Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman say anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, solemnly, ‘that the gentleman said nothing else?’

‘Devil a word, Sir,’ replied Dick.

‘Think again, Sir,’ said Brass; ‘it’s my duty, Sir, in the position in which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal profession—the first profession in this country, Sir, or in any other country, or in any of the planets that shine above us at night and are supposed to be inhabited—it’s my duty, Sir, as an honourable member of that profession, not to put to you a leading question in a matter of this delicacy and importance. Did the gentleman, Sir, who took the first floor of you yesterday afternoon, and who brought with him a box of property—a box of property—say anything more than is set down in this memorandum?’

‘Come, don’t be a fool,’ said Miss Sally.

Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally again, and still said ‘No.’

‘Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!’ cried Brass, relaxing into a smile. ‘Did he say anything about his property?—there!’

‘That’s the way to put it,’ said Miss Sally, nodding to her brother.

‘Did he say, for instance,’ added Brass, in a kind of comfortable, cozy tone—‘I don’t assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask you, to refresh your memory—did he say, for instance, that he was a stranger in London—that it was not his humour or within his ability to give any references—that he felt we had a right to require them—and that, in case anything should happen to him, at any time, he particularly desired that whatever property he had upon the premises should be considered mine, as some slight recompense for the trouble and annoyance I should sustain—and were you, in short,’ added Brass, still more comfortably and cozily than before, ‘were you induced to accept him on my behalf, as a tenant, upon those conditions?’

‘Certainly not,’ replied Dick.

‘Why then, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, darting at him a supercilious and reproachful look, ‘it’s my opinion that you’ve mistaken your calling, and will never make a lawyer.’

‘Not if you live a thousand years,’ added Miss Sally. Whereupon the brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the little tin box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.

Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller’s dinner-time, which was at three o’clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming. At the first stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared. At the last stroke of five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic, became fragrant with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel.

‘Mr Richard,’ said Brass, ‘this man’s not up yet. Nothing will wake him, sir. What’s to be done?’

‘I should let him have his sleep out,’ returned Dick.

‘Sleep out!’ cried Brass; ‘why he has been asleep now, six-and-twenty hours. We have been moving chests of drawers over his head, we have knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have made the servant-girl fall down stairs several times (she’s a light weight, and it don’t hurt her much,) but nothing wakes him.’

‘Perhaps a ladder,’ suggested Dick, ‘and getting in at the first-floor window—’

‘But then there’s a door between; besides, the neighbours would be up in arms,’ said Brass.

‘What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?’ suggested Dick.

‘That would be an excellent plan,’ said Brass, ‘if anybody would be—’ and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller—‘would be kind, and friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it. I dare say it would not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.’

Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly fall within Miss Sally’s department. As he said nothing further, and declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that they should go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken the sleeper by some less violent means, which, if they failed on this last trial, must positively be succeeded by stronger measures. Mr Swiveller, assenting, armed himself with his stool and the large ruler, and repaired with his employer to the scene of action, where Miss Brass was already ringing a hand-bell with all her might, and yet without producing the smallest effect upon their mysterious lodger.

‘There are his boots, Mr Richard!’ said Brass.

‘Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,’ quoth Richard Swiveller. And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of boots as one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as if their owner’s legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with their broad soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place by main force.

‘I can’t see anything but the curtain of the bed,’ said Brass, applying his eye to the keyhole of the door. ‘Is he a strong man, Mr Richard?’

‘Very,’ answered Dick.

‘It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to bounce out suddenly,’ said Brass. ‘Keep the stairs clear. I should be more than a match for him, of course, but I’m the master of the house, and the laws of hospitality must be respected.—Hallo there! Hallo, hallo!’

While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole, uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger’s attention, and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller put his stool close against the wall by the side of the door, and mounting on the top and standing bolt upright, so that if the lodger did make a rush, he would most probably pass him in its onward fury, began a violent battery with the ruler upon the upper panels of the door. Captivated with his own ingenuity, and confident in the strength of his position, which he had taken up after the method of those hardy individuals who open the pit and gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr Swiveller rained down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the bell was drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs below, ready to fly at a moment’s notice, was obliged to hold her ears lest she should be rendered deaf for life.

Il signor Swiveller prese un grande foglio di carta da cancelleria e, con un’espressione di profonda gravità, cominciò a scrivere una nota molto piccola in un angolo.

«Non possiamo mai essere troppo cauti», disse il signor Brass. «C’è un sacco di malvagità che gira per il mondo, un sacco di malvagità. Il signore ha per caso detto, signore, ma non importa per ora, signore; finisca prima quel piccolo memorandum.»

Dick lo fece e lo consegnò a Mr Brass, che era sceso dallo sgabello e stava passeggiando su e giù per l’ufficio.

«Oh, questo è il memorandum, vero?» disse Brass, passando lo sguardo sul documento. «Molto bene. Ora, signor Richard, il gentiluomo ha detto qualcos’altro?»

‘No.’

«È sicuro, signor Richard,» disse Brass, solennemente, «che il gentiluomo non disse altro?»

«Non una parola, signore», rispose Dick.

«Rifletta ancora, signore», disse Brass; «è mio dovere, signore, in virtù della posizione che occupo e come onorevole membro della professione legale - la prima professione in questo paese, signore, o in qualsiasi altro paese, o in qualunque dei pianeti che brillano sopra di noi di notte e si suppone siano abitati - è mio dovere, signore, come onorevole membro di quella professione, non porle una domanda suggestiva in una questione di tale delicatezza e importanza. Il signore, signore, che ha preso il primo piano da lei ieri pomeriggio, e che ha portato con sé una cassa di proprietà - una cassa di proprietà - ha detto qualcosa di più di quanto è riportato in questo memorandum?»

«Dai, non fare lo sciocco», disse Miss Sally.

Dick la guardò, poi guardò Brass, poi di nuovo Miss Sally, e ancora disse “No”.

«Pfui, pfui! Maledizione, signor Richard, come è noioso!» esclamò Brass, rilassandosi in un sorriso. «Ha detto qualcosa riguardo ai suoi beni?—ecco!»

«Questo è il modo di dirlo», disse Miss Sally, annuendo al fratello.

«Disse, per esempio,» aggiunse Brass, con un tono di voce confortevole e accogliente — «non affermo che abbia detto così, badate bene; vi chiedo solo di rinfrescarvi la memoria — disse, per esempio, che era uno sconosciuto a Londra — che non era nel suo stilpo o nelle sue capacità fornire referenze — che sentiva che avevamo il diritto di richiederle — e che, nel caso gli fosse successo qualcosa, in qualsiasi momento, desiderava particolarmente che qualsiasi proprietà avesse nei locali fosse considerata mia, come un piccolo compenso per le seccature e le molestie che avrei subito — e foste, in breve,» aggiunse Brass, ancora più comodamente e accogliente di prima, «foste indotto ad accettarlo per conto mio, come inquilino, su quelle condizioni?»

«Certamente no», rispose Dick.

«Ebbene, signor Richard,» disse Brass, lanciandogli un’occhiata altezzosa e rimproveratrice, «è mia opinione che lei abbia sbagliato chiamata e non farà mai un avvocato.»

«Non anche se vivrete mille anni», aggiunse Miss Sally. E allora il fratello e la sorella presero ciascuno una rumorosa presa di tabacco da fiuto dalla scatolina di latta, e caddero in un pensieroso umore cupo.

Non accadde nulla di nuovo fino all’ora di cena di Mr Swiveller, che era alle tre e sembrava arrivare dopo tre settimane. Al primo rintocco dell’ora, il nuovo impiegato scomparve. All’ultimo rintocco delle cinque, riapparve, e l’ufficio, come per magia, si riempì del profumo di gin e acqua e scorza di limone.

«Signor Richard,» disse Brass, «quest’uomo non è ancora alzato. Nulla lo sveglierà, signore. Cosa si deve fare?»

«Gli avrei lasciato fare il suo sonno», rispose Dick.

«Dormire fuori!» gridò Brass; «perché è stato addormentato per ventisei ore. Abbiamo spostato cassetti sopra la sua testa, abbiamo bussato doppie volte alla porta di strada, abbiamo fatto cadere la domestica giù per le scale diverse volte (è leggera e non le fa molto male), ma nulla lo sveglia.»

«Forse una scala», suggerì Dick, «e entrare dalla finestra del primo piano—»

«Ma poi c’è una porta in mezzo; inoltre, i vicini sarebbero furiosi», disse Brass.

«Che ne dite di salire sul tetto della casa attraverso la botola e scendere giù per il camino?» suggerì Dick.

«Sarebbe un ottimo piano», disse Brass, «se qualcuno fosse —» e qui guardò molto intensamente il signor Swiveller —«fosse abbastanza gentile, amichevole e generoso da intraprenderlo. Non credo che sarebbe per nulla così sgradevole come si suppone.»

Dick aveva fatto la proposta, pensando che il compito potesse rientrare nelle mansioni della signorina Sally. Poiché non disse altro e rifiutò di cogliere l’occasione, il signor Brass fu costretto a proporre che salissero insieme e facessero un ultimo tentativo per svegliare il dormiente con mezzi meno violenti, che, se avessero fallito in questo ultimo tentativo, sarebbero stati sostituiti positivamente da misure più drastiche. Il signor Swiveller, acconsentendo, si armò della sua sedia e del grande righello, e si recò con il suo datore di lavoro sul luogo dell’azione, dove la signorina Brass stava già suonando un campanello con tutte le sue forze, eppure senza produrre il minimo effetto sul loro misterioso inquilino.

«Ecco i suoi stivali, signor Richard!» disse Brass.

«Articoli dallo sguardo molto ostinato,» disse Richard Swiveller. E in verità, erano un paio di stivali robusti e massicci come pochi; saldamente piantati a terra come se le gambe e i piedi del loro proprietario fossero stati dentro di loro; e sembravano, con le loro suole larghe e le punte tonde, tenere il possesso del loro posto con la forza bruta.

«Non vedo altro che la tenda del letto», disse Brass, avvicinando l’occhio alla serratura della porta. «È un uomo robusto, signor Richard?»

«Molto», rispose Dick.

«Sarebbe una circostanza estremamente spiacevole se lui dovesse uscire improvvisamente», disse Brass. «Mantenete libere le scale. Sarei più che in grado di tenergli testa, naturalmente, ma sono il padrone di casa e le leggi dell’ospitalità devono essere rispettate. — Ehi là! Ehi, ehi!»

Mentre il signor Brass, con l’occhio stranamente infilato nella toppa, emetteva questi suoni per attirare l’attenzione dell’inquilino, e mentre la signorina Brass suonava il campanello, il signor Swiveller avvicinò lo sgabello al muro accanto alla porta, vi salì in cima e si mise in piedi ben dritto, in modo che se l’inquilino avesse fatto una carica, molto probabilmente lo avrebbe superato nella sua furia, e iniziò una violenta percussione con il righello sui pannelli superiori della porta. Incantato dalla propria ingegnosità e fiducioso nella solidità della sua posizione, che aveva assunto secondo il metodo di quei coraggiosi individui che aprono le porte della platea e del loggione nei teatri nelle sere di spettacolo affollato, il signor Swiveller scatenò una tale pioggia di colpi che il suono del campanello venne soffocato; e la piccola domestica, che se ne stava in attesa sulle scale sottostanti, pronta a scappare al primo segnale, fu costretta a tapparsi le orecchie per non restare sorda per il resto della vita.

Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently open. The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived into her own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for personal courage, ran into the next street, and finding that nobody followed him, armed with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his hands in his pockets, walked very slowly all at once, and whistled.

Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into as flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the door growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the boots in his hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down stairs on speculation. This idea, however, he abandoned. He was turning into his room again, still growling vengefully, when his eyes met those of the watchful Richard.

‘Have YOU been making that horrible noise?’ said the single gentleman.

‘I have been helping, sir,’ returned Dick, keeping his eye upon him, and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an indication of what the single gentleman had to expect if he attempted any violence.

‘How dare you then,’ said the lodger, ‘Eh?’

To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the lodger held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of a gentleman to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and whether the peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to weigh as nothing in the balance.

‘Is my peace nothing?’ said the single gentleman.

‘Is their peace nothing, sir?’ returned Dick. ‘I don’t wish to hold out any threats, sir—indeed the law does not allow of threats, for to threaten is an indictable offence—but if ever you do that again, take care you’re not sat upon by the coroner and buried in a cross road before you wake. We have been distracted with fears that you were dead, Sir,’ said Dick, gently sliding to the ground, ‘and the short and the long of it is, that we cannot allow single gentlemen to come into this establishment and sleep like double gentlemen without paying extra for it.’

‘Indeed!’ cried the lodger.

‘Yes, Sir, indeed,’ returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and saying whatever came uppermost; ‘an equal quantity of slumber was never got out of one bed and bedstead, and if you’re going to sleep in that way, you must pay for a double-bedded room.’

Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks, the lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with twinkling eyes. He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on. As it was clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr Swiveller was relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to encourage him in it, smiled himself.

The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed his nightcap very much on one side of his bald head. This gave him a rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe it, charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of propitiation, he expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to get up, and further that he would never do so any more.

‘Come here, you impudent rascal!’ was the lodger’s answer as he re-entered his room.

Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but reserving the ruler in case of a surprise. He rather congratulated himself on his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice or explanation of any kind, double-locked the door.

‘Can you drink anything?’ was his next inquiry.

Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the pangs of thirst, but that he was still open to ‘a modest quencher,’ if the materials were at hand. Without another word spoken on either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table.

Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him closely. Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an egg; into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw steak from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water. Then, with the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he procured a light and applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place of its own below the temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the little chambers; then he opened them; and then, by some wonderful and unseen agency, the steak was done, the egg was boiled, the coffee was accurately prepared, and his breakfast was ready.

‘Hot water—’ said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as much coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him—‘extraordinary rum—sugar—and a travelling glass. Mix for yourself. And make haste.’

Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on the table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which seemed to hold everything. The lodger took his breakfast like a man who was used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of them.

‘The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?’ said the lodger.

Dick nodded. The rum was amazing.

‘The woman of the house—what’s she?’

‘A dragon,’ said Dick.

The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things in his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman, evinced no surprise, but merely inquired ‘Wife or sister?’—‘Sister,’ said Dick.—‘So much the better,’ said the single gentleman, ‘he can get rid of her when he likes.’

‘I want to do as I like, young man,’ he added after a short silence; ‘to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in when I like, go out when I like—to be asked no questions and be surrounded by no spies. In this last respect, servants are the devil. There’s only one here.’

‘And a very little one,’ said Dick.

All’improvviso la porta fu sbloccata dall’interno e spalancata con violenza. La piccola domestica si precipitò nella cantina della carbonaia; Miss Sally si rifugiò nella sua camera da letto; il signor Brass, che non era famoso per il suo coraggio personale, corse nella strada successiva e, accorgendosi che nessuno lo seguiva, armato di un attizzatoio o di un’altra arma offensiva, si mise le mani in tasca, si mise a camminare molto lentamente all’improvviso e fischiettò.

Nel frattempo, il signor Swiveller, in cima allo sgabello, si appiattì il più possibile contro il muro e guardò, non senza interesse, in basso verso l’uomo solo, che apparve sulla porta brontolando e imprecando in modo davvero terribile, e, con gli stivali in mano, sembrava avere l’intenzione di lanciarli giù per le scale a caso. Quest’idea, tuttavia, la abbandonò. Stava rientrando nella sua stanza, continuando a brontolare vendicativo, quando i suoi occhi incontrarono quelli del vigile Richard.

«Avete fatto voi quel terribile rumore?» disse il signore.

«Stavo aiutando, signore», rispose Dick, tenendolo d’occhio e agitando delicatamente la riga nella sua mano destra, come a indicare che cosa avrebbe dovuto aspettarsi il signorino se avesse tentato di usare la violenza.

“Come osa allora,” disse l’inquilino, “Eh?”

A questo, Dick non rispose altro che chiedendo se l’inquilino ritenesse coerente con il comportamento e il carattere di un gentiluomo andare a dormire per ventisei ore di fila, e se la pace di una famiglia amabile e virtuosa non dovesse contare nulla nella bilancia.

«La mia pace non vale nulla?» disse il signore da solo.

«Non vale nulla la loro pace, signore?» rispose Dick. «Non intendo fare minacce, signore - in effetti la legge non consente minacce, perché minacciare è un reato perseguibile - ma se mai lo rifarai, fai attenzione a non essere dichiarato morto dal coroner e sepolto in una croce strada prima di svegliarti. Siamo stati distratti dalla paura che fossi morto, signore», disse Dick, scivolando dolcemente a terra, «e in breve, la questione è che non possiamo permettere a signori single di entrare in questo stabilimento e dormire come signori doppi senza pagare in più per questo.»

«Davvero!» esclamò l’inquilino.

«Sì, signore, davvero», rispose Dick, arrendendosi al suo destino e dicendo quello che gli veniva in mente; «non si è mai ottenuto una quantità pari di sonno da un letto e da un letto a baldacchino, e se volete dormire in quel modo, dovrete pagare una camera con letto doppio.»

Invece di essere gettato in una passione maggiore da questi commenti, l’inquilino si abbandonò a un largo ghigno e guardò il signor Swiveller con occhi scintillanti. Era un uomo dal viso bruno e abbronzato, e appariva più bruno e più abbronzato per il fatto di avere un berretto bianco. Poiché era chiaro che era un tipo collerico in certi aspetti, il signor Swiveller fu sollevato di trovarlo in così buon umore, e, per incoraggiarlo in questo, sorrise a sua volta.

L’ospite, nella sua irritazione per essere stato svegliato così rudemente, aveva spinto il suo berretto da notte molto da un lato della sua testa calva. Questo gli dava un’aria eccentrica e spavalda che, ora che aveva il tempo di osservarla, incantava Mr Swiveller in modo straordinario; quindi, come atto di propiziazione, egli esprimeva la sua speranza che il gentiluomo stesse per alzarsi, e inoltre che non lo avrebbe mai più fatto.

«Vieni qui, mascalzone impudente!» fu la risposta dell’inquilino mentre rientrava nella sua stanza.

Il signor Swiveller lo seguì all’interno, lasciando lo sgabello fuori, ma tenendo il righello a portata di mano nel caso di una sorpresa. Si congratulò con se stesso per la sua prudenza quando il signore da solo, senza preavviso o spiegazioni di sorta, doppiamente chiuse a chiave la porta.

«Puoi bere qualcosa?» fu la sua domanda successiva.

Il signor Swiveller rispose che aveva appena placato i morsi della sete, ma che era ancora disposto a «un modesto rinfresco», se si disponeva del necessario. Senza che nessuno dei due dicesse altro, l’inquilino prese dal suo grande baule una specie di tempio, che brillava come d’argento lucidato, e lo posò con cura sul tavolo.

Molto interessato alle sue operazioni, il signor Swiveller lo osservava attentamente. In una piccola camera di questo tempio, egli depose un uovo; in un’altra del caffè; in una terza un compatto pezzo di bistecca cruda da una ordinata scatola di latta; in una quarta, versò un po’ di acqua. Poi, con l’aiuto di una scatola di fosfori e alcuni fiammiferi, procurò una fiamma e la applicò a una lampada a spirito che aveva il suo posto proprio sotto il tempio; poi, chiuse i coperchi di tutte le piccole camere; poi li riaprì; e poi, per mezzo di qualche meravigliosa e invisibile agenzia, la bistecca era cotta, l’uovo bollito, il caffè accuratamente preparato, e la sua colazione era pronta.

«Acqua calda» — disse l’inquilino, porgendola a Mr Swiveller con la stessa calma con cui avrebbe fatto se avesse avuto un fuoco da cucina davanti a sé — «rum straordinario — zucchero — e un bicchiere da viaggio. Mescolateli da solo. E fate presto.»

Dick acconsentì, gli occhi che continuavano a spostarsi dal tempio sul tavolo, che sembrava fare tutto, alla grande cassa che sembrava contenere tutto. L’inquilino prese la sua colazione come un uomo che era abituato a compiere questi miracoli, e non ci pensava nemmeno.

«L’uomo della casa è un avvocato, non è così?» disse l’inquilino.

Dick annuì. Il rum era incredibile.

«La donna della casa — chi è?»

«Un drago», disse Dick.

Il signore scapolo, forse perché aveva incontrato cose del genere nei suoi viaggi, o forse perché ERA un signore scapolo, non mostrò alcuna sorpresa, ma si limitò a chiedere: «Moglie o sorella?»—«Sorella», disse Dick.—«Tanto meglio», disse il signore scapolo, «può liberarsene quando vuole».

«Voglio fare come mi pare, giovane», aggiunse dopo un breve silenzio; «andare a letto quando mi pare, alzarmi quando mi pare, entrare quando mi pare, uscire quando mi pare, non essere interrogato e non essere circondato da spie. In quest’ultimo aspetto, i domestici sono il diavolo. Ce n’è solo uno qui.»

«E un bambino molto piccolo», disse Dick.

‘And a very little one,’ repeated the lodger. ‘Well, the place will suit me, will it?’

‘Yes,’ said Dick.

‘Sharks, I suppose?’ said the lodger.

Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.

‘Let them know my humour,’ said the single gentleman, rising. ‘If they disturb me, they lose a good tenant. If they know me to be that, they know enough. If they try to know more, it’s a notice to quit. It’s better to understand these things at once. Good day.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dick, halting in his passage to the door, which the lodger prepared to open. ‘When he who adores thee has left but the name—’

‘What do you mean?’

‘—But the name,’ said Dick—‘has left but the name—in case of letters or parcels—’

‘I never have any,’ returned the lodger.

‘Or in the case anybody should call.’

‘Nobody ever calls on me.’

‘If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don’t say it was my fault, Sir,’ added Dick, still lingering.—‘Oh blame not the bard—’

‘I’ll blame nobody,’ said the lodger, with such irascibility that in a moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked door between them.

Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed, only routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller’s abrupt exit. As their utmost exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of the interview, however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence, which, though limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such quiet pantomime, had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down to the office to hear his account of the conversation.

This Mr Swiveller gave them—faithfully as regarded the wishes and character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring, with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of every kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in particular that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever was required, as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them to understand that the cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of sirloin of beef, weighing about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two minutes and a quarter, as he had himself witnessed, and proved by his sense of taste; and further, that, however the effect was produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and bubble up when the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr Swiveller) was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or chemist, or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at some future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks.

There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to enlarge upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which, by reason of its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the heels of the temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner, awakened a slight degree of fever, and rendered necessary two or three other modest quenchers at the public-house in the course of the evening.

‘E un bambino molto piccolo’, ripeté l’inquilino. ‘Bene, il posto mi andrà bene, vero?’

«Sì», disse Dick.

«Squali, immagino?», disse l’inquilino.

Dick annuì in segno di assenso e svuotò il bicchiere.

«Faccia loro conoscere il mio umore», disse il signore da solo, alzandosi. «Se mi disturbano, perdono un buon inquilino. Se sanno che sono così, sanno abbastanza. Se cercano di saperne di più, è un preavviso di sfratto. È meglio capire queste cose subito. Arrivederci.»

«Vi prego di scusarmi», disse Dick, fermandosi mentre si dirigeva verso la porta, che l’inquilino si apprestava ad aprire. «Quando colui che ti adora non ha lasciato che il nome—»

“Cosa intendi dire?”

«—Ma il nome», disse Dick, «ha lasciato solo il nome, nel caso di lettere o pacchi»

«Io non ne ho mai», rispose l’inquilino.

‘O nel caso che qualcuno dovesse chiamare.’

‘Nessuno mi fa mai visita.’

«Se dovesse sorgere qualche errore dal non avere il nome, non dica che è stata colpa mia, signore», aggiunse Dick, ancora indugiando. — «Oh, non incolpi il bardo —»

«Non incolperò nessuno», disse l’inquilino, con tale irascibilità che in un attimo Dick si ritrovò sulle scale, con la porta chiusa a chiave tra loro.

Il signor Brass e la signorina Sally si nascondevano nelle vicinanze, essendo stati, in effetti, scacciati dal buco della serratura solo dall’improvvisa uscita del signor Swiveller. Poiché i loro massimi sforzi non li avevano comunque permessi di ascoltare una sola parola dell’intervista, a causa di una disputa per la precedenza che, sebbene limitata per necessità a spintoni e pizzicotti e a una simile pantomima silenziosa, era durata tutto il tempo, lo affrettarono verso l’ufficio per ascoltare il resoconto della conversazione.

Questo signor Swiveller glielo descrisse — fedelmente per quanto riguardava i desideri e il carattere del signorino, e poeticamente per quanto concerneva la grande cassa, di cui diede una descrizione più notevole per la vivacità dell’immaginazione che per una rigorosa aderenza alla verità; dichiarando, con molte forti affermazioni, che conteneva un campione di ogni tipo di cibo e vino pregiati, noti in questi tempi, e in particolare che era di un tipo autonomo e serviva ciò che era richiesto, come supponeva tramite un meccanismo a orologeria. Diede loro anche a intendere che l’apparato di cucina arrostiva un bel pezzo di controfiletto di manzo, di circa sei libbre, in due minuti e un quarto, come aveva lui stesso testimoniato, e provato col suo senso del gusto; e inoltre, che, comunque fosse prodotto l’effetto, aveva distintamente visto l’acqua bollire e ribollire quando il signorino faceva l’occhiolino; da questi fatti lui (il signor Swiveller) era portato a dedurre che l’inquilino fosse qualche grande mago o chimico, o entrambi, la cui residenza sotto quel tetto non poteva mancare in qualche futuro giorno di gettare un grande credito e distinzione sul nome di Brass, e aggiungere un nuovo interesse alla storia di Bevis Marks.

C’era un punto su cui il signor Swiveller ritenne inutile soffermarsi, e cioè il fatto che il modesto rinfresco, a causa della sua intrinseca forza e del fatto che arrivava subito dopo la bevanda temperata di cui aveva discusso a cena, provocò un leggero grado di febbre, rendendo necessari altri due o tre modesti rinfreschi al pub nel corso della serata.

CHAPTER 36

As the single gentleman after some weeks’ occupation of his lodgings, still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either with Mr Brass or his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard Swiveller as his channel of communication; and as he proved himself in all respects a highly desirable inmate, paying for everything beforehand, giving very little trouble, making no noise, and keeping early hours; Mr Richard imperceptibly rose to an important position in the family, as one who had influence over this mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with him, for good or evil, when nobody else durst approach his person.

If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller’s approaches to the single gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small encouragement; but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic conference with the unknown, without quoting such expressions as ‘Swiveller, I know I can rely upon you,’—‘I have no hesitation in saying, Swiveller, that I entertain a regard for you,’—‘Swiveller, you are my friend, and will stand by me I am sure,’ with many other short speeches of the same familiar and confiding kind, purporting to have been addressed by the single gentleman to himself, and to form the staple of their ordinary discourse, neither Mr Brass nor Miss Sally for a moment questioned the extent of his influence, but accorded to him their fullest and most unqualified belief.

But quite apart from, and independent of, this source of popularity, Mr Swiveller had another, which promised to be equally enduring, and to lighten his position considerably.

He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass. Let not the light scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new tale of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass, however accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving kind. That amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law from her earliest youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as it were, in her first running alone, and maintained a firm grasp upon them ever since; had passed her life in a kind of legal childhood. She had been remarkable, when a tender prattler for an uncommon talent in counterfeiting the walk and manner of a bailiff: in which character she had learned to tap her little playfellows on the shoulder, and to carry them off to imaginary sponging-houses, with a correctness of imitation which was the surprise and delight of all who witnessed her performances, and which was only to be exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an execution into her doll’s house, and taking an exact inventory of the chairs and tables. These artless sports had naturally soothed and cheered the decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman (called ‘old Foxey’ by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding that he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter could not take out an attorney’s certificate and hold a place upon the roll. Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he had solemnly confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable auxiliary; and from the old gentleman’s decease to the period of which we treat, Miss Sally Brass had been the prop and pillar of his business.

It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world, otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for. Miss Sally’s accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind. They began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it. She was in a state of lawful innocence, so to speak. The law had been her nurse. And, as bandy-legs or such physical deformities in children are held to be the consequence of bad nursing, so, if in a mind so beautiful any moral twist or handiness could be found, Miss Sally Brass’s nurse was alone to blame.

It was upon this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full freshness as something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up the office with scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with inkstands and boxes of wafers, catching three oranges in one hand, balancing stools upon his chin and penknives on his nose, and constantly performing a hundred other feats with equal ingenuity; for with such unbendings did Richard, in Mr Brass’s absence, relieve the tedium of his confinement. These social qualities, which Miss Sally first discovered by accident, gradually made such an impression upon her, that she would entreat Mr Swiveller to relax as though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller, nothing loth, would readily consent to do. By these means a friendship sprung up between them. Mr Swiveller gradually came to look upon her as her brother Sampson did, and as he would have looked upon any other clerk. He imparted to her the mystery of going the odd man or plain Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer, baked potatoes, or even a modest quencher, of which Miss Brass did not scruple to partake. He would often persuade her to undertake his share of writing in addition to her own; nay, he would sometimes reward her with a hearty slap on the back, and protest that she was a devilish good fellow, a jolly dog, and so forth; all of which compliments Miss Sally would receive in entire good part and with perfect satisfaction.

One circumstance troubled Mr Swiveller’s mind very much, and that was that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels of the earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface unless the single gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it and immediately disappear again. She never went out, or came into the office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or looked out of any one of the windows, or stood at the street-door for a breath of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever. Nobody ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her. Mr Brass had said once, that he believed she was a ‘love-child’ (which means anything but a child of love), and that was all the information Richard Swiveller could obtain.

‘It’s of no use asking the dragon,’ thought Dick one day, as he sat contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass. ‘I suspect if I asked any questions on that head, our alliance would be at an end. I wonder whether she is a dragon by-the-bye, or something in the mermaid way. She has rather a scaly appearance. But mermaids are fond of looking at themselves in the glass, which she can’t be. And they have a habit of combing their hair, which she hasn’t. No, she’s a dragon.’

‘Where are you going, old fellow?’ said Dick aloud, as Miss Sally wiped her pen as usual on the green dress, and uprose from her seat.

‘To dinner,’ answered the dragon.

‘To dinner!’ thought Dick, ‘that’s another circumstance. I don’t believe that small servant ever has anything to eat.’

‘Sammy won’t be home,’ said Miss Brass. ‘Stop till I come back. I sha’n’t be long.’

Dick nodded, and followed Miss Brass—with his eyes to the door, and with his ears to a little back parlour, where she and her brother took their meals.

‘Now,’ said Dick, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, ‘I’d give something—if I had it—to know how they use that child, and where they keep her. My mother must have been a very inquisitive woman; I have no doubt I’m marked with a note of interrogation somewhere. My feelings I smother, but thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my—upon my word,’ said Mr Swiveller, checking himself and falling thoughtfully into the client’s chair, ‘I should like to know how they use her!’

After running on, in this way, for some time, Mr Swiveller softly opened the office door, with the intention of darting across the street for a glass of the mild porter. At that moment he caught a parting glimpse of the brown head-dress of Miss Brass flitting down the kitchen stairs. ‘And by Jove!’ thought Dick, ‘she’s going to feed the small servant. Now or never!’

First peeping over the handrail and allowing the head-dress to disappear in the darkness below, he groped his way down, and arrived at the door of a back kitchen immediately after Miss Brass had entered the same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton. It was a very dark miserable place, very low and very damp: the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches. The water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. The grate, which was a wide one, was wound and screwed up tight, so as to hold no more than a little thin sandwich of fire. Everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all padlocked. There was nothing that a beetle could have lunched upon. The pinched and meagre aspect of the place would have killed a chameleon. He would have known, at the first mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and must have given up the ghost in despair. The small servant stood with humility in presence of Miss Sally, and hung her head.

‘Are you there?’ said Miss Sally.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ was the answer in a weak voice.

‘Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you’ll be picking it, I know,’ said Miss Sally.

The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass took a key from her pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary waste of cold potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge. This she placed before the small servant, ordering her to sit down before it, and then, taking up a great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it upon the carving-fork.

‘Do you see this?’ said Miss Brass, slicing off about two square inches of cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it out on the point of the fork.

The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see every shred of it, small as it was, and answered, ‘yes.’

‘Then don’t you ever go and say,’ retorted Miss Sally, ‘that you hadn’t meat here. There, eat it up.’

This was soon done. ‘Now, do you want any more?’ said Miss Sally.

The hungry creature answered with a faint ‘No.’ They were evidently going through an established form.

‘You’ve been helped once to meat,’ said Miss Brass, summing up the facts; ‘you have had as much as you can eat, you’re asked if you want any more, and you answer, ‘no!’ Then don’t you ever go and say you were allowanced, mind that.’

With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away and locked the safe, and then drawing near to the small servant, overlooked her while she finished the potatoes.

It was plain that some extraordinary grudge was working in Miss Brass’s gentle breast, and that it was that which impelled her, without the smallest present cause, to rap the child with the blade of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back, as if she found it quite impossible to stand so close to her without administering a few slight knocks. But Mr Swiveller was not a little surprised to see his fellow-clerk, after walking slowly backwards towards the door, as if she were trying to withdraw herself from the room but could not accomplish it, dart suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant give her some hard blows with her clenched hand. The victim cried, but in a subdued manner as if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss Sally, comforting herself with a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs, just as Richard had safely reached the office.

CAPITOLO 36

Poiché il signorino, dopo aver occupato i suoi alloggi per alcune settimane, continuava a rifiutarsi di comunicare, con parole o gesti, sia con il signor Brass che con sua sorella Sally, ma sceglieva invariabilmente Richard Swiveller come suo canale di comunicazione; e poiché si rivelò in tutti i sensi un inquilino desiderabile, pagando tutto in anticipo, dando poche seccature, facendo poco rumore e rispettando gli orari; il signor Richard impercettibilmente salì a una posizione importante nella famiglia, come colui che aveva influenza su questo misterioso inquilino, e poteva negoziare con lui, per il bene o per il male, quando nessun altro osava avvicinarsi a lui.

Se si deve dire la verità, anche le avances di Mr Swiveller verso il signore single erano di un tipo molto distante, e ricevevano poca incoraggiamento; ma, dato che non tornava mai da una conferenza monosillabica con l’ignoto senza citare espressioni come “Swiveller, so di poter contare su di te”, “Non ho esitazioni a dire, Swiveller, che nutro un riguardo per te”, “Swiveller, sei mio amico, e sono sicuro che starai al mio fianco”, con molti altri brevi discorsi dello stesso genere familiare e fiducioso, che presumibilmente erano stati rivolti dal signore single a lui stesso, e costituivano il fondamento del loro discorso ordinario, né Mr Brass né Miss Sally per un momento misero in dubbio l’entità della sua influenza, ma gli accordarono la loro più piena e incondizionata fiducia.

Ma, al di là e indipendentemente da questa fonte di popolarità, il signor Swiveller ne aveva un’altra, che prometteva di essere altrettanto duratura e di alleggerire notevolmente la sua posizione.

Gli fu gradito agli occhi della signorina Sally Brass. Che i leggeri deridenti dell’incanto femminile non drizzino le orecchie per ascoltare una nuova storia di amore che servirà loro da scherno; perché la signorina Brass, per quanto accuratamente formata per essere amata, non era del genere amante. Quella amabile vergine, avendosi aggrappata alle gonne della Legge fin dalla sua più tenera età; avendosi sostenuta con il loro aiuto, per così dire, nella sua prima corsa da sola, e mantenendo una salda presa su di esse da allora in poi; aveva passato la sua vita in una specie di infanzia legale. Era stata notevole, quando era una tenera chiacchierona, per un talento insolito nel contraffare il camminare e il comportamento di un ufficiale giudiziario: in questo ruolo aveva imparato a toccare sulla spalla i suoi piccoli compagni di gioco, e a portarli via in immaginari sponging-house, con una correttezza di imitazione che era la sorpresa e il diletto di tutti i presenti, e che poteva essere superata solo dal suo squisito modo di eseguire un sequestro nella casa delle bambole, e di fare un inventario esatto delle sedie e dei tavoli. Questi giochi ingenui avevano naturalmente lenito e alleggerito il declino del suo padre vedovo: un gentiluomo esemplare (chiamato ‘vecchio Foxey’ dai suoi amici per la sua estrema sagacia,) che li incoraggiava al massimo, e il cui principale rammarico, trovandosi vicino al cimitero di Houndsditch, era che sua figlia non potesse ottenere un certificato da avvocato e occupare un posto nell’albo. Pieno di questo affettuoso e toccante dolore, l’aveva solennemente affidata a suo figlio Sampson come un ausilio inestimabile; e dalla morte del vecchio gentiluomo fino al periodo di cui trattiamo, la signorina Sally Brass era stata il sostegno e il pilastro della sua attività.

È ovvio che, essendosi dedicata fin dall’infanzia a questo unico inseguimento e studio, la signorina Brass non poteva conoscere molto del mondo, se non in relazione alla legge; e che da una signora dotata di tali alti gusti, non si poteva certo aspettare una competenza in quelle arti più gentili e delicate in cui le donne di solito eccellono. Le competenze della signorina Sally erano tutte di tipo maschile e strettamente legale. Iniziavano con la pratica di un avvocato e finivano con essa. Era in uno stato di innocenza legale, per così dire. La legge era stata la sua balia. E, come le gambe arcuate o tali deformità fisiche nei bambini sono considerate la conseguenza di una cattiva cura, così, se in una mente così bella si potesse trovare qualche distorsione o abilità morale, la balia della signorina Sally Brass era sola a doverne rispondere.

Fu su questa signorina, dunque, che il signor Swiveller irruppe in piena freschezza come qualcosa di nuovo e finora inimmaginato, illuminando l’ufficio con frammenti di canzone e allegria, facendo giochi di prestigio con calamaie e scatole di cerini, prendendo tre arance con una mano, bilanciando sgabelli sul suo mento e temperini sul naso, e eseguendo costantemente cento altri trucchi con pari ingegnosità; poiché con tali distrazioni Richard, in assenza del signor Brass, alleviava la noia del suo confino. Queste qualità sociali, che la signorina Sally scoprì per caso, gradualmente fecero tale impressione su di lei, che lo pregava di rilassarsi come se lei non ci fosse, e il signor Swiveller, niente affatto riluttante, acconsentiva prontamente. In questo modo tra loro nacque una amicizia. Il signor Swiveller giunse gradualmente a considerarla come suo fratello Sampson, e come avrebbe considerato qualsiasi altro impiegato. Le rivelò il mistero di andare a fare il terzo o il semplice Newmarket per frutta, ginger-beer, patate al forno, o anche un modesto bicchier d’acqua, di cui la signorina Brass non si faceva scrupolo a partecipare. Spesso la persuase ad assumersi la sua parte di scrittura in aggiunta alla propria; anzi, a volte la ricompensava con una vigorosa pacca sulla schiena, e protestava che era una diavolo di una persona, un tipo in gamba, e così via; tutti complimenti che la signorina Sally riceveva con grande soddisfazione e perfetta contentezza.

Una circostanza preoccupava molto la mente di Mr Swiveller, e cioè che la piccola serva rimanesse sempre da qualche parte nelle viscere della terra sotto Bevis Marks, e non venisse mai alla superficie a meno che il signorino non suonasse il campanello, quando lei rispondeva e scompariva immediatamente di nuovo. Non usciva mai, o entrava nell’ ufficio, o aveva un viso pulito, o si toglieva il grembiule ruvido, o guardava fuori da una delle finestre, o si fermava alla porta di strada per una boccata d’aria, o aveva qualsiasi riposo o godimento. Nessuno andava mai a trovarla, nessuno parlava di lei, nessuno si preoccupava di lei. Mr Brass aveva detto una volta, che credeva che fosse un ‘amore-figlio’ (che significa tutto tranne un figlio di amore), e quella era tutta l’informazione che Richard Swiveller poteva ottenere.

«Non serve chiedere al drago», pensò Dick un giorno, mentre sedeva contemplando i tratti della signorina Sally Brass. «Sospetto che se facessi domande su quel punto, la nostra alleanza sarebbe finita. Mi chiedo se sia un drago, tra l’altro, o qualcosa nel genere della sirena. Ha un aspetto piuttosto squamoso. Ma le sirene amano guardarsi allo specchio, cosa che lei non può fare. E hanno l’abitudine di pettinarsi i capelli, cosa che lei non fa. No, è un drago.»

«Dove stai andando, vecchio mio?» disse Dick ad alta voce, mentre la signorina Sally si asciugava la penna come al solito sul vestito verde e si alzava dal suo posto.

«A cena», rispose il drago.

«A cena!» pensò Dick, «questa è un’altra circostanza. Non credo che quella piccola servetta abbia mai qualcosa da mangiare.»

«Sammy non sarà a casa», disse Miss Brass. «Aspetta che torno. Non ci metterò molto.»

Dick annuì e seguì la signorina Brass, con gli occhi sulla porta e con le orecchie rivolte verso un piccolo salottino sul retro, dove lei e suo fratello prendevano i loro pasti.

«Ora», disse Dick, camminando su e giù con le mani in tasca, «darei qualcosa — se l’avessi — per sapere come usano quella bambina, e dove la tengono. Mia madre doveva essere una donna molto curiosa; non ho dubbio di essere segnato da un punto interrogativo da qualche parte. Repressi i miei sentimenti, ma tu sei stata la causa di questa angoscia, mia — sulla mia parola», disse il signor Swiveller, frenandosi e sedendosi pensieroso sulla sedia del cliente, «vorrei sapere come la usano!»

Dopo aver continuato così per qualche tempo, il signor Swiveller aprì dolcemente la porta dell’ufficio, con l’intenzione di attraversare di corsa la strada per un bicchiere di birra scura. In quel momento, intravide l’ultimo scorcio del copricapo marrone della signorina Brass che scompariva giù per le scale della cucina. «E per Giove!» pensò Dick, «sta per dare da mangiare alla piccola serva. Ora o mai più!»

Prima di dare un’occhiata oltre il corrimano e lasciare che l’acconciatura scomparisse nell’oscurità sottostante, si fece strada al buio e arrivò alla porta di una cucina sul retro subito dopo che la signorina Brass era entrata nella stessa, portando in mano una zampa di montone fredda. Era un luogo molto buio e miserabile, molto basso e molto umido: le pareti deturpate da mille crepe e macchie. L’acqua gocciolava da una botte che perdeva, e un gatto miserabile leccava le gocce con l’ansia malaticcia della fame. La griglia, che era ampia, era avvolta e avvitata strettamente, in modo da contenere non più di un piccolo sottile sandwich di fuoco. Tutto era chiuso a chiave; la cantina del carbone, la scatola delle candele, la scatola del sale, la dispensa della carne erano tutti chiusi con un lucchetto. Non c’era nulla su cui una cimice avrebbe potuto pranzare. L’aspetto angusto e magro del luogo avrebbe ucciso un camaleonte. Avrebbe saputo, al primo boccone, che l’aria non era commestibile, e avrebbe dovuto rinunciare al fantasma in disperazione. La piccola serva stava con umiltà in presenza della signorina Sally, e abbassò la testa.

«Siete lì?» disse Miss Sally.

«Sì, signora», fu la risposta con voce debole.

«Allontanati dalla gamba d’agnello, o so che la toccherai», disse Miss Sally.

La ragazza si ritirò in un angolo, mentre Miss Brass tirò fuori una chiave dalla tasca, aprì la cassaforte e ne estrasse un triste mucchio di patate fredde, che sembravano commestibili quanto Stonehenge. Le mise davanti alla piccola serva, ordinandole di sedersi davanti a esse, e poi, impugnando un grande coltello da macellaio, fece un gran teatro di affilare la lama sulla forchetta.

«Vedete questo?», disse Miss Brass, tagliando circa due pollici quadrati di agnello freddo, dopo tutta questa preparazione, e tenendolo in alto sulla punta della forchetta.

La piccola serva lo guardò con occhi affamati, abbastanza da vedere ogni brandello di esso, piccolo com’era, e rispose: «Sì».

«Allora non andrai mai a dire», ribatté Miss Sally, «che qui non hai avuto carne. Ecco, mangiala.»

Questo fu fatto presto. «Ora, ne vuoi ancora?» disse Miss Sally.

La creatura affamata rispose con un flebile «No». Evidentemente stavano seguendo una procedura consueta.

«Le è stato dato del cibo una volta», disse Miss Brass, riassumendo i fatti, «ha mangiato quanto voleva, le chiedono se ne vuole ancora e lei risponde di no! Allora non vada mai a dire che le è stato dato un’elemosina, tenga bene a mente questo.»

Con queste parole, Miss Sally ripose la carne e chiuse a chiave la cassaforte, e poi avvicinandosi alla piccola serva, la sorvegliò mentre finiva di preparare le patate.

Era evidente che qualche straordinario rancore covava nel tenero petto della signorina Brass, e che era questo a spingerla, senza la minima ragione attuale, a colpire la bambina con la lama del coltello, ora sulla mano, ora sulla testa, ora sulla schiena, come se le fosse del tutto impossibile stare così vicino a lei senza somministrarle qualche leggero colpo. Ma il signor Swiveller non fu poco sorpreso nel vedere la sua collega, dopo essersi lentamente ritirata verso la porta, come se stesse cercando di uscire dalla stanza ma non riuscisse a farlo, scattare improvvisamente in avanti e, gettandosi sulla piccola serva, infliggerle alcuni colpi violenti con il pugno chiuso. La vittima piangeva, ma in modo soffocato, come se temesse di alzare la voce, e la signorina Sally, consolandosi con una presa di tabacco da fiuto, salì le scale, proprio mentre Richard aveva raggiunto in sicurezza l’ufficio.

CHAPTER 37

The single gentleman among his other peculiarities—and he had a very plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new specimen—took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the exhibition of Punch. If the sound of a Punch’s voice, at ever so remote a distance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman, though in bed and asleep, would start up, and, hurrying on his clothes, make for the spot with all speed, and presently return at the head of a long procession of idlers, having in the midst the theatre and its proprietors. Straightway, the stage would be set up in front of Mr Brass’s house; the single gentleman would establish himself at the first floor window; and the entertainment would proceed, with all its exciting accompaniments of fife and drum and shout, to the excessive consternation of all sober votaries of business in that silent thoroughfare. It might have been expected that when the play was done, both players and audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as bad as the play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of the puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the purport of which no human being could fathom. But the secret of these discussions was of little importance. It was sufficient to know that while they were proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated Punch with their tender voices; that the office-window was rendered opaque by flattened noses, and the key-hole of the street-door luminous with eyes; that every time the single gentleman or either of his guests was seen at the upper window, or so much as the end of one of their noses was visible, there was a great shout of execration from the excluded mob, who remained howling and yelling, and refusing consolation, until the exhibitors were delivered up to them to be attended elsewhere. It was sufficient, in short, to know that Bevis Marks was revolutionised by these popular movements, and that peace and quietness fled from its precincts.

Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr Sampson Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so profitable an inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger’s affront along with his cash, and to annoy the audiences who clustered round his door by such imperfect means of retaliation as were open to him, and which were confined to the trickling down of foul water on their heads from unseen watering pots, pelting them with fragments of tile and mortar from the roof of the house, and bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to come suddenly round the corner and dash in among them precipitately. It may, at first sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few that Mr Brass, being a professional gentleman, should not have legally indicted some party or parties, active in the promotion of the nuisance, but they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors seldom take their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving, than for its always shaving the right person.

‘Come,’ said Mr Brass one afternoon, ‘this is two days without a Punch. I’m in hopes he has run through ‘em all, at last.’

‘Why are you in hopes?’ returned Miss Sally. ‘What harm do they do?’

‘Here’s a pretty sort of a fellow!’ cried Brass, laying down his pen in despair. ‘Now here’s an aggravating animal!’

‘Well, what harm do they do?’ retorted Sally.

‘What harm!’ cried Brass. ‘Is it no harm to have a constant hallooing and hooting under one’s very nose, distracting one from business, and making one grind one’s teeth with vexation? Is it no harm to be blinded and choked up, and have the king’s highway stopped with a set of screamers and roarers whose throats must be made of—of—’

‘Brass,’ suggested Mr Swiveller.

‘Ah! of brass,’ said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure himself that he had suggested the word in good faith and without any sinister intention. ‘Is that no harm?’

The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a moment, and recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon his hand, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly, ‘There’s another!’

Up went the single gentleman’s window directly.

‘There’s another,’ repeated Brass; ‘and if I could get a break and four blood horses to cut into the Marks when the crowd is at its thickest, I’d give eighteen-pence and never grudge it!’

The distant squeak was heard again. The single gentleman’s door burst open. He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street, and so past the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence the sound proceeded—bent, no doubt, upon securing the strangers’ services directly.

‘I wish I only knew who his friends were,’ muttered Sampson, filling his pocket with papers; ‘if they’d just get up a pretty little Commission de lunatico at the Gray’s Inn Coffee House and give me the job, I’d be content to have the lodgings empty for one while, at all events.’

With which words, and knocking his hat over his eyes as if for the purpose of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation, Mr Brass rushed from the house and hurried away.

As Mr Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances, upon the ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at anything out of window, was better than working; and as he had been, for this reason, at some pains to awaken in his fellow clerk a sense of their beauties and manifold deserts; both he and Miss Sally rose as with one accord and took up their positions at the window: upon the sill whereof, as in a post of honour, sundry young ladies and gentlemen who were employed in the dry nurture of babies, and who made a point of being present, with their young charges, on such occasions, had already established themselves as comfortably as the circumstances would allow.

CAPITOLO 37

L’unico gentiluomo, tra le sue altre peculiarità - e ne aveva in abbondanza, fornendo ogni giorno qualche nuovo esempio - mostrava un interesse straordinario e notevole per lo spettacolo di Punch. Se il suono della voce di Punch, anche a una distanza molto lontana, raggiungeva Bevis Marks, l’unico gentiluomo, anche se a letto e addormentato, si alzava di scatto, si affrettava a vestirsi e si dirigeva verso il luogo con tutta velocità, per poi tornare poco dopo alla testa di una lunga processione di oziosi, con al centro il teatro e i suoi proprietari. Subito, il palco veniva allestito davanti alla casa del signor Brass; l’unico gentiluomo si sistemava alla finestra del primo piano; e lo spettacolo proseguiva, con tutti i suoi eccitanti accompagnamenti di flauto, tamburo e grida, causando grande costernazione tra tutti i sobri devoti degli affari in quel tranquillo quartiere. Si sarebbe potuto aspettare che, una volta finita la rappresentazione, sia gli attori che il pubblico si disperdessero; ma l’epilogo era stato altrettanto brutto dello spettacolo, perché non appena il Diavolo era morto, il direttore dei burattini e il suo socio venivano convocati dal gentiluomo nella sua camera, dove venivano intrattenuti con liquori forti della sua riserva privata, e dove tenevano con lui lunghe conversazioni, il cui scopo nessun essere umano poteva comprendere. Ma il segreto di queste discussioni era di poca importanza. Era sufficiente sapere che mentre queste procedevano, la folla all’esterno continuava a indugiare intorno alla casa; che i ragazzi battevano sul tamburo con i pugni e imitavano Punch con le loro voci acute; che la finestra dell’ufficio era resa opaca da naso schiacciati, e la serratura della porta di strada luminosa di occhi; che ogni volta che il gentiluomo o uno dei suoi ospiti veniva visto alla finestra superiore, o anche solo la punta del loro naso era visibile, c’era un grande grido di esecrazione dalla folla esclusa, che rimaneva a ululare e gridare, rifiutando ogni consolazione, fino a quando gli espositori non venivano consegnati a loro per essere portati altrove. Era sufficiente, in breve, sapere che Bevis Marks era rivoluzionata da questi movimenti popolari, e che pace e tranquillità fuggivano dai suoi confini.

Nessuno fu più indignato da questi avvenimenti di Mr. Sampson Brass, che, non potendosi permettere in alcun modo di perdere un inquilino così redditizio, ritenne prudente inghiottire l’affronto del suo affittuario insieme al suo denaro, e infastidire il pubblico che si accalcava intorno alla sua porta con mezzi di rappresaglia così imperfetti quanto a sua disposizione, e che si limitavano a far scorrere sporca acqua sulle loro teste da annaffiatoi invisibili, a bersagliarli con frammenti di tegole e malta dal tetto della casa, e a corrompere i conducenti di cabriolet pubblici affinché girassero improvvisamente l’angolo e si lanciassero tra di loro in modo precipitoso. Potrebbe, a prima vista, sorprendere i pochi sprovveduti che Mr. Brass, essendo un gentiluomo di professione, non abbia citato legalmente in giudizio qualche parte o parti, attive nella promozione del fastidio, ma saranno così gentili da ricordare che, come i medici raramente prendono le loro stesse prescrizioni, e i teologi non sempre praticano ciò che predicano, così gli avvocati sono restii a intromettersi con la Legge per proprio conto: sapendo che è uno strumento tagliente di applicazione incerta, molto costoso nell’uso, e piuttosto noto per le sue proprietà di rasoio affilato, che per il fatto di radersi sempre la persona giusta.

«Ebbene», disse il signor Brass una sera, «sono due giorni che non c’è il Punch. Spero che alla fine le abbia esaurite tutte».

“Perché sei speranzosa?” rispose Miss Sally. “Che male fanno?”

«Ecco un tipo davvero simpatico!» esclamò Brass, posando la penna in disperazione. «Ecco un animale davvero irritante!»

«Bene, che male fanno?» ribatté Sally.

«Che danno!» esclamò Brass. «Non è forse un danno avere un costante ululato e fischiato sotto il proprio naso, distraendoci dagli affari e facendoci digrignare i denti per la rabbia? Non è forse un danno essere accecati e soffocati, e avere la strada reale bloccata da un gruppo di urlatori e strilloni le cui gole devono essere fatte di—di—»

«Brass», suggerì il signor Swiveller.

«Ah! di ottone», disse l’avvocato, lanciando un’occhiata al suo impiegato, per assicurarsi che avesse suggerito la parola in buona fede e senza alcuna intenzione sinistra. «Non è un danno?»

L’avvocato si fermò di botto nella sua invettiva, e ascoltando per un momento, e riconoscendo la voce ben nota, appoggiò la testa sulla mano, alzò gli occhi al soffitto e mormorò debolmente: «Ce n’è un altro!»

Su andò la finestra del signore single direttamente.

«Ce n’è un altro», ripeté Brass; «e se potessi avere una pausa e quattro cavalli da sangue per tagliare la strada ai Marks quando la folla è più fitta, darei diciotto pence e non me ne pentirei!»

Il lontano stridio si udì di nuovo. La porta del signore scapolo si spalancò. Corse violentemente giù per le scale, fuori in strada, e così oltre la finestra, senza cappello, verso il quartiere da cui proveniva il suono — deciso, senza dubbio, a ottenere direttamente i servigi degli stranieri.

«Vorrei tanto sapere chi sono i suoi amici», borbottò Sampson, riempiendosi le tasche di documenti; «se solo si mettessero insieme per organizzare una graziosa piccola Commissione de lunatico al Gray’s Inn Coffee House e mi affidassero l’incarico, sarei contento di avere l’alloggio libero per un po’, almeno per un po’.»

Con queste parole, e abbassando il cappello sugli occhi come per non vedere neppure l’ombra della terribile visita, il signor Brass uscì di corsa dalla casa e si allontanò in fretta.

Poiché il signor Swiveller era decisamente favorevole a queste rappresentazioni, sulla base del principio che guardare un Punch, o in effetti guardare qualunque cosa fuori dalla finestra, era meglio che lavorare; e poiché, per questo motivo, si era dato da fare per risvegliare nel suo collega impiegato un senso delle loro bellezze e dei loro molteplici meriti; sia lui che la signorina Sally si alzarono come d’accordo e presero posto alla finestra: sul davanzale della quale, come in un posto d’onore, diverse giovani signore e signori che erano impiegati nella cura dei bambini, e che facevano un punto d’onore di essere presenti, con i loro piccoli affidati, in tali occasioni, si erano già sistemati nel modo più comodo possibile, date le circostanze.

The glass being dim, Mr Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom which he had established between them, hitched off the brown head-dress from Miss Sally’s head, and dusted it carefully therewith. By the time he had handed it back, and its beautiful wearer had put it on again (which she did with perfect composure and indifference), the lodger returned with the show and showmen at his heels, and a strong addition to the body of spectators. The exhibitor disappeared with all speed behind the drapery; and his partner, stationing himself by the side of the Theatre, surveyed the audience with a remarkable expression of melancholy, which became more remarkable still when he breathed a hornpipe tune into that sweet musical instrument which is popularly termed a mouth-organ, without at all changing the mournful expression of the upper part of his face, though his mouth and chin were, of necessity, in lively spasms.

The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained in the customary manner. The sensation which kindles in large assemblies, when they are relieved from a state of breathless suspense and are again free to speak and move, was yet rife, when the lodger, as usual, summoned the men up stairs.

‘Both of you,’ he called from the window; for only the actual exhibitor—a little fat man—prepared to obey the summons. ‘I want to talk to you. Come both of you!’

‘Come, Tommy,’ said the little man.

‘I an’t a talker,’ replied the other. ‘Tell him so. What should I go and talk for?’

‘Don’t you see the gentleman’s got a bottle and glass up there?’ returned the little man.

‘And couldn’t you have said so at first?’ retorted the other with sudden alacrity. ‘Now, what are you waiting for? Are you going to keep the gentleman expecting us all day? haven’t you no manners?’

With this remonstrance, the melancholy man, who was no other than Mr Thomas Codlin, pushed past his friend and brother in the craft, Mr Harris, otherwise Short or Trotters, and hurried before him to the single gentleman’s apartment.

‘Now, my men,’ said the single gentleman; ‘you have done very well. What will you take? Tell that little man behind, to shut the door.’

‘Shut the door, can’t you?’ said Mr Codlin, turning gruffly to his friend. ‘You might have knowed that the gentleman wanted the door shut, without being told, I think.’

Mr Short obeyed, observing under his breath that his friend seemed unusually ‘cranky,’ and expressing a hope that there was no dairy in the neighbourhood, or his temper would certainly spoil its contents.

The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and intimated by an emphatic nod of his head that he expected them to be seated. Messrs Codlin and Short, after looking at each other with considerable doubt and indecision, at length sat down—each on the extreme edge of the chair pointed out to him—and held their hats very tight, while the single gentleman filled a couple of glasses from a bottle on the table beside him, and presented them in due form.

‘You’re pretty well browned by the sun, both of you,’ said their entertainer. ‘Have you been travelling?’

Mr Short replied in the affirmative with a nod and a smile. Mr Codlin added a corroborative nod and a short groan, as if he still felt the weight of the Temple on his shoulders.

‘To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?’ pursued the single gentleman.

‘Yes, sir,’ returned Short, ‘pretty nigh all over the West of England.’

‘I have talked to men of your craft from North, East, and South,’ returned their host, in rather a hasty manner; ‘but I never lighted on any from the West before.’

‘It’s our reg’lar summer circuit is the West, master,’ said Short; ‘that’s where it is. We takes the East of London in the spring and winter, and the West of England in the summer time. Many’s the hard day’s walking in rain and mud, and with never a penny earned, we’ve had down in the West.’

‘Let me fill your glass again.’

‘Much obleeged to you sir, I think I will,’ said Mr Codlin, suddenly thrusting in his own and turning Short’s aside. ‘I’m the sufferer, sir, in all the travelling, and in all the staying at home. In town or country, wet or dry, hot or cold, Tom Codlin suffers. But Tom Codlin isn’t to complain for all that. Oh, no! Short may complain, but if Codlin grumbles by so much as a word—oh dear, down with him, down with him directly. It isn’t his place to grumble. That’s quite out of the question.’

‘Codlin an’t without his usefulness,’ observed Short with an arch look, ‘but he don’t always keep his eyes open. He falls asleep sometimes, you know. Remember them last races, Tommy.’

‘Will you never leave off aggravating a man?’ said Codlin. ‘It’s very like I was asleep when five-and-tenpence was collected, in one round, isn’t it? I was attending to my business, and couldn’t have my eyes in twenty places at once, like a peacock, no more than you could. If I an’t a match for an old man and a young child, you an’t neither, so don’t throw that out against me, for the cap fits your head quite as correct as it fits mine.’

‘You may as well drop the subject, Tom,’ said Short. ‘It isn’t particular agreeable to the gentleman, I dare say.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have brought it up,’ returned Mr Codlin; ‘and I ask the gentleman’s pardon on your account, as a giddy chap that likes to hear himself talk, and don’t much care what he talks about, so that he does talk.’

Their entertainer had sat perfectly quiet in the beginning of this dispute, looking first at one man and then at the other, as if he were lying in wait for an opportunity of putting some further question, or reverting to that from which the discourse had strayed. But, from the point where Mr Codlin was charged with sleepiness, he had shown an increasing interest in the discussion: which now attained a very high pitch.

Il vetro essendo opaco, il signor Swiveller, conformemente a una piacevole usanza che aveva instaurato tra loro, tolse il copricapo marrone dalla testa della signorina Sally e lo spolverò con cura. Entro il tempo in cui glielo aveva restituito e la sua bellissima proprietaria se lo era rimesso (cosa che fece con perfetta calma e indifferenza), l’inquilino tornò con lo spettacolo e gli artisti alle calcagna, e un forte incremento del corpo degli spettatori. L’espositore scomparve con tutta velocità dietro la draperia; e il suo socio, posizionandosi accanto al Teatro, osservò il pubblico con un’espressione di malinconia notevole, che divenne ancora più notevole quando intonò una melodia di cornamusa in quell’adorabile strumento musicale popolarmente chiamato organetto, senza cambiare affatto l’espressione malinconica della parte superiore del suo viso, sebbene la sua bocca e il mento fossero, per forza di cose, in vivaci spasmi.

Il dramma giunse al suo termine, e tenne gli spettatori incatenati nel solito modo. La sensazione che si accende nelle grandi assemblee, quando sono sollevate da uno stato di sospensione senza fiato e sono di nuovo libere di parlare e muoversi, era ancora viva, quando l’inquilino, come al solito, convocò gli uomini al piano di sopra.

«Entrambi», chiamò dalla finestra; poiché solo l’espositore vero e proprio — un ometto grassottello — si preparò a obbedire all’invito. «Voglio parlare con voi. Venite, entrambi!»

«Avanti, Tommy», disse il piccolo uomo.

‘Non sono un chiacchierone’, rispose l’altro. ‘Diglielo. Perché dovrei andare a parlare?’

«Non vede che il signore ha una bottiglia e un bicchiere lassù?» ribatté l’omino.

«E non potevi dirlo subito?» ribatté l’altro con improvvisa vivacità. «E ora, cosa aspetti? Ci farai aspettare tutto il giorno, signore? Non hai maniere?»

Con questa protesta, l’uomo malinconico, che non era altri che il signor Thomas Codlin, si fece largo tra il suo amico e collega, il signor Harris, altrimenti noto come Short o Trotters, e si affrettò a precederlo verso l’appartamento del signorino.

«Ora, miei cari», disse l’unico gentiluomo; «avete fatto molto bene. Cosa volete prendere? Dite a quel piccolo uomo dietro di chiudere la porta.»

«Non sai chiudere la porta?» disse il signor Codlin, rivolgendosi in tono burbero al suo amico. «Avresti potuto capire che il signore voleva la porta chiusa, senza che glielo si dicesse, credo.»

Il signor Short obbedì, osservando tra sé che il suo amico sembrava insolitamente «irritabile», e sperando che non ci fosse una latteria nei dintorni, altrimenti il suo umore avrebbe sicuramente rovinato il contenuto.

Il signore indicò un paio di sedie e fece capire con un deciso cenno del capo che si aspettava che si accomodassero. I signori Codlin e Short, dopo essersi guardati a vicenda con notevole dubbio e indecisione, alla fine si sedettero, ciascuno sul bordo estremo della sedia indicata, e tennero saldamente i loro cappelli mentre il signore da solo riempiva un paio di bicchieri da una bottiglia sul tavolo accanto a lui e gli presentava con la dovuta formalità.

«Siete abbastanza ben abbronzati dal sole, tutti e due», disse il loro intrattenitore. «Avete fatto un viaggio?»

Il signor Short rispose affermativamente con un cenno del capo e un sorriso. Il signor Codlin aggiunse un cenno corroborativo e un breve gemito, come se ancora sentisse il peso del Tempio sulle sue spalle.

«A fiere, mercati, corse e cose del genere, immagino?» continuò l’uomo da solo.

“Sì, signore,” rispose Short, “quasi tutto il West dell’Inghilterra.”

«Ho parlato con uomini del vostro mestiere del Nord, dell’Est e del Sud», rispose il loro ospite, in modo piuttosto affrettato; «ma non ne ho mai incontrato nessuno del West prima d’ora».

«È il nostro circuito regolare d’estate a ovest, padrone», disse Short; «è lì che si trova. Prendiamo l’est di Londra in primavera e inverno, e l’ovest dell’Inghilterra in estate estate. Molti sono i duri giorni di cammino sotto la pioggia e nel fango, e senza mai un penny guadagnato, che abbiamo avuto a ovest.»

‘Permettetemi di riempirvi di nuovo il bicchiere.’

«Molto obbligato, signore, credo che lo farò», disse il signor Codlin, spingendo improvvisamente avanti la sua e spingendo da parte quella di Short. «Sono io il sofferente, signore, in tutti i viaggi e in tutti i soggiorni a casa. In città o in campagna, bagnato o asciutto, caldo o freddo, Tom Codlin soffre. Ma Tom Codlin non deve lamentarsi per tutto questo. Oh, no! Short può lamentarsi, ma se Codlin brontola anche solo con una parola—oh, poverino, giù con lui, giù con lui subito. Non è suo compito brontolare. Questo è fuori questione.»

«Codlin non è privo di utilità», osservò Short con uno sguardo malizioso, «ma non tiene sempre gli occhi aperti. A volte si addormenta, lo sai. Ricordi le ultime corse, Tommy.»

«Non smetterai mai di irritare un uomo?» disse Codlin. «Mi sembra proprio che fossi addormentato quando furono raccolti diciassette pence, in un solo giro, non è così? Ero occupato con i miei affari, e non potevo avere gli occhi in venti posti contemporaneamente, come un pavone, non più di quanto potresti fare tu. Se non sono all’altezza di un vecchio e di un giovane bambino, non lo sei nemmeno tu, quindi non tirare fuori questa cosa contro di me, perché il cappello calza la tua testa tanto quanto calza la mia.»

«Potete anche lasciar cadere l’argomento, Tom», disse Short. «Non è particolarmente piacevole per il signore, presumo.»

«Allora non avreste dovuto tirarla fuori», rispose il signor Codlin; «e chiedo scusa al signore per conto vostro, come un ragazzo sventato che ama sentirsi parlare e non gli importa molto di cosa parla, purché parli».

Il loro intrattenitore era rimasto perfettamente tranquillo all’inizio di questa disputa, guardando prima un uomo e poi l’altro, come se stesse in agguato in attesa di un’opportunità per porre qualche altra domanda, o per tornare a quella da cui il discorso si era allontanato. Ma, dal momento in cui il signor Codlin fu accusato di sonnolenza, aveva mostrato un crescente interesse nella discussione: che ora aveva raggiunto un livello molto alto.

‘You are the two men I want,’ he said, ‘the two men I have been looking for, and searching after! Where are that old man and that child you speak of?’

‘Sir?’ said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend.

‘The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you—where are they? It will be worth your while to speak out, I assure you; much better worth your while than you believe. They left you, you say—at those races, as I understand. They have been traced to that place, and there lost sight of. Have you no clue, can you suggest no clue, to their recovery?’

‘Did I always say, Thomas,’ cried Short, turning with a look of amazement to his friend, ‘that there was sure to be an inquiry after them two travellers?’

‘YOU said!’ returned Mr Codlin. ‘Did I always say that that ‘ere blessed child was the most interesting I ever see? Did I always say I loved her, and doated on her? Pretty creetur, I think I hear her now. “Codlin’s my friend,” she says, with a tear of gratitude a trickling down her little eye; “Codlin’s my friend,” she says—“not Short. Short’s very well,” she says; “I’ve no quarrel with Short; he means kind, I dare say; but Codlin,” she says, “has the feelings for my money, though he mayn’t look it.”’

Repeating these words with great emotion, Mr Codlin rubbed the bridge of his nose with his coat-sleeve, and shaking his head mournfully from side to side, left the single gentleman to infer that, from the moment when he lost sight of his dear young charge, his peace of mind and happiness had fled.

‘Good Heaven!’ said the single gentleman, pacing up and down the room, ‘have I found these men at last, only to discover that they can give me no information or assistance! It would have been better to have lived on, in hope, from day to day, and never to have lighted on them, than to have my expectations scattered thus.’

‘Stay a minute,’ said Short. ‘A man of the name of Jerry—you know Jerry, Thomas?’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me of Jerrys,’ replied Mr Codlin. ‘How can I care a pinch of snuff for Jerrys, when I think of that ‘ere darling child? “Codlin’s my friend,” she says, “dear, good, kind Codlin, as is always a devising pleasures for me! I don’t object to Short,” she says, “but I cotton to Codlin.” Once,’ said that gentleman reflectively, ‘she called me Father Codlin. I thought I should have bust!’

‘A man of the name of Jerry, sir,’ said Short, turning from his selfish colleague to their new acquaintance, ‘wot keeps a company of dancing dogs, told me, in a accidental sort of way, that he had seen the old gentleman in connexion with a travelling wax-work, unbeknown to him. As they’d given us the slip, and nothing had come of it, and this was down in the country that he’d been seen, I took no measures about it, and asked no questions—But I can, if you like.’

‘Is this man in town?’ said the impatient single gentleman. ‘Speak faster.’

‘No he isn’t, but he will be to-morrow, for he lodges in our house,’ replied Mr Short rapidly.

‘Then bring him here,’ said the single gentleman. ‘Here’s a sovereign a-piece. If I can find these people through your means, it is but a prelude to twenty more. Return to me to-morrow, and keep your own counsel on this subject—though I need hardly tell you that; for you’ll do so for your own sakes. Now, give me your address, and leave me.’

The address was given, the two men departed, the crowd went with them, and the single gentleman for two mortal hours walked in uncommon agitation up and down his room, over the wondering heads of Mr Swiveller and Miss Sally Brass.

«Siete i due uomini che cercavo», disse, «i due uomini che ho cercato e che ho voluto trovare! Dove sono quel vecchio e quel bambino di cui parlate?»

«Signore?», disse Short, esitando e guardando verso il suo amico.

«Il vecchio e il nipote che viaggiavano con voi, dove sono? Vi conviene parlare, ve lo assicuro; vi conviene molto più di quanto crediate. Li avete persi, dite, a quelle corse, se ho capito bene. Sono stati rintracciati fino a quel luogo, e lì si sono persi le loro tracce. Non avete alcun indizio, non potete suggerire alcun indizio per ritrovarli?»

«Non ho mai detto, Thomas», esclamò Short, rivolgendosi con aria stupita al suo amico, «che ci sarebbe stato sicuramente un’inchiesta su quei due viaggiatori?»

«L’HA detto VOI!» rispose il signor Codlin. «Ho forse sempre detto che quella benedetta bambina fosse la più interessante che avessi mai visto? Ho forse sempre detto che l’amavo e che ero pazzo di lei? Bella creatura, credo di sentirla ora. «“Codlin è mio amico”», dice, con una lacrima di gratitudine che le scorre giù per l’occhio; «“Codlin è mio amico”», dice, «“non Short. Short sta benissimo”», dice; «“non ho niente contro Short; è gentile, ne sono sicura; ma Codlin”», dice, «“ha il cuore per i miei soldi, anche se non lo si direbbe”».

Ripetendo queste parole con grande emozione, il signor Codlin si strofinò il ponte del naso con la manica del cappotto e, scuotendo tristemente la testa da una parte all’altra, lasciò che il signore singolo deducesse che, dal momento in cui aveva perso di vista la sua cara giovane pupilla, la sua pace interiore e la sua felicità erano svanite.

«Buon Dio!», esclamò il signore da solo, camminando su e giù per la stanza, «ho finalmente trovato questi uomini, solo per scoprire che non possono darmi nessuna informazione o assistenza! Sarebbe stato meglio continuare a vivere nella speranza, giorno dopo giorno, e non averli mai incontrati, piuttosto che vedere le mie aspettative disperse così.»

‘Aspetta un minuto’, disse Short. ‘Un uomo di nome Jerry, lo conosci, Thomas?’

«Oh, non parlarmi di Jerrys», rispose il signor Codlin. «Come potrei interessarmi minimamente di Jerrys, quando penso a quella cara bambina? «Codlin è mio amico», dice, «caro, buono, gentile Codlin, che è sempre a escogitare piaceri per me! Non ho niente contro Short», dice, «ma mi piace Codlin». Una volta», disse quel gentiluomo pensieroso, «mi chiamò Papà Codlin. Pensavo che sarei scoppiato!»

«Un uomo di nome Jerry, signore», disse Short, rivolgendosi dal suo egoista collega al loro nuovo conoscente, «che tiene una compagnia di cani danzanti, mi ha detto, in un modo del tutto casuale, che aveva visto il vecchio signore in relazione a un’esposizione itinerante di cera, senza che lui lo sapesse. Poiché ci erano sfuggiti e nulla era venuto fuori da tutto ciò, e questo era accaduto in campagna, non ho preso alcuna misura al riguardo e non ho fatto domande. Ma posso, se lo desidera.»

‘Quest’uomo è in città?’ chiese l’impaziente signore scapolo. ‘Parla più in fretta.’

«No, non lo è, ma lo sarà domani, perché alloggia nella nostra casa», rispose rapidamente il signor Short.

«Allora portatelo qui», disse il signore. «Ecco una sovrana a testa. Se posso trovare queste persone grazie al vostro aiuto, è solo un preludio a venti di più. Tornate da me domani e tenete per voi questo discorso, anche se non ho bisogno di dirvelo, perché lo farete per il vostro interesse. Ora, datemi il vostro indirizzo e andatevene».

L’indirizzo fu dato, i due uomini partirono, la folla li seguì, e il signore per due ore interminabili camminò avanti e indietro nella sua stanza in uno stato di insolita agitazione, sopra le teste stupite di Mr Swiveller e della signorina Sally Brass.

CHAPTER 38

Kit—for it happens at this juncture, not only that we have breathing time to follow his fortunes, but that the necessities of these adventures so adapt themselves to our ease and inclination as to call upon us imperatively to pursue the track we most desire to take—Kit, while the matters treated of in the last fifteen chapters were yet in progress, was, as the reader may suppose, gradually familiarising himself more and more with Mr and Mrs Garland, Mr Abel, the pony, and Barbara, and gradually coming to consider them one and all as his particular private friends, and Abel Cottage, Finchley, as his own proper home.

Stay—the words are written, and may go, but if they convey any notion that Kit, in the plentiful board and comfortable lodging of his new abode, began to think slightingly of the poor fare and furniture of his old dwelling, they do their office badly and commit injustice. Who so mindful of those he left at home—albeit they were but a mother and two young babies—as Kit? What boastful father in the fulness of his heart ever related such wonders of his infant prodigy, as Kit never wearied of telling Barbara in the evening time, concerning little Jacob? Was there ever such a mother as Kit’s mother, on her son’s showing; or was there ever such comfort in poverty as in the poverty of Kit’s family, if any correct judgment might be arrived at, from his own glowing account!

And let me linger in this place, for an instant, to remark that if ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the truer metal and bear the stamp of Heaven. The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as part of himself: as trophies of his birth and power; his associations with them are associations of pride and wealth and triumph; the poor man’s attachment to the tenements he holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold, or precious stone; he has no property but in the affections of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place.

Oh! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember this—if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is lost, or rather never found—if they would but turn aside from the wide thoroughfares and great houses, and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only Poverty may walk—many low roofs would point more truly to the sky, than the loftiest steeple that now rears proudly up from the midst of guilt, and crime, and horrible disease, to mock them by its contrast. In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital, and jail, this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for years. It is no light matter—no outcry from the working vulgar—no mere question of the people’s health and comforts that may be whistled down on Wednesday nights. In love of home, the love of country has its rise; and who are the truer patriots or the better in time of need—those who venerate the land, owning its wood, and stream, and earth, and all that they produce? or those who love their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide domain!

Kit knew nothing about such questions, but he knew that his old home was a very poor place, and that his new one was very unlike it, and yet he was constantly looking back with grateful satisfaction and affectionate anxiety, and often indited square-folded letters to his mother, enclosing a shilling or eighteenpence or such other small remittance, which Mr Abel’s liberality enabled him to make. Sometimes being in the neighbourhood, he had leisure to call upon her, and then great was the joy and pride of Kit’s mother, and extremely noisy the satisfaction of little Jacob and the baby, and cordial the congratulations of the whole court, who listened with admiring ears to the accounts of Abel Cottage, and could never be told too much of its wonders and magnificence.

Although Kit was in the very highest favour with the old lady and gentleman, and Mr Abel, and Barbara, it is certain that no member of the family evinced such a remarkable partiality for him as the self-willed pony, who, from being the most obstinate and opinionated pony on the face of the earth, was, in his hands, the meekest and most tractable of animals. It is true that in exact proportion as he became manageable by Kit he became utterly ungovernable by anybody else (as if he had determined to keep him in the family at all risks and hazards), and that, even under the guidance of his favourite, he would sometimes perform a great variety of strange freaks and capers, to the extreme discomposure of the old lady’s nerves; but as Kit always represented that this was only his fun, or a way he had of showing his attachment to his employers, Mrs Garland gradually suffered herself to be persuaded into the belief, in which she at last became so strongly confirmed, that if, in one of these ebullitions, he had overturned the chaise, she would have been quite satisfied that he did it with the very best intentions.

Besides becoming in a short time a perfect marvel in all stable matters, Kit soon made himself a very tolerable gardener, a handy fellow within doors, and an indispensable attendant on Mr Abel, who every day gave him some new proof of his confidence and approbation. Mr Witherden the notary, too, regarded him with a friendly eye; and even Mr Chuckster would sometimes condescend to give him a slight nod, or to honour him with that peculiar form of recognition which is called ‘taking a sight,’ or to favour him with some other salute combining pleasantry with patronage.

CAPITOLO 38

Kit — poiché in questo momento non solo abbiamo il tempo di seguire le sue vicende, ma le esigenze di queste avventure si adattano così bene alla nostra comodità e inclinazione da imporci imperiosamente di seguire la strada che più desideriamo intraprendere — Kit, mentre le vicende trattate negli ultimi quindici capitoli erano ancora in corso, come il lettore può immaginare, si stava gradualmente familiarizzando sempre di più con il signor e la signora Garland, il signor Abel, il pony e Barbara, e stava gradualmente arrivando a considerarli tutti quanti come suoi amici particolari e privati, e Abel Cottage, a Finchley, come la sua vera e propria casa.

Fermati: le parole sono scritte e possono andare, ma se trasmettono l’idea che Kit, con l’abbondante tavola e il confortevole alloggio della sua nuova dimora, abbia iniziato a pensare con disprezzo al misero vitto e arredamento della sua vecchia casa, allora non svolgono bene il loro compito e commettono un’ingiustizia. Chi era così attento a coloro che aveva lasciato a casa — sebbene fossero solo una madre e due piccoli bambini — come Kit? Quale padre vanaglorioso, nel pieno del suo cuore, ha mai raccontato tali meraviglie del suo piccolo prodigio, come Kit non si stancava mai di raccontare a Barbara nel tempo della sera, riguardo al piccolo Giacobbe? C’è mai stata una madre come quella di Kit, secondo il racconto di suo figlio; o c’è mai stato un tale conforto nella povertà come nella povertà della famiglia di Kit, se si potesse giungere a un giudizio corretto, sulla base del suo resoconto ardente!

E permettetemi di soffermarmi in questo luogo, per un istante, per osservare che se mai le affezioni e gli amori familiari sono cose graziose, lo sono nei poveri. I legami che uniscono i ricchi e i superbi alla casa possono essere forgiati sulla terra, ma quelli che collegano l’uomo povero al suo umile focolare sono di metallo più vero e portano il sigillo del Cielo. L’uomo di nobile lignaggio può amare le sale e le terre della sua eredità come parte di se stesso: come trofei della sua nascita e del suo potere; le sue associazioni con esse sono associazioni di orgoglio e ricchezza e trionfo; l’attaccamento dell’uomo povero ai possedimenti che detiene, che estranei hanno detenuto prima, e potrebbero occupare di nuovo domani, ha una radice più degna, affondata in un terreno più puro. I suoi dei domestici sono di carne e sangue, senza alcuna lega di argento, oro o pietra preziosa; non ha proprietà se non nelle affezioni del suo stesso cuore; e quando esse rendono cari i pavimenti e le pareti spoglie, nonostante stracci e fatica e scarse provviste, quell’uomo ha il suo amore di casa da Dio, e la sua rozza capanna diventa un luogo solenne.

Oh! se coloro che governano le sorti delle nazioni si ricordassero di questo - se solo pensassero a quanto sia difficile per i più poveri nutrire in cuore quell’amore per la casa da cui tutte le virtù domestiche nascono, quando vivono in masse dense e squallide dove la decenza sociale è perduta, o meglio, mai trovata - se solo si distogliessero dai viali ampi e dalle grandi case, e si sforzassero di migliorare le miserabili abitazioni nei vicoli dove solo la Povertà può camminare - molti tetti bassi indicherebbero più veramente il cielo, che non il più alto campanile che ora si erge orgogliosamente in mezzo a colpa, crimine e malattie orribili, per deriderli con il suo contrasto. Con voci roche dal Rifugio, dall’Ospedale e dal carcere, questa verità viene predicata giorno dopo giorno, ed è stata proclamata per anni. Non è una questione di poco conto - non è un grido del volgo lavoratore

• non è una semplice questione di salute e comfort della gente che si può zittire di mercoledì sera. Nell’amore per la casa, nasce l’amore per la patria; e chi sono i patrioti più veri o i migliori in tempo di bisogno
• coloro che venerano la terra, possedendone il legno, il fiume, la terra e tutto ciò che producono? o coloro che amano la loro patria, non vantando un solo piede di terreno in tutto il suo vasto dominio?

Kit non sapeva nulla di queste questioni, ma sapeva che la sua vecchia casa era un posto molto povero, e che la sua nuova era molto diversa, eppure continuava a guardare indietro con soddisfazione grata e ansia affettuosa, e spesso scriveva lettere piegate a quadretti per sua madre, includendo uno scellino o diciotto pence o altre piccole somme che la generosità di Mr Abel gli permetteva di inviare. A volte, trovandosi nei paraggi, aveva il tempo di farle visita, e allora grande era la gioia e la fierezza della madre di Kit, e assordante la soddisfazione di piccolo Jacob e del bebè, e cordiali le congratulazioni di tutta la corte, che ascoltavano con orecchie ammirate i racconti di Abel Cottage, e non si stancavano mai di sentir parlare delle sue meraviglie e magnificenze.

Anche se Kit godeva della massima considerazione presso la vecchia signora, il signore, il signor Abel e Barbara, è certo che nessun membro della famiglia gli dimostrava una predilezione così straordinaria quanto il pony testardo, che, pur essendo il pony più ostinato e caparbio della terra, nelle sue mani diventava il più mite e docile degli animali. È vero che, in proporzione diretta alla sua docilità con Kit, diventava completamente ingovernabile con chiunque altro (come se avesse deciso di tenerlo nella famiglia a tutti i costi e rischi), e che, anche sotto la guida del suo preferito, talvolta compiva una grande varietà di strani scherzi e capriole, causando un estremo disagio ai nervi della vecchia signora; ma poiché Kit sosteneva sempre che si trattava solo del suo modo di divertirsi o di mostrare il suo affetto per i suoi datori di lavoro, la signora Garland finì per farsi convincere a credere, e alla fine ne fu così fermamente convinta, che se, in una di queste esplosioni, avesse rovesciato la carrozza, sarebbe stata del tutto soddisfatta che lo avesse fatto con le migliori intenzioni.

Oltre a diventare in breve tempo una vera meraviglia in tutte le faccende di scuderia, Kit si fece presto un giardiniere abbastanza tollerabile, un uomo di fatica in casa, e un assistente indispensabile per il signor Abel, che ogni giorno gli dava una nuova prova della sua fiducia e approvazione. Anche il signor Witherden, il notaio, lo guardava con occhio amichevole; e persino il signor Chuckster a volte si degnava di dargli un leggero cenno del capo, o di onorarlo con quella particolare forma di riconoscimento che si chiama “prendere la mira”, o di favorirlo con qualche altro saluto che combinava piacevolezza e protezione.

One morning Kit drove Mr Abel to the Notary’s office, as he sometimes did, and having set him down at the house, was about to drive off to a livery stable hard by, when this same Mr Chuckster emerged from the office door, and cried ‘Woa-a-a-a-a-a!’—dwelling upon the note a long time, for the purpose of striking terror into the pony’s heart, and asserting the supremacy of man over the inferior animals.

‘Pull up, Snobby,’ cried Mr Chuckster, addressing himself to Kit. ‘You’re wanted inside here.’

‘Has Mr Abel forgotten anything, I wonder?’ said Kit as he dismounted.

‘Ask no questions, Snobby,’ returned Mr Chuckster, ‘but go and see. Woa-a-a then, will you? If that pony was mine, I’d break him.’

‘You must be very gentle with him, if you please,’ said Kit, ‘or you’ll find him troublesome. You’d better not keep on pulling his ears, please. I know he won’t like it.’

To this remonstrance Mr Chuckster deigned no other answer, than addressing Kit with a lofty and distant air as ‘young feller,’ and requesting him to cut and come again with all speed. The ‘young feller’ complying, Mr Chuckster put his hands in his pockets, and tried to look as if he were not minding the pony, but happened to be lounging there by accident.

Kit scraped his shoes very carefully (for he had not yet lost his reverence for the bundles of papers and the tin boxes,) and tapped at the office-door, which was quickly opened by the Notary himself.

‘Oh! come in, Christopher,’ said Mr Witherden.

‘Is that the lad?’ asked an elderly gentleman, but of a stout, bluff figure—who was in the room.

‘That’s the lad,’ said Mr Witherden. ‘He fell in with my client, Mr Garland, sir, at this very door. I have reason to think he is a good lad, sir, and that you may believe what he says. Let me introduce Mr Abel Garland, sir—his young master; my articled pupil, sir, and most particular friend:—my most particular friend, sir,’ repeated the Notary, drawing out his silk handkerchief and flourishing it about his face.

‘Your servant, sir,’ said the stranger gentleman.

‘Yours, sir, I’m sure,’ replied Mr Abel mildly. ‘You were wishing to speak to Christopher, sir?’

‘Yes, I was. Have I your permission?’

‘By all means.’

‘My business is no secret; or I should rather say it need be no secret here,’ said the stranger, observing that Mr Abel and the Notary were preparing to retire. ‘It relates to a dealer in curiosities with whom he lived, and in whom I am earnestly and warmly interested. I have been a stranger to this country, gentlemen, for very many years, and if I am deficient in form and ceremony, I hope you will forgive me.’

‘No forgiveness is necessary, sir;—none whatever,’ replied the Notary. And so said Mr Abel.

‘I have been making inquiries in the neighbourhood in which his old master lived,’ said the stranger, ‘and I learn that he was served by this lad. I have found out his mother’s house, and have been directed by her to this place as the nearest in which I should be likely to find him. That’s the cause of my presenting myself here this morning.’

‘I am very glad of any cause, sir,’ said the Notary, ‘which procures me the honour of this visit.’

‘Sir,’ retorted the stranger, ‘you speak like a mere man of the world, and I think you something better. Therefore, pray do not sink your real character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.’

‘Hem!’ coughed the Notary. ‘You’re a plain speaker, sir.’

‘And a plain dealer,’ returned the stranger. ‘It may be my long absence and inexperience that lead me to the conclusion; but if plain speakers are scarce in this part of the world, I fancy plain dealers are still scarcer. If my speaking should offend you, sir, my dealing, I hope, will make amends.’

Mr Witherden seemed a little disconcerted by the elderly gentleman’s mode of conducting the dialogue; and as for Kit, he looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment: wondering what kind of language he would address to him, if he talked in that free and easy way to a Notary. It was with no harshness, however, though with something of constitutional irritability and haste, that he turned to Kit and said:

‘If you think, my lad, that I am pursuing these inquiries with any other view than that of serving and reclaiming those I am in search of, you do me a very great wrong, and deceive yourself. Don’t be deceived, I beg of you, but rely upon my assurance. The fact is, gentlemen,’ he added, turning again to the Notary and his pupil, ‘that I am in a very painful and wholly unexpected position. I came to this city with a darling object at my heart, expecting to find no obstacle or difficulty in the way of its attainment. I find myself suddenly checked and stopped short, in the execution of my design, by a mystery which I cannot penetrate. Every effort I have made to penetrate it, has only served to render it darker and more obscure; and I am afraid to stir openly in the matter, lest those whom I anxiously pursue, should fly still farther from me. I assure you that if you could give me any assistance, you would not be sorry to do so, if you knew how greatly I stand in need of it, and what a load it would relieve me from.’

There was a simplicity in this confidence which occasioned it to find a quick response in the breast of the good-natured Notary, who replied, in the same spirit, that the stranger had not mistaken his desire, and that if he could be of service to him, he would, most readily.

Kit was then put under examination and closely questioned by the unknown gentleman, touching his old master and the child, their lonely way of life, their retired habits, and strict seclusion. The nightly absence of the old man, the solitary existence of the child at those times, his illness and recovery, Quilp’s possession of the house, and their sudden disappearance, were all the subjects of much questioning and answer. Finally, Kit informed the gentleman that the premises were now to let, and that a board upon the door referred all inquirers to Mr Sampson Brass, Solicitor, of Bevis Marks, from whom he might perhaps learn some further particulars.

Una mattina Kit accompagnò il signor Abel all’ufficio del notaio, come talvolta faceva, e dopo averlo fatto scendere presso la casa, stava per allontanarsi verso una scuderia vicina, quando lo stesso signor Chuckster uscì dalla porta dell’ufficio e gridò: «Fiuuuu!» - prolungando la nota per un lungo tempo, allo scopo di incutere terrore nel cuore del pony e affermare la supremazia dell’uomo sugli animali inferiori.

«Fermati, Snobby», gridò il signor Chuckster, rivolgendosi a Kit. «Ti vogliono dentro.»

«Si chiede» disse Kit smontando «se il signor Abel abbia dimenticato qualcosa?»

«Non fare domande, Snobby», rispose il signor Chuckster, «ma vai a vedere. Fermati, allora, vuoi? Se quel pony fosse mio, lo domerei.»

«Dovete essere molto gentile con lui, per favore», disse Kit, «altrimenti vi darà fastidio. È meglio che non continuiate a tirargli le orecchie, per favore. So che non gli piacerà.»

A questa protesta, Mr Chuckster non degnò Kit di altra risposta che rivolgersi a lui con aria altezzosa e distante come a un “giovane fello”, e chiedergli di tagliare e tornare con tutta celerità. Il “giovane fello” acconsentì, Mr Chuckster mise le mani in tasca e cercò di fare come se non si stesse occupando del pony, ma si trovasse lì per caso.

Kit si pulì le scarpe con grande cura (perché non aveva ancora perso il rispetto per i fascicoli di carte e le scatole di latta) e bussò alla porta dello studio, che fu subito aperta dal notaio in persona.

«Oh! entri, Christopher», disse il signor Witherden.

«È quel ragazzo?», chiese un signore anziano, ma di figura robusta e spavalda, che era nella stanza.

«Questo è il ragazzo», disse il signor Witherden. «Si è incontrato con il mio cliente, il signor Garland, proprio qui, davanti a questa porta. Ho motivo di credere che sia un bravo ragazzo, e che possiate credere a quanto dice. Permettetemi di presentarvi il signor Abel Garland, il suo giovane padrone; il mio pupillo, e mio amico particolarissimo: il mio amico più particolare», ripeté il notaio, estraendo il suo fazzoletto di seta e agitandolo davanti al viso.

«Il vostro servitore, signore», disse il signore sconosciuto.

«Sono sicuro che è suo, signore», rispose Abel con dolcezza. «Voleva parlare con Christopher, signore?»

“Sì, ero lì. Ho il suo permesso?”

“Certamente.”

«La mia faccenda non è un segreto; o piuttosto, direi che non dovrebbe essere un segreto qui», disse lo sconosciuto, notando che il signor Abel e il notaio si preparavano ad andarsene. «Si tratta di un commerciante di curiosità con cui egli viveva, e in cui sono sinceramente e vivamente interessato. Sono stato uno straniero in questo paese, signori, per molti anni, e se sono carente di formalità e cerimonie, spero che mi perdonerete».

«Non è necessario alcun perdono, signore;—nessun perdono», rispose il notaio. E così disse il signor Abel.

«Ho fatto delle indagini nel quartiere in cui viveva il suo vecchio padrone», disse lo sconosciuto, «e ho saputo che era servito da questo ragazzo. Ho scoperto la casa di sua madre e sono stato indirizzato da lei a questo posto come il più vicino in cui avrei potuto trovarlo. Questa è la ragione per cui mi presento qui questa mattina.»

«Sono molto lieto di qualsiasi motivo, signore», disse il notaio, «che mi procura l’onore di questa visita.»

«Signore», ribatté lo sconosciuto, «parlate come un semplice uomo di mondo, e io vi ritengo migliore di così. Per questo, vi prego, non abbassate il vostro vero carattere facendomi complimenti senza senso.»

“Ahem!” tossì il notaio. “Siete un uomo schietto, signore.”

«E un uomo schietto», rispose lo sconosciuto. «Potrebbe essere la mia lunga assenza e la mia inesperienza a portarmi a questa conclusione; ma se gli uomini schietti nel parlare sono rari in questa parte del mondo, immagino che gli uomini schietti nel fare affari siano ancora più rari. Se il mio parlare dovesse offendervi, signore, spero che il mio fare affari vi compensi.»

Il signor Witherden sembrava un po’ sconcertato dal modo in cui il vecchio signore conduceva il dialogo; e Kit lo guardava a bocca aperta, stupito: si chiedeva quale tipo di linguaggio avrebbe usato con lui, se parlava in quel modo disinvolto e familiare con un notaio. Tuttavia, senza alcuna asprezza, sebbene con una certa irritabilità e fretta costituzionali, si rivolse a Kit e disse:

«Se pensate, giovane, che io stia conducendo queste indagini con un altro scopo che non sia quello di servire e riscattare coloro che cerco, mi fate un grande torto e vi ingannate. Non vi ingannate, ve ne prego, ma fidatevi della mia assicurazione. Il fatto è, signori», aggiunse, rivolgendosi nuovamente al notaio e al suo allievo, «che mi trovo in una posizione molto dolorosa e del tutto inaspettata. Sono venuto in questa città con un caro obiettivo nel cuore, aspettandomi di non trovare ostacoli o difficoltà nel raggiungerlo. Mi trovo improvvisamente bloccato e fermato, nell’esecuzione del mio piano, da un mistero che non riesco a penetrare. Ogni sforzo che ho fatto per penetrarlo, ha solo servito a renderlo più oscuro e impenetrabile; e ho paura di agire apertamente in materia, per timore che coloro che inseguo con ansia, fuggano ancora più lontano da me. Vi assicuro che se poteste darmi qualche aiuto, non vi dispiacerebbe farlo, se sapeste quanto ne ho bisogno e quale peso mi toglierebbe di dosso».

C’era una semplicità in questa fiducia che le fece trovare una rapida risposta nel cuore del buon notario, che rispose nello stesso spirito che lo straniero non aveva frainteso il suo desiderio, e che se poteva essergli utile, lo avrebbe fatto con grande piacere.

Kit fu quindi sottoposto a un interrogatorio serrato da parte del signore sconosciuto, che lo interrogò a lungo sul suo vecchio padrone e sulla bambina, sul loro modo di vivere solitario, sulle loro abitudini riservate e sulla loro rigorosa reclusione. L’assenza notturna del vecchio, l’esistenza solitaria della bambina in quei momenti, la sua malattia e la sua guarigione, il possesso della casa da parte di Quilp e la loro improvvisa scomparsa furono tutti argomenti di molte domande e risposte. Infine, Kit informò il signore che gli immobili erano ora in affitto, e che una targa sulla porta rimandava tutti gli interessati al signor Sampson Brass, avvocato, di Bevis Marks, da cui forse avrebbe potuto ottenere ulteriori informazioni.

‘Not by inquiry,’ said the gentleman shaking his head. ‘I live there.’

‘Live at Brass’s the attorney’s!’ cried Mr Witherden in some surprise: having professional knowledge of the gentleman in question.

‘Aye,’ was the reply. ‘I entered on his lodgings t’other day, chiefly because I had seen this very board. It matters little to me where I live, and I had a desperate hope that some intelligence might be cast in my way there, which would not reach me elsewhere. Yes, I live at Brass’s—more shame for me, I suppose?’

‘That’s a mere matter of opinion,’ said the Notary, shrugging his shoulders. ‘He is looked upon as rather a doubtful character.’

‘Doubtful?’ echoed the other. ‘I am glad to hear there’s any doubt about it. I supposed that had been thoroughly settled, long ago. But will you let me speak a word or two with you in private?’

Mr Witherden consenting, they walked into that gentleman’s private closet, and remained there, in close conversation, for some quarter of an hour, when they returned into the outer office. The stranger had left his hat in Mr Witherden’s room, and seemed to have established himself in this short interval on quite a friendly footing.

‘I’ll not detain you any longer now,’ he said, putting a crown into Kit’s hand, and looking towards the Notary. ‘You shall hear from me again. Not a word of this, you know, except to your master and mistress.’

‘Mother, sir, would be glad to know—’ said Kit, faltering.

‘Glad to know what?’

‘Anything—so that it was no harm—about Miss Nell.’

‘Would she? Well then, you may tell her if she can keep a secret. But mind, not a word of this to anybody else. Don’t forget that. Be particular.’

‘I’ll take care, sir,’ said Kit. ‘Thankee, sir, and good morning.’

Now, it happened that the gentleman, in his anxiety to impress upon Kit that he was not to tell anybody what had passed between them, followed him out to the door to repeat his caution, and it further happened that at that moment the eyes of Mr Richard Swiveller were turned in that direction, and beheld his mysterious friend and Kit together.

It was quite an accident, and the way in which it came about was this. Mr Chuckster, being a gentleman of a cultivated taste and refined spirit, was one of that Lodge of Glorious Apollos whereof Mr Swiveller was Perpetual Grand. Mr Swiveller, passing through the street in the execution of some Brazen errand, and beholding one of his Glorious Brotherhood intently gazing on a pony, crossed over to give him that fraternal greeting with which Perpetual Grands are, by the very constitution of their office, bound to cheer and encourage their disciples. He had scarcely bestowed upon him his blessing, and followed it with a general remark touching the present state and prospects of the weather, when, lifting up his eyes, he beheld the single gentleman of Bevis Marks in earnest conversation with Christopher Nubbles.

‘Hallo!’ said Dick, ‘who is that?’

‘He called to see my Governor this morning,’ replied Mr Chuckster; ‘beyond that, I don’t know him from Adam.’

‘At least you know his name?’ said Dick.

To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming a Glorious Apollo, that he was ‘everlastingly blessed’ if he did.

‘All I know, my dear feller,’ said Mr Chuckster, running his fingers through his hair, ‘is, that he is the cause of my having stood here twenty minutes, for which I hate him with a mortal and undying hatred, and would pursue him to the confines of eternity if I could afford the time.’

While they were thus discoursing, the subject of their conversation (who had not appeared to recognise Mr Richard Swiveller) re-entered the house, and Kit came down the steps and joined them; to whom Mr Swiveller again propounded his inquiry with no better success.

‘He is a very nice gentleman, Sir,’ said Kit, ‘and that’s all I know about him.’

Mr Chuckster waxed wroth at this answer, and without applying the remark to any particular case, mentioned, as a general truth, that it was expedient to break the heads of Snobs, and to tweak their noses. Without expressing his concurrence in this sentiment, Mr Swiveller after a few moments of abstraction inquired which way Kit was driving, and, being informed, declared it was his way, and that he would trespass on him for a lift. Kit would gladly have declined the proffered honour, but as Mr Swiveller was already established in the seat beside him, he had no means of doing so, otherwise than by a forcible ejectment, and therefore, drove briskly off—so briskly indeed, as to cut short the leave-taking between Mr Chuckster and his Grand Master, and to occasion the former gentleman some inconvenience from having his corns squeezed by the impatient pony.

As Whisker was tired of standing, and Mr Swiveller was kind enough to stimulate him by shrill whistles, and various sporting cries, they rattled off at too sharp a pace to admit of much conversation: especially as the pony, incensed by Mr Swiveller’s admonitions, took a particular fancy for the lamp-posts and cart-wheels, and evinced a strong desire to run on the pavement and rasp himself against the brick walls. It was not, therefore, until they had arrived at the stable, and the chaise had been extricated from a very small doorway, into which the pony dragged it under the impression that he could take it along with him into his usual stall, that Mr Swiveller found time to talk.

‘It’s hard work,’ said Richard. ‘What do you say to some beer?’

Kit at first declined, but presently consented, and they adjourned to the neighbouring bar together.

‘We’ll drink our friend what’s-his-name,’ said Dick, holding up the bright frothy pot; ‘—that was talking to you this morning, you know—I know him—a good fellow, but eccentric—very—here’s what’s-his-name!’

Kit pledged him.

‘He lives in my house,’ said Dick; ‘at least in the house occupied by the firm in which I’m a sort of a—of a managing partner—a difficult fellow to get anything out of, but we like him—we like him.’

‘I must be going, sir, if you please,’ said Kit, moving away.

‘Don’t be in a hurry, Christopher,’ replied his patron, ‘we’ll drink your mother.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘An excellent woman that mother of yours, Christopher,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘Who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place to make it well? My mother. A charming woman. He’s a liberal sort of fellow. We must get him to do something for your mother. Does he know her, Christopher?’

Kit shook his head, and glancing slyly at his questioner, thanked him, and made off before he could say another word.

‘Humph!’ said Mr Swiveller pondering, ‘this is queer. Nothing but mysteries in connection with Brass’s house. I’ll keep my own counsel, however. Everybody and anybody has been in my confidence as yet, but now I think I’ll set up in business for myself. Queer—very queer!’

After pondering deeply and with a face of exceeding wisdom for some time, Mr Swiveller drank some more of the beer, and summoning a small boy who had been watching his proceedings, poured forth the few remaining drops as a libation on the gravel, and bade him carry the empty vessel to the bar with his compliments, and above all things to lead a sober and temperate life, and abstain from all intoxicating and exciting liquors. Having given him this piece of moral advice for his trouble (which, as he wisely observed, was far better than half-pence) the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollos thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered away: still pondering as he went.

“Non per indagine”, disse il signore scuotendo la testa. “Ci vivo.”

«Alloggia presso Brass, l’avvocato!» esclamò con sorpresa il signor Witherden, che conosceva professionalmente il gentiluomo in questione.

«Sì», fu la risposta. «Mi sono stabilito in casa sua l’altro giorno, principalmente perché avevo visto proprio questo cartello. A me poco importa dove vivo, e avevo una disperata speranza che qualche informazione potesse arrivare fino a me lì, mentre altrove non sarebbe giunta. Sì, vivo da Brass, e suppongo che questo sia motivo di maggior vergogna per me?»

«È solo questione di opinione», disse il notaio, alzando le spalle. «È considerato un personaggio piuttosto dubbio.»

«Dubbio?» fece eco l’altro. «Sono contento di sapere che c’è qualche dubbio al riguardo. Pensavo che la questione fosse stata risolta a fondo, tempo fa. Ma mi permette di scambiare due parole con lei in privato?»

Il signor Witherden acconsentendo, entrarono nello studio privato di quel gentiluomo e vi rimasero, in stretta conversazione, per circa un quarto d’ora, dopodiché tornarono nell’ufficio esterno. Lo sconosciuto aveva lasciato il cappello nella stanza del signor Witherden e sembrava essersi stabilito in questo breve intervallo su un piano di amicizia.

«Non vi tratterrò più a lungo ora», disse, mettendo una corona nella mano di Kit e guardando verso il notaio. «Riceverete mie notizie di nuovo. Niente di tutto questo, sapete, tranne che al vostro padrone e alla vostra padrona.»

«Madre, signore, sarebbe felice di sapere, » disse Kit, esitante.

‘Felice di sapere cosa?’

“Qualsiasi cosa, purché non facesse del male, riguardo la signorina Nell.”

«Lo farebbe? Bene, allora, puoi dirglielo se riesce a mantenere un segreto. Ma bada bene, non una parola di tutto questo a nessun altro. Non dimenticarlo. Sii cauto.»

«Me ne occuperò io, signore», disse Kit. «Grazie, signore, e buongiorno.»

Ora, accadde che il gentiluomo, nella sua ansia di far capire a Kit che non doveva riferire a nessuno ciò che era passato tra loro, lo seguì fino alla porta per ripetere il suo ammonimento, e accadde inoltre che in quel momento gli occhi del signor Richard Swiveller si volsero in quella direzione, e videro il suo misterioso amico e Kit insieme.

Fu un puro caso, e la cosa avvenne così. Il signor Chuckster, essendo un gentiluomo di gusto colto e spirito raffinato, era uno di quei membri della Loggia dei Gloriosi Apollo di cui il signor Swiveller era Gran Maestro Perpetuo. Il signor Swiveller, passando per la strada nell’esecuzione di qualche faccenda di bronzo, e vedendo uno dei suoi Gloriosi Fratelli intento a fissare un pony, attraversò la strada per dargli quella saluto fraterno con cui i Gran Maestri Perpetui sono, per la stessa costituzione del loro ufficio, obbligati a rallegrare e incoraggiare i loro discepoli. Non aveva ancora appena impartito la sua benedizione, e l’aveva seguita con una considerazione generale sullo stato attuale e sulle prospettive del tempo, quando, alzando gli occhi, vide il signorotto di Bevis Marks in animata conversazione con Christopher Nubbles.

«Ehi!» disse Dick «Chi è?»

«È venuto a trovare il mio Governatore questa mattina», rispose il signor Chuckster, «oltre a questo, non lo conosco affatto».

«Almeno sapete come si chiama?» disse Dick.

A cui il signor Chuckster rispose, con un’elevazione di linguaggio degna di un Apollo Glorioso, che era “eternamente benedetto” se lo faceva.

«Tutto quello che so, mio caro amico», disse il signor Chuckster, passandosi le dita tra i capelli, «è che è lui la causa per cui sono rimasto qui in piedi per venti minuti, e per questo lo odio con un odio mortale e senza fine, e lo inseguirei fino ai confini dell’eternità se potessi permettermi il tempo.»

Mentre stavano così discutendo, l’oggetto della loro conversazione (che non aveva dato segno di riconoscere il signor Richard Swiveller) rientrò nella casa, e Kit scese i gradini e si unì a loro; al quale il signor Swiveller ripropose la sua domanda con non migliore successo.

‘È un gentiluomo molto simpatico, signore’, disse Kit, ‘e questo è tutto ciò che so di lui’.

Il signor Chuckster si adirò per quella risposta e, senza applicare l’osservazione a nessun caso particolare, menzionò, come un verità generale, che era opportuno rompere le teste agli Snob e tirare loro il naso. Senza esprimere il suo assenso a questo sentimento, dopo alcuni momenti di astrazione il signor Swiveller chiese quale strada stesse percorrendo Kit e, una volta informato, dichiarò che era la sua strada e che avrebbe fatto un’infrazione per un passaggio. Kit avrebbe voluto declinare l’offerto onore, ma poiché il signor Swiveller era già stabilitosi sul sedile accanto a lui, non aveva modo di farlo, se non con un espulsione forzata, e quindi, partì di buon passo, così velocemente, infatti, da abbreviare il congedo tra il signor Chuckster e il suo Gran Maestro, e a procurare al primo gentiluomo qualche inconveniente per aver schiacciato i suoi calli con il pony impaziente.

Poiché Whisker era stanco di stare in piedi e il signor Swiveller fu così gentile da stimolarlo con fischi acuti e vari grida sportive, procedettero a un ritmo troppo sostenuto per permettere molte conversazioni: specialmente perché il pony, offeso dagli ammonimenti del signor Swiveller, sviluppò una particolare predilezione per i lampioni e le ruote dei carri, e dimostrò un forte desiderio di correre sul marciapiede e di strusciarsi contro i muri di mattoni. Non fu quindi che una volta arrivati al maneggio, e la carrozza fu estratta da una porta molto piccola, nella quale il pony la trascinò sotto l’impressione che potesse portarla con sé nella sua solita stalla, che il signor Swiveller trovò tempo per parlare.

«È un lavoro duro», disse Richard. «Che ne dici di una birra?»

Kit rifiutò dapprima, ma poi acconsentì, e si recarono insieme al bar vicino.

«Beviamo alla salute del nostro amico come-si-chiama», disse Dick, alzando la luccicante brocca schiumosa; «—che stava parlando con te questa mattina, sai—lo conosco—un bravo ragazzo, ma eccentrico—molto—alla salute di come-si-chiama!»

Kit glielo promise.

«Vive nella mia casa», disse Dick; «almeno nella casa occupata dall’azienda in cui sono una specie di—di socio amministratore—un tipo difficile da cui tirar fuori qualcosa, ma ci piace—ci piace».

«Devo andarmene, signore, se non le dispiace», disse Kit, allontanandosi.

“Non avere fretta, Christopher,” rispose il suo protettore, “brinderemo a tua madre.”

‘Grazie, signore.’

«Una donna eccellente quella vostra madre, Christopher», disse il signor Swiveller. «Chi è accorsa a prendermi quando sono caduto, e ha baciato il posto per farlo guarire? Mia madre. Una donna affascinante. È un tipo generoso. Dobbiamo convincerlo a fare qualcosa per vostra madre. La conosce, Christopher?»

Kit scosse la testa, e lanciando un’occhiata furtiva al suo interlocutore, lo ringraziò e se ne andò prima che potesse dire un’altra parola.

«Humph!» disse il signor Swiveller, pensieroso, «questa è una cosa strana. Nient’altro che misteri in relazione alla casa di Brass. Tuttavia, terrò per me i miei pensieri. Finora tutti e chiunque sono stati al corrente dei miei segreti, ma ora credo che mi metterò in proprio. Strano, molto strano!»

Dopo aver riflettuto a lungo e con un’espressione di grande saggezza per qualche tempo, il signor Swiveller bevve un po’ di birra in più, e chiamando un ragazzino che aveva osservato le sue operazioni, versò le poche gocce rimanenti come libagione sulla ghiaia, e lo incaricò di portare il recipiente vuoto al bar con i suoi saluti, e soprattutto di condurre una vita sobria e temperata, e di astenersi da tutte le bevande inebrianti ed eccitanti. Dopo avergli dato questo consiglio morale per il suo disturbo (che, come osservò saggiamente, era molto meglio delle monetine) il Gran Maestro Perpetuo degli Apolli Gloriosi si mise le mani in tasca e se ne andò: continuando a riflettere mentre camminava.

CHAPTER 39

All that day, though he waited for Mr Abel until evening, Kit kept clear of his mother’s house, determined not to anticipate the pleasures of the morrow, but to let them come in their full rush of delight; for to-morrow was the great and long looked-for epoch in his life—to-morrow was the end of his first quarter—the day of receiving, for the first time, one fourth part of his annual income of Six Pounds in one vast sum of Thirty Shillings—to-morrow was to be a half-holiday devoted to a whirl of entertainments, and little Jacob was to know what oysters meant, and to see a play.

All manner of incidents combined in favour of the occasion: not only had Mr and Mrs Garland forewarned him that they intended to make no deduction for his outfit from the great amount, but to pay it him unbroken in all its gigantic grandeur; not only had the unknown gentleman increased the stock by the sum of five shillings, which was a perfect god-send and in itself a fortune; not only had these things come to pass which nobody could have calculated upon, or in their wildest dreams have hoped; but it was Barbara’s quarter too—Barbara’s quarter, that very day—and Barbara had a half-holiday as well as Kit, and Barbara’s mother was going to make one of the party, and to take tea with Kit’s mother, and cultivate her acquaintance.

To be sure Kit looked out of his window very early that morning to see which way the clouds were flying, and to be sure Barbara would have been at hers too, if she had not sat up so late over-night, starching and ironing small pieces of muslin, and crimping them into frills, and sewing them on to other pieces to form magnificent wholes for next day’s wear. But they were both up very early for all that, and had small appetites for breakfast and less for dinner, and were in a state of great excitement when Barbara’s mother came in, with astonishing accounts of the fineness of the weather out of doors (but with a very large umbrella notwithstanding, for people like Barbara’s mother seldom make holiday without one), and when the bell rang for them to go up stairs and receive their quarter’s money in gold and silver.

Well, wasn’t Mr Garland kind when he said ‘Christopher, here’s your money, and you have earned it well;’ and wasn’t Mrs Garland kind when she said ‘Barbara, here’s yours, and I’m much pleased with you;’ and didn’t Kit sign his name bold to his receipt, and didn’t Barbara sign her name all a trembling to hers; and wasn’t it beautiful to see how Mrs Garland poured out Barbara’s mother a glass of wine; and didn’t Barbara’s mother speak up when she said ‘Here’s blessing you, ma’am, as a good lady, and you, sir, as a good gentleman, and Barbara, my love to you, and here’s towards you, Mr Christopher;’ and wasn’t she as long drinking it as if it had been a tumblerful; and didn’t she look genteel, standing there with her gloves on; and wasn’t there plenty of laughing and talking among them as they reviewed all these things upon the top of the coach, and didn’t they pity the people who hadn’t got a holiday!

But Kit’s mother, again—wouldn’t anybody have supposed she had come of a good stock and been a lady all her life! There she was, quite ready to receive them, with a display of tea-things that might have warmed the heart of a china-shop; and little Jacob and the baby in such a state of perfection that their clothes looked as good as new, though Heaven knows they were old enough! Didn’t she say before they had sat down five minutes that Barbara’s mother was exactly the sort of lady she expected, and didn’t Barbara’s mother say that Kit’s mother was the very picture of what she had expected, and didn’t Kit’s mother compliment Barbara’s mother on Barbara, and didn’t Barbara’s mother compliment Kit’s mother on Kit, and wasn’t Barbara herself quite fascinated with little Jacob, and did ever a child show off when he was wanted, as that child did, or make such friends as he made!

‘And we are both widows too!’ said Barbara’s mother. ‘We must have been made to know each other.’

‘I haven’t a doubt about it,’ returned Mrs Nubbles. ‘And what a pity it is we didn’t know each other sooner.’

‘But then, you know, it’s such a pleasure,’ said Barbara’s mother, ‘to have it brought about by one’s son and daughter, that it’s fully made up for. Now, an’t it?’

To this, Kit’s mother yielded her full assent, and tracing things back from effects to causes, they naturally reverted to their deceased husbands, respecting whose lives, deaths, and burials, they compared notes, and discovered sundry circumstances that tallied with wonderful exactness; such as Barbara’s father having been exactly four years and ten months older than Kit’s father, and one of them having died on a Wednesday and the other on a Thursday, and both of them having been of a very fine make and remarkably good-looking, with other extraordinary coincidences. These recollections being of a kind calculated to cast a shadow on the brightness of the holiday, Kit diverted the conversation to general topics, and they were soon in great force again, and as merry as before. Among other things, Kit told them about his old place, and the extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to Barbara a thousand times already); but the last-named circumstance failed to interest his hearers to anything like the extent he had supposed, and even his mother said (looking accidentally at Barbara at the same time) that there was no doubt Miss Nell was very pretty, but she was but a child after all, and there were many young women quite as pretty as she; and Barbara mildly observed that she should think so, and that she never could help believing Mr Christopher must be under a mistake—which Kit wondered at very much, not being able to conceive what reason she had for doubting him. Barbara’s mother too, observed that it was very common for young folks to change at about fourteen or fifteen, and whereas they had been very pretty before, to grow up quite plain; which truth she illustrated by many forcible examples, especially one of a young man, who, being a builder with great prospects, had been particular in his attentions to Barbara, but whom Barbara would have nothing to say to; which (though everything happened for the best) she almost thought was a pity. Kit said he thought so too, and so he did honestly, and he wondered what made Barbara so silent all at once, and why his mother looked at him as if he shouldn’t have said it.

CAPITOLO 39

Per tutto quel giorno, sebbene aspettasse il signor Abel fino a sera, Kit evitò la casa della madre, deciso a non anticipare i piaceri del giorno dopo, ma a lasciarli arrivare nella loro piena ondata di delizia; perché il giorno dopo era la grande e tanto attesa epoca della sua vita: il giorno dopo era la fine del suo primo trimestre, il giorno in cui avrebbe ricevuto, per la prima volta, un quarto della sua rendita annuale di sei sterline in una vasta somma di trenta scellini; il giorno dopo sarebbe stato un mezzo giorno festivo dedicato a una ridda di divertimenti, e il piccolo Giacobbe avrebbe saputo cosa significavano le ostriche e avrebbe visto una commedia.

Tutti i tipi di incidenti si combinarono a favore dell’occasione: non solo il signor e la signora Garland lo avevano avvertito in anticipo che intendevano non fare alcuna deduzione per il suo abbigliamento dalla grande somma, ma di pagargliela integra in tutta la sua gigantesca grandezza; non solo il gentiluomo sconosciuto aveva aumentato il montante della somma di cinque scellini, che era una vera manna dal cielo e di per sé una fortuna; non solo erano accadute queste cose che nessuno avrebbe potuto calcolare, o nelle loro più selvagge speranze avrebbero potuto sperare; ma era anche il trimestre di Barbara — il trimestre di Barbara, proprio quel giorno — e Barbara aveva un pomeriggio libero così come Kit, e la madre di Barbara si sarebbe unita al gruppo, e avrebbe preso il tè con la madre di Kit, e coltivato la sua conoscenza.

Per essere sicuro Kit guardò fuori dal suo finestra molto presto quella mattina per vedere in quale direzione volavano le nuvole, e per essere sicuro anche Barbara avrebbe fatto lo stesso, se non fosse rimasta alzata fino a tardi la notte prima, stirando e stirando piccoli pezzi di mussola, e arricciandoli in volant, e cucendoli su altri pezzi per formare magnifici insiemi da indossare il giorno dopo. Ma erano entrambi alzati molto presto nonostante tutto, e avevano poco appetito per la colazione e ancora meno per la cena, e si trovavano in uno stato di grande eccitazione quando la madre di Barbara entrò, con notizie sbalorditive sulla bellezza del tempo fuori (ma con un ombrello molto grande nonostante tutto, perché persone come la madre di Barbara raramente fanno festa senza uno), e quando suonò il campanello per salire le scale e ricevere il loro denaro trimestrale in oro e argento.

Ebbene, non fu gentile il signor Garland quando disse: «Christopher, ecco i tuoi soldi, e li hai guadagnati bene»; e non fu gentile la signora Garland quando disse: «Barbara, ecco i tuoi, e sono molto contenta di te»; e Kit non firmò il suo nome con coraggio sulla ricevuta, e Barbara non firmò il suo nome tutto tremante sulla sua; e non fu bello vedere come la signora Garland versò a sua madre di Barbara un bicchiere di vino; e la madre di Barbara non parlò forte quando disse: «Ecco il mio augurio a voi, signora, come a una buona signora, e a voi, signore, come a un buon gentiluomo, e a te, mia cara, e ecco a te, signor Christopher»; e non bevve a lungo come se fosse stato un bicchiere pieno; e non aveva un aspetto distinto, in piedi lì con i suoi guanti; e non ci fu abbondanza di risate e chiacchiere tra loro mentre rivedevano tutte queste cose sulla cima del carrozza, e non compativano le persone che non avevano una festa!

Ma la madre di Kit, ancora una volta, non avrebbe fatto supporre a chiunque che fosse nata da buona famiglia e fosse stata una signora tutta la vita! Eccoli lì, pronti a riceverli, con una mostra di cose per il tè che avrebbe potuto riscaldare il cuore di un negozio di porcellane; e il piccolo Giacobbe e il bambino in uno stato di perfezione tale che i loro vestiti sembravano nuovi, anche se il Cielo sa che erano abbastanza vecchi! Non aveva forse detto, prima che si fossero seduti da cinque minuti, che la madre di Barbara era esattamente il tipo di signora che si aspettava, e la madre di Barbara non aveva forse detto che la madre di Kit era l’esatta immagine di ciò che si aspettava, e la madre di Kit non aveva forse fatto i complimenti alla madre di Barbara per Barbara, e la madre di Barbara non aveva forse fatto i complimenti alla madre di Kit per Kit, e Barbara stessa non era forse completamente affascinata dal piccolo Giacobbe, e non ha mai mostrato un bambino di sé quando era desiderato, come ha fatto quel bambino, o fatto amicizie come quelle che ha fatto!

«E siamo anche entrambe vedove!» disse la madre di Barbara. «Dobbiamo essere state fatte per conoscerci.»

«Non ho dubbi al riguardo», rispose la signora Nubbles. «E che peccato che non ci siamo conosciute prima.»

«Ma poi, sapete, è un tale piacere», disse la madre di Barbara, «averlo fatto avvenire per merito del proprio figlio e della propria figlia, che è pienamente compensato. Non è così?»

A questo, la madre di Kit diede il suo pieno assenso, e risalendo le cose dagli effetti alle cause, tornarono naturalmente ai loro defunti mariti, riguardo ai cui vita, morte e sepoltura, confrontarono le loro informazioni e scoprirono varie circostanze che coincidevano con una straordinaria esattezza; come ad esempio che il padre di Barbara era stato esattamente quattro anni e dieci mesi più vecchio del padre di Kit, e che uno di loro era morto di un giovedì e l’altro di un mercoledì, e che entrambi erano stati di una corporatura molto bella e straordinariamente belli, con altre coincidenze straordinarie. Questi ricordi, essendo di una natura tale da gettare un ombra sulla luminosità della festività, Kit deviò la conversazione su argomenti generali, e ben presto furono di nuovo in gran forma e allegra come prima. Tra le altre cose, Kit raccontò loro del suo vecchio posto, e della straordinaria bellezza di Nell (di cui aveva già parlato a Barbara mille volte); ma quest’ultima circostanza non riuscì a interessare i suoi ascoltatori neanche lontanamente quanto aveva supposto, e persino sua madre disse (guardando casualmente Barbara nello stesso momento) che non c’era alcun dubbio che la signorina Nell fosse molto carina, ma era pur sempre una bambina, e c’erano molte giovani donne altrettanto carine; e Barbara osservò con dolcezza che lei avrebbe pensato così, e che non poteva fare a meno di credere che il signor Christopher dovesse essere in errore—il che Kit trovò molto strano, non riuscendo a concepire quale ragione avesse per dubitare di lui. Anche la madre di Barbara osservò che era molto comune che i giovani cambiassero all’incirca a quattordici o quindici anni, e che mentre prima erano stati molto carini, crescendo diventassero del tutto comuni; il che verità illustrò con molti esempi efficaci, specialmente quello di un giovane, che, essendo un costruttore con grandi prospettive, aveva dimostrato particolari attenzioni a Barbara, ma di cui Barbara non voleva saperne nulla; il che (sebbene tutto fosse accaduto per il meglio) pensava quasi fosse un peccato. Kit disse che anche lui pensava così, e lo pensava onestamente, e si chiedeva cosa avesse fatto Barbara a essere così silenziosa all’improvviso, e perché sua madre lo guardasse come se non avrebbe dovuto dirlo.

However, it was high time now to be thinking of the play; for which great preparation was required, in the way of shawls and bonnets, not to mention one handkerchief full of oranges and another of apples, which took some time tying up, in consequence of the fruit having a tendency to roll out at the corners. At length, everything was ready, and they went off very fast; Kit’s mother carrying the baby, who was dreadfully wide awake, and Kit holding little Jacob in one hand, and escorting Barbara with the other—a state of things which occasioned the two mothers, who walked behind, to declare that they looked quite family folks, and caused Barbara to blush and say, ‘Now don’t, mother!’ But Kit said she had no call to mind what they said; and indeed she need not have had, if she had known how very far from Kit’s thoughts any love-making was. Poor Barbara!

At last they got to the theatre, which was Astley’s: and in some two minutes after they had reached the yet unopened door, little Jacob was squeezed flat, and the baby had received divers concussions, and Barbara’s mother’s umbrella had been carried several yards off and passed back to her over the shoulders of the people, and Kit had hit a man on the head with the handkerchief of apples for ‘scrowdging’ his parent with unnecessary violence, and there was a great uproar. But, when they were once past the pay-place and tearing away for very life with their checks in their hands, and, above all, when they were fairly in the theatre, and seated in such places that they couldn’t have had better if they had picked them out, and taken them beforehand, all this was looked upon as quite a capital joke, and an essential part of the entertainment.

Dear, dear, what a place it looked, that Astley’s; with all the paint, gilding, and looking-glass; the vague smell of horses suggestive of coming wonders; the curtain that hid such gorgeous mysteries; the clean white sawdust down in the circus; the company coming in and taking their places; the fiddlers looking carelessly up at them while they tuned their instruments, as if they didn’t want the play to begin, and knew it all beforehand! What a glow was that, which burst upon them all, when that long, clear, brilliant row of lights came slowly up; and what the feverish excitement when the little bell rang and the music began in good earnest, with strong parts for the drums, and sweet effects for the triangles! Well might Barbara’s mother say to Kit’s mother that the gallery was the place to see from, and wonder it wasn’t much dearer than the boxes; well might Barbara feel doubtful whether to laugh or cry, in her flutter of delight.

Then the play itself! the horses which little Jacob believed from the first to be alive, and the ladies and gentlemen of whose reality he could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or heard anything at all like them—the firing, which made Barbara wink—the forlorn lady, who made her cry—the tyrant, who made her tremble—the man who sang the song with the lady’s-maid and danced the chorus, who made her laugh—the pony who reared up on his hind legs when he saw the murderer, and wouldn’t hear of walking on all fours again until he was taken into custody—the clown who ventured on such familiarities with the military man in boots—the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty ribbons and came down safe upon the horse’s back—everything was delightful, splendid, and surprising! Little Jacob applauded till his hands were sore; Kit cried ‘an-kor’ at the end of everything, the three-act piece included; and Barbara’s mother beat her umbrella on the floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to the gingham.

In the midst of all these fascinations, Barbara’s thoughts seemed to have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for, when they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an hysterical simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who jumped over the ribbons.

‘As handsome as her?’ said Kit. ‘Double as handsome.’

‘Oh Christopher! I’m sure she was the beautifullest creature ever was,’ said Barbara.

‘Nonsense!’ returned Kit. ‘She was well enough, I don’t deny that; but think how she was dressed and painted, and what a difference that made. Why YOU are a good deal better looking than her, Barbara.’

‘Oh Christopher!’ said Barbara, looking down.

‘You are, any day,’ said Kit, ‘—and so’s your mother.’

Poor Barbara!

What was all this though—even all this—to the extraordinary dissipation that ensued, when Kit, walking into an oyster-shop as bold as if he lived there, and not so much as looking at the counter or the man behind it, led his party into a box—a private box, fitted up with red curtains, white table-cloth, and cruet-stand complete—and ordered a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who acted as waiter and called him, him Christopher Nubbles, ‘sir,’ to bring three dozen of his largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it! Yes, Kit told this gentleman to look sharp, and he not only said he would look sharp, but he actually did, and presently came running back with the newest loaves, and the freshest butter, and the largest oysters, ever seen. Then said Kit to this gentleman, ‘a pot of beer’—just so—and the gentleman, instead of replying, ‘Sir, did you address that language to me?’ only said, ‘Pot o’ beer, sir? Yes, sir,’ and went off and fetched it, and put it on the table in a small decanter-stand, like those which blind-men’s dogs carry about the streets in their mouths, to catch the half-pence in; and both Kit’s mother and Barbara’s mother declared as he turned away that he was one of the slimmest and gracefullest young men she had ever looked upon.

Then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and there was Barbara, that foolish Barbara, declaring that she could not eat more than two, and wanting more pressing than you would believe before she would eat four: though her mother and Kit’s mother made up for it pretty well, and ate and laughed and enjoyed themselves so thoroughly that it did Kit good to see them, and made him laugh and eat likewise from strong sympathy. But the greatest miracle of the night was little Jacob, who ate oysters as if he had been born and bred to the business—sprinkled the pepper and the vinegar with a discretion beyond his years—and afterwards built a grotto on the table with the shells. There was the baby too, who had never closed an eye all night, but had sat as good as gold, trying to force a large orange into his mouth, and gazing intently at the lights in the chandelier—there he was, sitting up in his mother’s lap, staring at the gas without winking, and making indentations in his soft visage with an oyster-shell, to that degree that a heart of iron must have loved him! In short, there never was a more successful supper; and when Kit ordered in a glass of something hot to finish with, and proposed Mr and Mrs Garland before sending it round, there were not six happier people in all the world.

But all happiness has an end—hence the chief pleasure of its next beginning—and as it was now growing late, they agreed it was time to turn their faces homewards. So, after going a little out of their way to see Barbara and Barbara’s mother safe to a friend’s house where they were to pass the night, Kit and his mother left them at the door, with an early appointment for returning to Finchley next morning, and a great many plans for next quarter’s enjoyment. Then, Kit took little Jacob on his back, and giving his arm to his mother, and a kiss to the baby, they all trudged merrily home together.

Tuttavia, era ora di pensare alla rappresentazione, per la quale erano necessari grandi preparativi, in termini di scialli e cappelli, senza parlare di un fazzoletto pieno di arance e un altro di mele, che richiedevano un po’ di tempo per essere legati, a causa della tendenza della frutta a rotolare agli angoli. Alla fine, tutto era pronto, e se ne andarono molto velocemente; la madre di Kit portava il bambino, che era terribilmente sveglio, e Kit teneva il piccolo Giacobbe in una mano, e accompagnava Barbara con l’altra — una situazione che fece dichiarare alle due madri, che camminavano dietro, che sembravano proprio una famiglia, e fece arrossire Barbara che disse: ‘Non farlo, mamma!’ Ma Kit disse che non aveva motivo di preoccuparsi di quello che dicevano; e infatti non avrebbe dovuto, se avesse saputo quanto fossero lontani dai pensieri di Kit qualsiasi pensiero di amore. Povera Barbara!

Alla fine arrivarono al teatro, che era quello di Astley: e a malapena avevano raggiunto la porta ancora chiusa che il piccolo Giacobbe era stato schiacciato, e il bambino aveva ricevuto diverse scosse, e l’ombrello della madre di Barbara era stato portato via per diversi metri e le era stato restituito sopra le spalle della gente, e Kit aveva colpito un uomo in testa con il fazzoletto delle mele per aver “spinto” sua madre con violenza inutile, e c’era un gran tumulto. Ma, quando furono passati dal posto di pagamento e correvano via per la paura con i loro biglietti in mano, e, soprattutto, quando furono dentro al teatro, e seduti in posti così buoni che non avrebbero potuto avere di meglio se li avessero scelti e prenotati in anticipo, tutto questo fu considerato una barzelletta di grande successo, e una parte essenziale dello spettacolo.

Caro, caro, che posto sembrava quell’Astley’s; con tutta quella vernice, doratura e specchi; il vago odore di cavalli che suggeriva meraviglie a venire; la tenda che nascondeva tali magnifici misteri; la pulita segatura bianca giù nel circo; la compagnia che entrava e prendeva i loro posti; i violinisti che li guardavano distrattamente mentre accordavano i loro strumenti, come se non volessero che la rappresentazione iniziasse, e lo conoscessero già tutto! Che luce era quella, che scoppiò su di loro tutti, quando quella lunga, chiara, brillante fila di luci salì lentamente; e che febbre d’entusiasmo quando il piccolo campanello suonò e la musica iniziò sul serio, con parti forti per i tamburi, ed effetti dolci per i triangoli! Beh la madre di Barbara poteva dire alla madre di Kit che il loggione era il posto da cui vedere, e meravigliarsi che non fosse molto più caro dei palchi; beh poteva Barbara sentirsi incerta se ridere o piangere, nel suo fremito di delizia.

E poi lo spettacolo! I cavalli che il piccolo Giacobbe credeva vivi fin dall’inizio, e le signore e i signori la cui realtà non riusciva a credere in alcun modo, non avendone mai visti o sentiti di simili — gli spari che facevano strizzare gli occhi a Barbara — la povera signora che la faceva piangere — il tiranno che la faceva tremare — l’uomo che cantava la canzone con la cameriera e ballava il coro, che la faceva ridere — il pony che si rizzava sulle zampe posteriori quando vedeva l’assassino, e non voleva più camminare a quattro zampe finché non veniva preso in custodia — il pagliaccio che si permetteva tante confidenze con l’uomo in stivali — la signora che saltava sopra i ventinove nastri e atterrava sana e salva sulla cavalcatura — tutto era delizioso, splendido e sorprendente! Il piccolo Giacobbe applaudiva finché le mani non gli facevano male; Kit gridava “bis” alla fine di tutto, compreso il pezzo in tre atti; e la madre di Barbara batteva il suo ombrello sul pavimento, nelle sue estasi, finché non era quasi consumato fino al gingham.

In mezzo a tutte queste attrazioni, i pensieri di Barbara sembravano ancora soffermarsi su ciò che Kit aveva detto durante il tè-time; infatti, quando uscivano dal teatro, gli chiese, con un sorriso isterico, se la signorina Nell fosse bella quanto la signora che saltò sopra i nastrini.

«Altrettanto bella come lei?» disse Kit. «Doppia bellezza.»

«Oh Christopher! Sono sicura che fosse la creatura più bella che sia mai esistita», disse Barbara.

‘Nonsense!’ rispose Kit. ‘Non nego che fosse sana abbastanza, ma pensate a come era vestita e truccata, e quale differenza facesse. Perché VOI siete molto più bella di lei, Barbara.’

«Oh, Christopher!», disse Barbara, guardando in basso.

“Lo sei, ogni giorno”, disse Kit, “e così è tua madre.”

Povera Barbara!

Ma che cosa era tutto questo, anche tutto questo, rispetto alla straordinaria dissipazione che seguì, quando Kit, entrando in un osteria con la stessa disinvoltura come se ci vivesse, senza neanche guardare il bancone o l’uomo dietro di esso, condusse il suo gruppo in una saletta privata, arredata con tende rosse, tovaglia bianca e un completo supporto per le salse, e ordinò a un feroce gentiluomo baffuto, che fungeva da cameriere e lo chiamava, lui Christopher Nubbles, “signore”, di portare tre dozzine delle sue ostriche più grandi e di sbrigarsi! Sì, Kit disse a questo gentiluomo di sbrigarsi, e lui non solo disse che lo avrebbe fatto, ma lo fece davvero, e presto tornò correndo con i panini più freschi, il burro più fresco e le ostriche più grandi mai viste. Poi Kit disse a questo gentiluomo: “Una bocca di birra” - proprio così - e il gentiluomo, invece di rispondere: “Signore, mi ha rivolto la parola?”, disse solo: “Bocca di birra, signore? Sì, signore”, e se ne andò a prenderla, la mise sul tavolo in un piccolo supporto per decanter, come quelli che i cani dei ciechi portano in bocca per raccogliere le monete da mezzo penny; e sia la madre di Kit che la madre di Barbara dichiararono, mentre si allontanava, che era uno dei giovani più snelli e più eleganti che avessero mai visto.

Poi si misero seriamente all’opera per la cena; e c’era Barbara, quella sciocca Barbara, che dichiarava di non poter mangiare più di due ostriche, e che voleva essere esortata più di quanto si possa credere prima di mangiarne quattro: anche se sua madre e la madre di Kit compensavano abbastanza bene, mangiando e ridendo e divertendosi così profondamente che faceva bene a Kit vederle, e lo faceva ridere e mangiare a sua volta per forte simpatia. Ma il più grande miracolo della serata fu il piccolo Jacob, che mangiava le ostriche come se fosse nato e cresciuto per il mestiere—spargendo il pepe e l’aceto con una discrezione al di là dei suoi anni—e in seguito costruì una grotta sul tavolo con le conchiglie. C’era anche il bambino, che non aveva chiuso occhio tutta la notte, ma era rimasto seduto come un angelo, cercando di infilare una grossa arancia in bocca, e fissando intensamente le luci del lampadario—ecco, seduto in grembo a sua madre, fissava il gas senza battere ciglio, e faceva delle incisioni sul suo tenero viso con una conchiglia, a tal punto che anche un cuore di ferro avrebbe dovuto amarlo! In breve, non c’era mai stata una cena più riuscita; e quando Kit ordinò un bicchiere di qualcosa di caldo per concludere, e propose Mr e Mrs Garland prima di passarlo in giro, non c’erano sei persone più felici in tutto il mondo.

Ma ogni felicità ha una fine — da qui il piacere principale del suo prossimo inizio — e poiché stava ormai facendosi tardi, convennero che era ora di tornare verso casa. Così, dopo essersi un po’ deviati per assicurarsi che Barbara e la madre di Barbara fossero al sicuro nella casa di un’amica dove avrebbero passato la notte, Kit e sua madre le lasciarono sulla porta, con un appuntamento presto per il ritorno a Finchley la mattina seguente, e molti piani per il divertimento del prossimo trimestre. Poi, Kit prese il piccolo Jacob in groppa, offrì il braccio a sua madre e un bacio al bambino, e tutti e tre si incamminarono allegramente verso casa.

CHAPTER 40

Full of that vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next morning, Kit turned out at sunrise, and, with his faith in last night’s enjoyments a little shaken by cool daylight and the return to every-day duties and occupations, went to meet Barbara and her mother at the appointed place. And being careful not to awaken any of the little household, who were yet resting from their unusual fatigues, Kit left his money on the chimney-piece, with an inscription in chalk calling his mother’s attention to the circumstance, and informing her that it came from her dutiful son; and went his way, with a heart something heavier than his pockets, but free from any very great oppression notwithstanding.

Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret? why cannot we push them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put them at once at that convenient distance whence they may be regarded either with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of recollection! why will they hang about us, like the flavour of yesterday’s wine, suggestive of headaches and lassitude, and those good intentions for the future, which, under the earth, form the everlasting pavement of a large estate, and, upon it, usually endure until dinner-time or thereabouts!

Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara’s mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley’s, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? Kit was not surprised to hear her say so—not he. He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would not be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We are all going to the play, or coming home from it.

However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on. By degrees, they began to recall circumstances more and more pleasant in their nature, until, what between talking, walking, and laughing, they reached Finchley in such good heart, that Barbara’s mother declared she never felt less tired or in better spirits. And so said Kit. Barbara had been silent all the way, but she said so too. Poor little Barbara! She was very quiet.

They were at home in such good time that Kit had rubbed down the pony and made him as spruce as a race-horse, before Mr Garland came down to breakfast; which punctual and industrious conduct the old lady, and the old gentleman, and Mr Abel, highly extolled. At his usual hour (or rather at his usual minute and second, for he was the soul of punctuality) Mr Abel walked out, to be overtaken by the London coach, and Kit and the old gentleman went to work in the garden.

This was not the least pleasant of Kit’s employments. On a fine day they were quite a family party; the old lady sitting hard by with her work-basket on a little table; the old gentleman digging, or pruning, or clipping about with a large pair of shears, or helping Kit in some way or other with great assiduity; and Whisker looking on from his paddock in placid contemplation of them all. To-day they were to trim the grape-vine, so Kit mounted half-way up a short ladder, and began to snip and hammer away, while the old gentleman, with a great interest in his proceedings, handed up the nails and shreds of cloth as he wanted them. The old lady and Whisker looked on as usual.

‘Well, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland, ‘and so you have made a new friend, eh?’

‘I beg your pardon, Sir?’ returned Kit, looking down from the ladder.

‘You have made a new friend, I hear from Mr Abel,’ said the old gentleman, ‘at the office!’

‘Oh! Yes Sir, yes. He behaved very handsome, Sir.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ returned the old gentlemen with a smile. ‘He is disposed to behave more handsomely still, though, Christopher.’

‘Indeed, Sir! It’s very kind in him, but I don’t want him to, I’m sure,’ said Kit, hammering stoutly at an obdurate nail.

‘He is rather anxious,’ pursued the old gentleman, ‘to have you in his own service—take care what you’re doing, or you will fall down and hurt yourself.’

‘To have me in his service, Sir?’ cried Kit, who had stopped short in his work and faced about on the ladder like some dexterous tumbler. ‘Why, Sir, I don’t think he can be in earnest when he says that.’

‘Oh! But he is indeed,’ said Mr Garland. ‘And he has told Mr Abel so.’

‘I never heard of such a thing!’ muttered Kit, looking ruefully at his master and mistress. ‘I wonder at him; that I do.’

‘You see, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland, ‘this is a point of much importance to you, and you should understand and consider it in that light. This gentleman is able to give you more money than I—not, I hope, to carry through the various relations of master and servant, more kindness and confidence, but certainly, Christopher, to give you more money.’

‘Well,’ said Kit, ‘after that, Sir—’

‘Wait a moment,’ interposed Mr Garland. ‘That is not all. You were a very faithful servant to your old employers, as I understand, and should this gentleman recover them, as it is his purpose to attempt doing by every means in his power, I have no doubt that you, being in his service, would meet with your reward. Besides,’ added the old gentleman with stronger emphasis, ‘besides having the pleasure of being again brought into communication with those to whom you seem to be very strongly and disinterestedly attached. You must think of all this, Christopher, and not be rash or hasty in your choice.’

Kit did suffer one twinge, one momentary pang, in keeping the resolution he had already formed, when this last argument passed swiftly into his thoughts, and conjured up the realization of all his hopes and fancies. But it was gone in a minute, and he sturdily rejoined that the gentleman must look out for somebody else, as he did think he might have done at first.

CAPITOLO 40

Pieno di quel vago genere di pentimento che le vacanze suscitano il mattino dopo, Kit uscì all’alba e, con la sua fede nelle gioie della scorsa notte un po’ scossa dalla luce fredda del giorno e dal ritorno ai doveri e alle occupazioni quotidiane, andò a incontrare Barbara e sua madre nel luogo stabilito. E facendo attenzione a non svegliare nessuno dei piccoli componenti della famiglia, che ancora riposavano dalle loro insolite fatiche, Kit lasciò i suoi soldi sul camino, con un’iscrizione in gesso che attirava l’attenzione di sua madre sulla circostanza, e la informava che proveniva dal suo devoto figlio; e se ne andò, con un cuore un po’ più pesante delle sue tasche, ma libero da qualsiasi grande oppressione nonostante tutto.

Oh queste vacanze! perché ci lasciano qualche rimpianto? perché non possiamo spingerle indietro, solo una settimana o due nei nostri ricordi, in modo da metterle subito a quella distanza conveniente da cui possono essere considerate con una calma indifferenza o uno sforzo piacevole di ricordo! perché continuano a rimanere attaccate a noi, come il sapore del vino di ieri, evocativo di mal di testa e stanchezza, e di quelle buone intenzioni per il futuro, che, sotto terra, formano il lastricato eterno di un grande possedimento, e, sopra di esso, di solito durano fino all’ora di cena o giù di lì!

Chi si stupirà che a Barbara facesse male la testa, o che la madre di Barbara fosse di umore irritabile, o che sottovalutasse leggermente Astley’s, e pensasse che il pagliaccio fosse più vecchio di quanto l’avessero giudicato la scorsa sera? Kit non si sorprese di sentirglielo dire, lui no. Aveva già sospettato che gli inaffidabili attori di quella visione abbagliante avessero fatto la stessa cosa la sera prima dell’ultima, e l’avrebbero rifatto quella sera, e la prossima, e per settimane e mesi a venire, anche se lui non ci sarebbe stato. Questa è la differenza tra ieri e oggi. Siamo tutti diretti a teatro, o stiamo tornando a casa da lì.

Tuttavia, anche il Sole è debole quando sorge, e raccoglie forza e coraggio man mano che la giornata avanza. A poco a poco, cominciarono a ricordare circostanze sempre più piacevoli nella loro natura, finché, tra chiacchiere, passeggiate e risate, raggiunsero Finchley di così buon umore, che la madre di Barbara dichiarò di non sentirsi mai meno stanca o più allegra. E così disse Kit. Barbara era stata silenziosa per tutto il tragitto, ma anche lei disse la stessa cosa. Povera piccola Barbara! Era molto tranquilla.

Erano a casa con così buon tempo che Kit aveva strofinato il pony e lo aveva reso elegante come un cavallo da corsa, prima che il signor Garland scendesse a fare colazione; e questo comportamento puntuale e laborioso fu molto lodato dalla vecchia signora, dal vecchio signore e dal signor Abel. All’ora solita (o piuttosto al minuto e al secondo soliti, perché era l’anima della puntualità) il signor Abel uscì a piedi, per essere raggiunto dallo stage per Londra, e Kit e il vecchio signore andarono a lavorare nel giardino.

Questo non era il meno piacevole dei lavori di Kit. In una bella giornata erano proprio una festa di famiglia; la vecchia signora sedeva vicino con il cestino dei lavori su un tavolino; il vecchio signore scavava, potava, tagliuzzava con un grande paio di cesoie, o aiutava Kit in qualche modo con grande solerzia; e Whisker li osservava dal suo paddock contemplandoli tutti con placidità. Oggi dovevano potare la vite, così Kit salì a metà di una piccola scala e cominciò a tagliare e martellare, mentre il vecchio signore, con grande interesse per le sue operazioni, gli passava chiodi e stracci di stoffa man mano che ne aveva bisogno. La vecchia signora e Whisker osservavano come al solito.

«Bene, Christopher», disse il signor Garland, «e così hai fatto un nuovo amico, eh?»

«Chiedo scusa, signore?» rispose Kit, guardando giù dalla scala.

«Avete fatto un nuovo amico, ho sentito da Mr Abel», disse il vecchio signore, «in ufficio!»

“Oh! Sì, signore, sì. Si è comportato molto generosamente, signore.”

«Sono contento di saperlo», rispose il vecchio signore con un sorriso. «È però disposto a comportarsi in modo ancora più generoso, Christopher.»

«Davvero, signore! È molto gentile da parte sua, ma non voglio che lo faccia, glielo assicuro», disse Kit, martellando vigorosamente su un chiodo ostinato.

«È piuttosto ansioso», continuò il vecchio signore, «di averla al suo servizio - faccia attenzione a quello che sta facendo, altrimenti cadrà e si farà male.»

«Essere al suo servizio, signore?» esclamò Kit, che si era fermato di colpo nel suo lavoro e si era voltato sulla scala come un acrobata agile. «Perché, signore, non credo che possa essere serio quando dice una cosa del genere.»

“Ah, ma è proprio così,” disse il signor Garland. “E lo ha detto anche al signor Abel.”

«Non ho mai sentito niente del genere!» mormorò Kit, guardando con aria afflitta il suo padrone e la sua padrona. «Mi meraviglio di lui; è così.»

«Vedi, Christopher», disse il signor Garland, «questo è un punto di grande importanza per te, e dovresti capirlo e considerarlo sotto questa luce. Questo signore può darti più soldi di me — non, spero io, per mantenere i vari rapporti di padrone e servo, più gentilezza e fiducia, ma certamente, Christopher, può darti più soldi.»

«Bene,» disse Kit, «dopo di che, signore—»

«Aspetti un momento», intervenne il signor Garland. «Non è tutto. Lei è stato un servitore molto fedele dei suoi vecchi datori di lavoro, se ho capito bene, e se questo signore dovesse recuperarli, come è suo intento di tentare di fare con ogni mezzo in suo potere, non ho dubbio che, trovandosi al suo servizio, lei otterrebbe la sua ricompensa. Inoltre», aggiunse il vecchio signore con maggiore enfasi, «oltre a avere il piacere di essere di nuovo in contatto con coloro ai quali sembra essere molto fortemente e disinteressatamente legato. Deve pensare a tutto questo, Christopher, e non essere avventato o precipitoso nella sua scelta.»

Kit provò un tuffo al cuore, un attimo di dolore nel mantenere la risoluzione già presa, quando questo ultimo argomento gli attraversò velocemente la mente, evocando la realizzazione di tutte le sue speranze e fantasie. Ma passò in un attimo, e lui ribadì con fermezza che il signore doveva cercare qualcun altro, come avrebbe potuto fare fin dall’inizio.

‘He has no right to think that I’d be led away to go to him, sir,’ said Kit, turning round again after half a minute’s hammering. ‘Does he think I’m a fool?’

‘He may, perhaps, Christopher, if you refuse his offer,’ said Mr Garland gravely.

‘Then let him, sir,’ retorted Kit; ‘what do I care, sir, what he thinks? why should I care for his thinking, sir, when I know that I should be a fool, and worse than a fool, sir, to leave the kindest master and mistress that ever was or can be, who took me out of the streets a very poor and hungry lad indeed—poorer and hungrier perhaps than even you think for, sir—to go to him or anybody? If Miss Nell was to come back, ma’am,’ added Kit, turning suddenly to his mistress, ‘why that would be another thing, and perhaps if she wanted me, I might ask you now and then to let me work for her when all was done at home. But when she comes back, I see now that she’ll be rich as old master always said she would, and being a rich young lady, what could she want of me? No, no,’ added Kit, shaking his head sorrowfully, ‘she’ll never want me any more, and bless her, I hope she never may, though I should like to see her too!’

Here Kit drove a nail into the wall, very hard—much harder than was necessary—and having done so, faced about again.

‘There’s the pony, sir,’ said Kit—‘Whisker, ma’am (and he knows so well I’m talking about him that he begins to neigh directly, Sir)—would he let anybody come near him but me, ma’am? Here’s the garden, sir, and Mr Abel, ma’am. Would Mr Abel part with me, Sir, or is there anybody that could be fonder of the garden, ma’am? It would break mother’s heart, Sir, and even little Jacob would have sense enough to cry his eyes out, ma’am, if he thought that Mr Abel could wish to part with me so soon, after having told me, only the other day, that he hoped we might be together for years to come—’

There is no telling how long Kit might have stood upon the ladder, addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a note, which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit’s oratorical appearance, she put into her master’s hand.

‘Oh!’ said the old gentleman after reading it, ‘ask the messenger to walk this way.’ Barbara tripping off to do as she was bid, he turned to Kit and said that they would not pursue the subject any further, and that Kit could not be more unwilling to part with them, than they would be to part with Kit; a sentiment which the old lady very generously echoed.

‘At the same time, Christopher,’ added Mr Garland, glancing at the note in his hand, ‘if the gentleman should want to borrow you now and then for an hour or so, or even a day or so, at a time, we must consent to lend you, and you must consent to be lent.—Oh! here is the young gentleman. How do you do, Sir?’

This salutation was addressed to Mr Chuckster, who, with his hat extremely on one side, and his hair a long way beyond it, came swaggering up the walk.

‘Hope I see you well sir,’ returned that gentleman. ‘Hope I see YOU well, ma’am. Charming box this, sir. Delicious country to be sure.’

‘You want to take Kit back with you, I find?’ observed Mr Garland.

‘I have got a chariot-cab waiting on purpose,’ replied the clerk. ‘A very spanking grey in that cab, sir, if you’re a judge of horse-flesh.’

Declining to inspect the spanking grey, on the plea that he was but poorly acquainted with such matters, and would but imperfectly appreciate his beauties, Mr Garland invited Mr Chuckster to partake of a slight repast in the way of lunch. That gentleman readily consenting, certain cold viands, flanked with ale and wine, were speedily prepared for his refreshment.

At this repast, Mr Chuckster exerted his utmost abilities to enchant his entertainers, and impress them with a conviction of the mental superiority of those who dwelt in town; with which view he led the discourse to the small scandal of the day, in which he was justly considered by his friends to shine prodigiously. Thus, he was in a condition to relate the exact circumstances of the difference between the Marquis of Mizzler and Lord Bobby, which it appeared originated in a disputed bottle of champagne, and not in a pigeon-pie, as erroneously reported in the newspapers; neither had Lord Bobby said to the Marquis of Mizzler, ‘Mizzler, one of us two tells a lie, and I’m not the man,’ as incorrectly stated by the same authorities; but ‘Mizzler, you know where I’m to be found, and damme, sir, find me if you want me’—which, of course, entirely changed the aspect of this interesting question, and placed it in a very different light. He also acquainted them with the precise amount of the income guaranteed by the Duke of Thigsberry to Violetta Stetta of the Italian Opera, which it appeared was payable quarterly, and not half-yearly, as the public had been given to understand, and which was EXclusive, and not INclusive (as had been monstrously stated,) of jewellery, perfumery, hair-powder for five footmen, and two daily changes of kid-gloves for a page. Having entreated the old lady and gentleman to set their minds at rest on these absorbing points, for they might rely on his statement being the correct one, Mr Chuckster entertained them with theatrical chit-chat and the court circular; and so wound up a brilliant and fascinating conversation which he had maintained alone, and without any assistance whatever, for upwards of three-quarters of an hour.

‘And now that the nag has got his wind again,’ said Mr Chuckster rising in a graceful manner, ‘I’m afraid I must cut my stick.’

Neither Mr nor Mrs Garland offered any opposition to his tearing himself away (feeling, no doubt, that such a man could ill be spared from his proper sphere of action), and therefore Mr Chuckster and Kit were shortly afterwards upon their way to town; Kit being perched upon the box of the cabriolet beside the driver, and Mr Chuckster seated in solitary state inside, with one of his boots sticking out at each of the front windows.

«Non ha il diritto di pensare che mi lascerei convincere ad andare da lui, signore», disse Kit, voltandosi di nuovo dopo aver bussato per mezzo minuto. «Pensa che io sia un pazzo?»

«Potrebbe, forse, Christopher, se rifiuti la sua offerta», disse gravemente il signor Garland.

«Allora che lo faccia, signore», ribatté Kit; «a me che importa, signore, di quello che pensa? Perché dovrei preoccuparmi di quello che pensa, signore, quando so che sarei uno stolto, e peggio di uno stolto, signore, a lasciare il padrone e la padrona più gentili che siano mai stati o che mai potranno essere, che mi hanno tirato fuori dalle strade quando ero un ragazzo davvero povero e affamato — forse più povero e affamato di quanto lei stessa creda, signore — per andare da lui o da chiunque altro? Se la signorina Nell dovesse tornare, signora», aggiunse Kit, rivolgendosi improvvisamente alla sua padrona, «allora sarebbe un’altra cosa, e forse se lei avesse bisogno di me, potrei chiedere a lei di tanto in tanto di lasciarmi lavorare per lei quando tutto fosse finito a casa. Ma quando tornerà, ora vedo che sarà ricca come il vecchio padrone diceva sempre che sarebbe stata, e essendo una giovane signora ricca, che cosa potrebbe volere di me? No, no», aggiunse Kit, scuotendo la testa con tristezza, «non avrà mai più bisogno di me, e la benedica, spero che non ne abbia mai bisogno, anche se mi piacerebbe rivederla anch’io!»

Kit inchiodò un chiodo al muro con forza, molto più di quanto fosse necessario, e dopo averlo fatto si voltò di nuovo.

«Ecco il pony, signore», disse Kit, «Whisker, signora (e lui sa così bene che sto parlando di lui che comincia a nitrire subito, signore), permetterebbe a qualcun altro di avvicinarsi a lui se non fossi io, signora? Ecco il giardino, signore, e il signor Abel, signora. Il signor Abel si separerebbe da me, signore, o c’è qualcuno che potrebbe essere più affezionato al giardino, signora? Sarebbe la fine per il cuore di mamma, signore, e anche il piccolo Giacobbe avrebbe abbastanza buon senso da piangere a dirotto, signora, se pensasse che il signor Abel potrebbe desiderare di separarsi da me così presto, dopo avermi detto, solo l’altro giorno, che sperava che potessimo stare insieme per anni a venire, »

Non si può dire per quanto tempo Kit sarebbe rimasto sulla scala, rivolgendosi a turno al padrone e alla padrona, e generalmente rivolgendosi alla persona sbagliata, se Barbara in quel momento non fosse corsa a dire che un messaggero dell’ufficio aveva portato un biglietto, che, con un’espressione di sorpresa per l’aspetto oratorio di Kit, mise nella mano del suo padrone.

«Oh!» disse il vecchio signore dopo averlo letto «chieda al messaggero di venire qui.» Barbara si affrettò a eseguire l’ordine, e lui si rivolse a Kit dicendo che non avrebbero più insistito sull’argomento, e che Kit non poteva essere più riluttante a separarsi da loro, di quanto loro sarebbero stati a separarsi da Kit; un sentimento che la vecchia signora fece eco molto generosamente.

«Nello stesso momento, Christopher», aggiunse il signor Garland, gettando un’occhiata al biglietto che aveva in mano, «se il signore dovesse volerla prendere in prestito di tanto in tanto per un’ora o giù di lì, o anche per un giorno o giù di lì, a momenti, dovremo acconsentire a prestargliela, e lei dovrà acconsentire a essere prestata. — Oh! ecco il giovane signore. Come sta, signore?»

Questo saluto era rivolto al signor Chuckster, che, con il cappello estremamente inclinato da un lato e i capelli lunghi che gli scendevano ben oltre, si avvicinava lungo il viale con aria spavalda.

«Spero di vedervi bene, signore», rispose il gentiluomo. «Spero di vedervi VOI bene, signora. Questa è una casetta incantevole, signore. Un paese delizioso, davvero.»

«Volete portare Kit indietro con voi, vedo» osservò il signor Garland.

«Ho un cab aspettare appositamente», rispose il commesso. «Un bellissimo cavallo grigio in quel cab, signore, se lei è un intenditore di cavalli.»

Rifiutando di ispezionare il magnifico cavallo grigio, con la scusa che non era che poco esperto di tali questioni, e che avrebbe apprezzato le sue bellezze solo in modo imperfetto, il signor Garland invitò il signor Chuckster a partecipare a un leggero spuntino a mo’ di pranzo. Quell’gentiluomo accettò prontamente, e certi cibi freddi, affiancati da birra e vino, furono rapidamente preparati per il suo ristoro.

In questo banchetto, il signor Chuckster mise in campo tutte le sue capacità per incantare gli ospiti e convincerli della superiorità intellettuale di chi vive in città; a tal fine portò il discorso sul piccolo scandalo del giorno, nel quale i suoi amici lo consideravano giustamente un vero fenomeno. Così, fu in grado di raccontare le esatte circostanze della lite tra il marchese di Mizzler e Lord Bobby, che sembrava essere nata per una bottiglia di champagne contestata, e non per una torta di piccioni, come erroneamente riportato dai giornali; né Lord Bobby aveva detto al marchese di Mizzler, ‘Mizzler, uno di noi due mente, e non sono io’, come erroneamente affermato dalle stesse fonti; ma ‘Mizzler, sai dove trovarmi, e dannazione, signore, trovatemi se mi cercate’—il che, naturalmente, cambiava completamente l’aspetto di questa interessante questione, e la poneva in una luce molto diversa. Li informò anche dell’importo esatto del reddito garantito dal duca di Thigsberry a Violetta Stetta dell’Opera Italiana, che sembrava essere pagabile trimestralmente, e non semestralmente, come il pubblico era stato portato a credere, ed era ESclusivo, e non INclusivo (come era stato affermato in modo mostruoso) di gioielli, profumi, polvere per capelli per cinque valletti, e due cambiamenti giornalieri di guanti di pelle per un paggio. Dopo aver esortato la vecchia signora e il signore a tranquillizzarsi su questi punti assorbenti, perché potevano contare sul fatto che la sua dichiarazione fosse corretta, il signor Chuckster li intrattenne con chiacchiere teatrali e il circolare di corte; e così concluse una conversazione brillante e affascinante che aveva mantenuto da solo, e senza alcun aiuto, per oltre tre quarti d’ora.

«E ora che il cavallo ha ripreso il fiato», disse il signor Chuckster alzandosi con grazia, «temo di dover andarmene».

Né il signor Garland né la signora Garland si opposero al suo allontanamento (pensando, senza dubbio, che un uomo del genere non poteva essere risparmiato dal suo proprio ambito d’azione), e quindi il signor Chuckster e Kit furono poco dopo in viaggio verso la città; Kit era appollaiato sulla cassetta del cabriolet accanto al conducente, e il signor Chuckster sedeva in solitaria maestà all’interno, con uno dei suoi stivali che spuntava da ciascuno dei finestrini anteriori.

When they reached the Notary’s house, Kit followed into the office, and was desired by Mr Abel to sit down and wait, for the gentleman who wanted him had gone out, and perhaps might not return for some time. This anticipation was strictly verified, for Kit had had his dinner, and his tea, and had read all the lighter matter in the Law-List, and the Post-Office Directory, and had fallen asleep a great many times, before the gentleman whom he had seen before, came in; which he did at last in a very great hurry.

He was closeted with Mr Witherden for some little time, and Mr Abel had been called in to assist at the conference, before Kit, wondering very much what he was wanted for, was summoned to attend them.

‘Christopher,’ said the gentleman, turning to him directly he entered the room, ‘I have found your old master and young mistress.’

‘No, Sir! Have you, though?’ returned Kit, his eyes sparkling with delight. ‘Where are they, Sir? How are they, Sir? Are they—are they near here?’

‘A long way from here,’ returned the gentleman, shaking his head. ‘But I am going away to-night to bring them back, and I want you to go with me.’

‘Me, Sir?’ cried Kit, full of joy and surprise.

‘The place,’ said the strange gentleman, turning thoughtfully to the Notary, ‘indicated by this man of the dogs, is—how far from here—sixty miles?’

‘From sixty to seventy.’

‘Humph! If we travel post all night, we shall reach there in good time to-morrow morning. Now, the only question is, as they will not know me, and the child, God bless her, would think that any stranger pursuing them had a design upon her grandfather’s liberty—can I do better than take this lad, whom they both know and will readily remember, as an assurance to them of my friendly intentions?’

‘Certainly not,’ replied the Notary. ‘Take Christopher by all means.’

‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Kit, who had listened to this discourse with a lengthening countenance, ‘but if that’s the reason, I’m afraid I should do more harm than good—Miss Nell, Sir, she knows me, and would trust in me, I am sure; but old master—I don’t know why, gentlemen; nobody does—would not bear me in his sight after he had been ill, and Miss Nell herself told me that I must not go near him or let him see me any more. I should spoil all that you were doing if I went, I’m afraid. I’d give the world to go, but you had better not take me, Sir.’

‘Another difficulty!’ cried the impetuous gentleman. ‘Was ever man so beset as I? Is there nobody else that knew them, nobody else in whom they had any confidence? Solitary as their lives were, is there no one person who would serve my purpose?’

‘IS there, Christopher?’ said the Notary.

‘Not one, Sir,’ replied Kit.—‘Yes, though—there’s my mother.’

‘Did they know her?’ said the single gentleman.

‘Know her, Sir! why, she was always coming backwards and forwards. They were as kind to her as they were to me. Bless you, Sir, she expected they’d come back to her house.’

‘Then where the devil is the woman?’ said the impatient gentleman, catching up his hat. ‘Why isn’t she here? Why is that woman always out of the way when she is most wanted?’

In a word, the single gentleman was bursting out of the office, bent upon laying violent hands on Kit’s mother, forcing her into a post-chaise, and carrying her off, when this novel kind of abduction was with some difficulty prevented by the joint efforts of Mr Abel and the Notary, who restrained him by dint of their remonstrances, and persuaded him to sound Kit upon the probability of her being able and willing to undertake such a journey on so short a notice.

This occasioned some doubts on the part of Kit, and some violent demonstrations on that of the single gentleman, and a great many soothing speeches on that of the Notary and Mr Abel. The upshot of the business was, that Kit, after weighing the matter in his mind and considering it carefully, promised, on behalf of his mother, that she should be ready within two hours from that time to undertake the expedition, and engaged to produce her in that place, in all respects equipped and prepared for the journey, before the specified period had expired.

Having given this pledge, which was rather a bold one, and not particularly easy of redemption, Kit lost no time in sallying forth, and taking measures for its immediate fulfilment.

Quando arrivarono alla casa del notaio, Kit entrò nell’ufficio e Mr Abel gli disse di sedersi e aspettare, perché il signore che lo cercava era uscito e forse non sarebbe tornato per un po’ di tempo. Questa previsione si avverò alla lettera, perché Kit aveva già fatto la sua cena, e il suo tè, e aveva letto tutta la parte più leggera dell’elenco delle leggi e dell’annuario della posta, ed era addormentato da un sacco di tempo, prima che entrasse il signore che aveva visto prima; che alla fine entrò in grande fretta.

Fu chiuso a colloquio con il signor Witherden per un po’ di tempo, e il signor Abel era stato chiamato per assistere alla conferenza, prima che Kit, chiedendosi molto per quale motivo fosse stato chiamato, venisse convocato per partecipare.

«Christopher», disse il signore, rivolgendosi a lui non appena entrò nella stanza, «ho trovato il tuo vecchio padrone e la giovane padrona.»

«No, signore! Ma li avete visti voi?» rispose Kit, con gli occhi che brillavano di gioia. «Dov’è che sono, signore? Come stanno, signore? Sono, sono vicini qui?»

«Lontano da qui», rispose il signore, scuotendo la testa. «Ma stasera vado a prenderli e voglio che tu venga con me.»

«Io, signore?» esclamò Kit, pieno di gioia e sorpresa.

«Il luogo», disse il signore strano, rivolgendosi pensieroso al notaio, «indicato da quest’uomo dei cani, è—quanto dista da qui—sessanta miglia?»

‘Da sessanta a settanta.’

«Humph! Se viaggeremo a posta tutta notte, arriveremo là in buon tempo domani mattina. Ora, l’unica questione è che, dato che non mi conosceranno, e la bambina, Dio la benedica, penserebbe che qualsiasi estraneo che li insegue abbia un piano contro la libertà di suo nonno, posso fare di meglio che prendere questo ragazzo, che entrambi conoscono e ricorderanno facilmente, come garanzia delle mie intenzioni amichevoli?»

«Certamente no», rispose il notaio. «Prendi pure Christopher.»

«Vi prego di scusarmi, signore» disse Kit, che aveva ascoltato questo discorso con un’espressione sempre più preoccupata «ma se questa è la ragione, temo che farei più male che bene. La signorina Nell, signore, mi conosce e si fiderebbe di me, ne sono sicuro; ma il vecchio padrone - non so perché, signori; nessuno lo sa - non sopporterebbe di vedermi dopo che è stato malato, e la stessa signorina Nell mi ha detto che non dovevo avvicinarmi a lui o farmi vedere da lui. Guasterei tutto ciò che state facendo se andassi, temo. Darei tutto il mondo per andare, ma è meglio che non mi portiate, signore.»

«Un’altra difficoltà!» esclamò l’impetuoso gentiluomo. «Fu mai uomo tanto assediato come me? Non c’è nessun altro che li conoscesse, nessun altro in cui avessero fiducia? Per quanto solitaria fosse la loro vita, non c’è nessuno che potrebbe servire al mio scopo?»

«C’è, Christopher?» disse il notaio.

“Non uno, signore”, rispose Kit. “Sì, però c’è mia madre.”

«La conoscevano?» disse il signore da solo.

«Conosco lei, signore! Perché, lei veniva sempre avanti e indietro. Erano gentili con lei quanto lo erano con me. Benedetti voi, signore, lei si aspettava che tornassero alla sua casa.»

«Allora, dove diavolo è la donna?» disse il signore impaziente, afferrando il suo cappello. «Perché non è qui? Perché quella donna è sempre fuori posto quando è più desiderata?»

In una parola, il signore era sul punto di uscire dall’ufficio, deciso a mettere le mani addosso alla madre di Kit, a costringerla a salire su una carrozza e a portarla via, quando questo insolito tipo di rapimento fu impedito a stento dagli sforzi congiunti del signor Abel e del notaio, che lo trattennero con le loro proteste e lo persuasero a chiedere a Kit se sua madre fosse in grado e disposta a intraprendere un viaggio così lungo con così poco preavviso.

Questo suscitò alcuni dubbi da parte di Kit, alcune violente manifestazioni da parte del signore single e molti discorsi rassicuranti da parte del notaio e del signor Abel. Il risultato finale fu che Kit, dopo aver ponderato la questione e considerata attentamente, promise, a nome di sua madre, che sarebbe stata pronta entro due ore da quel momento per intraprendere l’impresa, e si impegnò a presentarla in quel luogo, in tutti i sensi attrezzata e preparata per il viaggio, prima che fosse scaduto il periodo specificato.

Avendo dato questo impegno, che era piuttosto audace e non particolarmente facile da mantenere, Kit non perse tempo a uscire e a prendere le misure per il suo immediato adempimento.

CHAPTER 41

Kit made his way through the crowded streets, dividing the stream of people, dashing across the busy road-ways, diving into lanes and alleys, and stopping or turning aside for nothing, until he came in front of the Old Curiosity Shop, when he came to a stand; partly from habit and partly from being out of breath.

It was a gloomy autumn evening, and he thought the old place had never looked so dismal as in its dreary twilight. The windows broken, the rusty sashes rattling in their frames, the deserted house a dull barrier dividing the glaring lights and bustle of the street into two long lines, and standing in the midst, cold, dark, and empty—presented a cheerless spectacle which mingled harshly with the bright prospects the boy had been building up for its late inmates, and came like a disappointment or misfortune. Kit would have had a good fire roaring up the empty chimneys, lights sparkling and shining through the windows, people moving briskly to and fro, voices in cheerful conversation, something in unison with the new hopes that were astir. He had not expected that the house would wear any different aspect—had known indeed that it could not—but coming upon it in the midst of eager thoughts and expectations, it checked the current in its flow, and darkened it with a mournful shadow.

Kit, however, fortunately for himself, was not learned enough or contemplative enough to be troubled with presages of evil afar off, and, having no mental spectacles to assist his vision in this respect, saw nothing but the dull house, which jarred uncomfortably upon his previous thoughts. So, almost wishing that he had not passed it, though hardly knowing why, he hurried on again, making up by his increased speed for the few moments he had lost.

‘Now, if she should be out,’ thought Kit, as he approached the poor dwelling of his mother, ‘and I not able to find her, this impatient gentleman would be in a pretty taking. And sure enough there’s no light, and the door’s fast. Now, God forgive me for saying so, but if this is Little Bethel’s doing, I wish Little Bethel was—was farther off,’ said Kit checking himself, and knocking at the door.

A second knock brought no reply from within the house; but caused a woman over the way to look out and inquire who that was, awanting Mrs Nubbles.

‘Me,’ said Kit. ‘She’s at—at Little Bethel, I suppose?’—getting out the name of the obnoxious conventicle with some reluctance, and laying a spiteful emphasis upon the words.

The neighbour nodded assent.

‘Then pray tell me where it is,’ said Kit, ‘for I have come on a pressing matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the pulpit.’

It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in question, as none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted thither, and few knew anything more of it than the name. At last, a gossip of Mrs Nubbles’s, who had accompanied her to chapel on one or two occasions when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her devotions, furnished the needful information, which Kit had no sooner obtained than he started off again.

Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite allusion to the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which enabled him to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to the parish church and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto. Kit found it, at last, after some trouble, and pausing at the door to take breath that he might enter with becoming decency, passed into the chapel.

It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a particularly little Bethel—a Bethel of the smallest dimensions—with a small number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a small gentleman (by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was delivering in a by no means small voice, a by no means small sermon, judging of its dimensions by the condition of his audience, which, if their gross amount were but small, comprised a still smaller number of hearers, as the majority were slumbering.

Among these was Kit’s mother, who, finding it matter of extreme difficulty to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night, and feeling their inclination to close strongly backed and seconded by the arguments of the preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness that overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but that she could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost inaudible groan, as if in recognition of the orator’s doctrines. The baby in her arms was as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob, whose youth prevented him from recognising in this prolonged spiritual nourishment anything half as interesting as oysters, was alternately very fast asleep and very wide awake, as his inclination to slumber, or his terror of being personally alluded to in the discourse, gained the mastery over him.

‘And now I’m here,’ thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew which was opposite his mother’s, and on the other side of the little aisle, ‘how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come out! I might as well be twenty miles off. She’ll never wake till it’s all over, and there goes the clock again! If he would but leave off for a minute, or if they’d only sing!’

But there was little encouragement to believe that either event would happen for a couple of hours to come. The preacher went on telling them what he meant to convince them of before he had done, and it was clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises and forgot the other, he was good for that time at least.

In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the chapel, and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front of the clerk’s desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed him—Quilp!

CAPITOLO 41

Kit si fece strada tra le strade affollate, dividendo il flusso di persone, correndo attraverso le trafficate strade, tuffandosi in vicoli e cortili, senza fermarsi o deviare per nulla, finché non arrivò davanti al Vecchio Negozio di Cianfrusaglie, quando si fermò; in parte per abitudine e in parte per mancanza di fiato.

Era una sera autunnale cupa, e pensava che il vecchio posto non fosse mai apparso così desolato come nella sua tetra penombra. Le finestre rotte, le rugginose intelaiature che sbatacchiavano nelle loro cornici, la casa deserta che faceva da opaco ostacolo dividendo le luci accecanti e il trambusto della strada in due lunghe linee, e che si ergeva in mezzo, fredda, buia e vuota, presentava uno spettacolo desolante che si mescolava in modo aspro con le brillanti prospettive che il ragazzo aveva costruito per i suoi ultimi inquilini, e arrivava come una delusione o una disgrazia. Kit avrebbe voluto avere un buon fuoco che ardeva nelle caminate vuote, luci che scintillavano e brillavano attraverso le finestre, persone che si muovevano vivacemente avanti e indietro, voci in allegre conversazioni, qualcosa in armonia con le nuove speranze che erano in fermento. Non si aspettava che la casa avesse un aspetto diverso — aveva anzi saputo che non poteva — ma trovandola in mezzo a pensieri ed aspettative febbrili, essa frenava la corrente nel suo flusso, e la oscurava con un luttuoso ombra.

Kit, tuttavia, per fortuna, non era abbastanza istruito o contemplativo da essere turbato da presagi di sventura lontana, e, non avendo occhiali mentali per aiutare la sua vista in questo senso, non vide altro che la noiosa casa, che strideva sgradevolmente con i suoi pensieri precedenti. Così, quasi desiderando di non averla superata, anche se a malapena sapeva perché, si affrettò di nuovo, compensando con la sua maggiore velocità i pochi momenti che aveva perso.

«Ora, se lei fosse fuori», pensò Kit, mentre si avvicinava alla povera abitazione di sua madre, «e io non riuscissi a trovarla, questo signore impaziente sarebbe in un bel guaio. E infatti non c’è luce, e la porta è chiusa. Ora, Dio mi perdoni per quello che sto per dire, ma se questo è opera di Little Bethel, vorrei che Little Bethel fosse—fosse più lontano», disse Kit frenandosi, e bussando alla porta.

Un secondo colpo non ottenne risposta dall’interno della casa; ma fece sì che una donna dall’altra parte della strada si affacciasse e chiedesse chi fosse, cercando la signora Nubbles.

«Io», disse Kit. «È a, a Little Bethel, immagino?» — pronunciando il nome della congrega con riluttanza e sottolineando le parole con malignità.

Il vicino annuì in segno di assenso.

«Allora, per favore, ditemi dove si trova» disse Kit, «perché sono venuto per una faccenda urgente e devo portarla via, anche se fosse in cattedra.»

Non fu molto facile procurarsi le indicazioni per raggiungere il locale in questione, poiché nessuno dei vicini faceva parte del gruppo che vi si riuniva, e pochi ne sapevano qualcosa oltre al nome. Alla fine, una chiacchierona amica della signora Nubbles, che l’aveva accompagnata in chiesa un paio di volte quando una confortevole tazza di tè aveva preceduto le sue preghiere, fornì le informazioni necessarie, e Kit, non appena le ebbe ottenute, ripartì di nuovo.

Little Bethel poteva essere più vicina, e poteva trovarsi in una strada più dritta, anche se in tal caso il reverendo gentiluomo che presiedeva la sua congregazione avrebbe perso la sua allusione preferita ai modi tortuosi con cui si accedeva ad essa, e che gli permettevano di paragonarla al Paradiso stesso, in contrapposizione alla chiesa parrocchiale e alla larga strada che vi conduceva. Kit la trovò, alla fine, dopo qualche difficoltà, e si fermò alla porta per riprendere fiato in modo da entrare con la dovuta decenza, e passò nella cappella.

Non era mal chiamato sotto un certo aspetto, essendo in verità un particolarmente piccolo Bethel - un Bethel delle dimensioni più piccole - con un piccolo numero di piccoli banchi e un piccolo pulpito, in cui un piccolo signore (di mestiere calzolaio e per vocazione divino) stava pronunciando con una voce tutt’altro che piccola, un sermone tutt’altro che piccolo, a giudicare dalle dimensioni del suo pubblico, che, se per quantità complessiva era piccolo, comprendeva un numero ancora più piccolo di ascoltatori, poiché la maggioranza dormiva.

Tra queste c’era la madre di Kit, che trovava estremamente difficile tenere gli occhi aperti dopo le fatiche della scorsa notte, e sentendo la loro inclinazione a chiudersi fortemente sostenuta e appoggiata dagli argomenti del predicatore, aveva ceduto alla sonnolenza che la sopraffaceva, ed era caduta addormentata; sebbene non così profondamente da non poter, di tempo in tempo, emettere un lieve e quasi impercettibile gemito, come se in riconoscimento delle dottrine dell’oratore. Il bambino tra le sue braccia era addormentato quanto lei; e il piccolo Jacob, la cui giovane età gli impediva di riconoscere in questo prolungato nutrimento spirituale qualcosa di anche lontanamente interessante come le ostriche, era alternativamente molto addormentato e molto sveglio, a seconda che la sua inclinazione al sonno o il suo terrore di essere personalmente menzionato nel discorso prendesse il sopravvento su di lui.

«E ora eccomi qui», pensò Kit, scivolando nella panca vuota più vicina, che era di fronte a quella di sua madre, e dall’altra parte del piccolo corridoio, «come farò mai a raggiungerla, o a convincerla a uscire! Potrei anche essere a venti miglia di distanza. Non si sveglierà mai finché non sarà tutto finito, e l’orologio suona di nuovo! Se solo smettesse per un minuto, o se almeno cantassero!»

Ma c’era poca speranza che uno di questi eventi potesse accadere per un paio d’ore a venire. Il predicatore continuava a dire loro ciò che intendeva convincerli prima di aver finito, ed era chiaro che se avesse mantenuto solo metà delle sue promesse e dimenticato l’altra, avrebbe fatto almeno quel tempo.

Nella sua disperazione e irrequietezza Kit guardò in giro per la cappella, e facendo cadere lo sguardo su un piccolo sedile davanti alla scrivania del chierichetto, a malapena poteva credergli quando gli mostrò. Quilp!

He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp was there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his knees, and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with the accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the ceiling. He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and appeared utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not help feeling, directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend was fastened upon them, and upon nothing else.

But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue his wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his parent, as the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew serious. Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set himself to attract his wandering attention, and this not being a very difficult task (one sneeze effected it), he signed to him to rouse his mother.

Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in a forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over upon the pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs remained inside; and, while he made vehement gestures with his right hand, and held on with his left, stared, or seemed to stare, straight into little Jacob’s eyes, threatening him by his strained look and attitude—so it appeared to the child—that if he so much as moved a muscle, he, the preacher, would be literally, and not figuratively, ‘down upon him’ that instant. In this fearful state of things, distracted by the sudden appearance of Kit, and fascinated by the eyes of the preacher, the miserable Jacob sat bolt upright, wholly incapable of motion, strongly disposed to cry but afraid to do so, and returning his pastor’s gaze until his infant eyes seemed starting from their sockets.

‘If I must do it openly, I must,’ thought Kit. With that he walked softly out of his pew and into his mother’s, and as Mr Swiveller would have observed if he had been present, ‘collared’ the baby without speaking a word.

‘Hush, mother!’ whispered Kit. ‘Come along with me, I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘Where am I?’ said Mrs Nubbles.

‘In this blessed Little Bethel,’ returned her son, peevishly.

‘Blessed indeed!’ cried Mrs Nubbles, catching at the word. ‘Oh, Christopher, how have I been edified this night!’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Kit hastily; ‘but come along, mother, everybody’s looking at us. Don’t make a noise—bring Jacob—that’s right!’

‘Stay, Satan, stay!’ cried the preacher, as Kit was moving off.

‘This gentleman says you’re to stay, Christopher,’ whispered his mother.

‘Stay, Satan, stay!’ roared the preacher again. ‘Tempt not the woman that doth incline her ear to thee, but harken to the voice of him that calleth. He hath a lamb from the fold!’ cried the preacher, raising his voice still higher and pointing to the baby. ‘He beareth off a lamb, a precious lamb! He goeth about, like a wolf in the night season, and inveigleth the tender lambs!’

Kit was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but considering this strong language, and being somewhat excited by the circumstances in which he was placed, he faced round to the pulpit with the baby in his arms, and replied aloud, ‘No, I don’t. He’s my brother.’

‘He’s MY brother!’ cried the preacher.

‘He isn’t,’ said Kit indignantly. ‘How can you say such a thing? And don’t call me names if you please; what harm have I done? I shouldn’t have come to take ‘em away, unless I was obliged, you may depend upon that. I wanted to do it very quiet, but you wouldn’t let me. Now, you have the goodness to abuse Satan and them, as much as you like, Sir, and to let me alone if you please.’

So saying, Kit marched out of the chapel, followed by his mother and little Jacob, and found himself in the open air, with an indistinct recollection of having seen the people wake up and look surprised, and of Quilp having remained, throughout the interruption, in his old attitude, without moving his eyes from the ceiling, or appearing to take the smallest notice of anything that passed.

‘Oh Kit!’ said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘what have you done! I never can go there again—never!’

‘I’m glad of it, mother. What was there in the little bit of pleasure you took last night that made it necessary for you to be low-spirited and sorrowful tonight? That’s the way you do. If you’re happy or merry ever, you come here to say, along with that chap, that you’re sorry for it. More shame for you, mother, I was going to say.’

‘Hush, dear!’ said Mrs Nubbles; ‘you don’t mean what you say I know, but you’re talking sinfulness.’

‘Don’t mean it? But I do mean it!’ retorted Kit. ‘I don’t believe, mother, that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are thought greater sins in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I do believe that those chaps are just about as right and sensible in putting down the one as in leaving off the other—that’s my belief. But I won’t say anything more about it, if you’ll promise not to cry, that’s all; and you take the baby that’s a lighter weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we go along (which we must do pretty quick) I’ll give you the news I bring, which will surprise you a little, I can tell you. There—that’s right. Now you look as if you’d never seen Little Bethel in all your life, as I hope you never will again; and here’s the baby; and little Jacob, you get atop of my back and catch hold of me tight round the neck, and whenever a Little Bethel parson calls you a precious lamb or says your brother’s one, you tell him it’s the truest things he’s said for a twelvemonth, and that if he’d got a little more of the lamb himself, and less of the mint-sauce—not being quite so sharp and sour over it—I should like him all the better. That’s what you’ve got to say to him, Jacob.’

Si strofinò gli occhi due o tre volte, ma essi continuarono a insistere che Quilp era lì, e lì era davvero, seduto con le mani sulle ginocchia e il cappello tra queste su un piccolo supporto di legno, con il solito ghigno sulla sua sporca faccia e gli occhi fissi sul soffitto. Non guardò certamente Kit o sua madre, e sembrò del tutto ignaro della loro presenza; tuttavia Kit non poté fare a meno di sentire subito che l’attenzione del piccolo demonio astuto era fissata su di loro, e su nient’altro.

Ma, sebbene fosse sbalordito dall’apparizione del nanerottolo tra i piccoli betheliti, e non fosse del tutto libero dal timore che fosse l’anticamera di qualche guaio o seccatura, fu costretto a reprimere la sua meraviglia e a prendere provvedimenti per allontanare sua madre, poiché la sera stava ormai calando e la situazione si faceva seria. Perciò, la volta successiva in cui il piccolo Giacobbe si svegliò, Kit si mise a cercare di attirare la sua attenzione dispersa, e dato che non era un compito molto difficile (un singhiozzo bastò), gli fece cenno di svegliare sua madre.

Purtroppo, proprio in quel momento, il predicatore, in una vigorosa esposizione di un punto del suo discorso, si chinò sul tavolo del pulpito in modo che ben poco di lui, a parte le gambe, rimase all’interno; e, mentre faceva gesti violenti con la mano destra e si aggrappava con la sinistra, fissava, o sembrava fissare, dritto negli occhi del piccolo Jacob, minacciandolo con il suo sguardo e la sua postura tesa - così sembrava al bambino - che se avesse mosso anche un muscolo, lui, il predicatore, sarebbe stato letteralmente, e non figurativamente, ‘sopra di lui’ in quell’istante. In questo stato di cose spaventoso, distratto dall’improvvisa apparizione di Kit e affascinato dagli occhi del predicatore, il povero Jacob sedeva perfettamente dritto, del tutto incapace di muoversi, fortemente incline a piangere ma spaventato di farlo, e restituiva lo sguardo del suo pastore finché i suoi occhi infantili sembravano uscire dalle orbite.

«Se devo farlo apertamente, lo farò», pensò Kit. E così uscì in silenzio dal suo banco e andò in quello di sua madre, e come avrebbe osservato il signor Swiveller se fosse stato presente, «afferrò» il bambino senza dire una parola.

‘Sst, mamma!’ sussurrò Kit. ‘Vieni con me, ho qualcosa da dirti.’

«Dove sono?» disse la signora Nubbles.

«In questo benedetto Little Bethel», rispose suo figlio, irritato.

«Beata davvero!» esclamò la signora Nubbles, aggrappandosi alla parola. «Oh, Christopher, come sono stata edificata questa sera!»

«Sì, sì, lo so», disse Kit in fretta, «ma vieni, mamma, tutti ci guardano. Non fare rumore, porta Giacobbe, così va bene!»

«Resta, Satana, resta!» gridò il predicatore, mentre Kit stava per andarsene.

«Questo signore dice che devi rimanere, Christopher», sussurrò sua madre.

«Resta, Satana, resta!» ruggì di nuovo il predicatore. «Non tentare la donna che inclina l’orecchio a te, ma ascolta la voce di colui che chiama. Ha un agnello dal gregge!» gridò il predicatore, alzando ancora di più la voce e indicando il bambino. «Porta via un agnello, un prezioso agnello! Va in giro, come un lupo nella stagione della notte, e inganna gli agnelli teneri!»

Kit era il ragazzo più buono del mondo, ma considerando queste parole così dure, e trovandosi in una situazione che lo aveva un po’ eccitato, si voltò verso il pulpito con il bambino tra le braccia e rispose ad alta voce: «No, non è vero. È mio fratello».

«È MIO fratello!» gridò il predicatore.

‘Non lo è’, disse Kit indignato. ‘Come puoi dire una cosa del genere? E non chiamarmi con quei nomi, per favore; che male ho fatto? Non sarei venuto a portarli via, a meno che non fossi costretto, puoi starne certo. Volevo farlo molto tranquillamente, ma tu non mi hai lasciato. Ora, hai la gentilezza di insultare Satana e loro, quanto ti pare, signore, e di lasciarmi in pace se non ti dispiace.’

Detto questo, Kit uscì dalla cappella, seguito da sua madre e dal piccolo Giacobbe, e si ritrovò all’aria aperta, con un vago ricordo di aver visto la gente svegliarsi e mostrarsi sorpresa, e di Quilp che era rimasto, durante tutta l’interruzione, nella sua vecchia posizione, senza staccare gli occhi dal soffitto, o mostrare di fare il minimo caso a tutto ciò che accadeva.

«Oh Kit!» disse sua madre, con il fazzoletto sugli occhi, «che cosa hai fatto! Non potrò mai più tornarci — mai più!»

«Ne sono felice, madre. C’era qualcosa nel piccolo piacere che hai provato ieri sera che ti ha reso necessario essere abbattuta e triste stasera? Questo è il tuo modo di fare. Se sei felice o allegra, vieni qui a dire, insieme a quel tizio, che ti dispiace. Più vergogna per te, madre, stavo per dire.»

«Sst, tesoro!» disse la signora Nubbles; «so che non intendi quello che dici, ma stai parlando di peccato.»

«Non lo penso? Ma lo penso eccome!» ribatté Kit. «Non credo, mamma, che la semplice allegria e il buon umore siano considerati peccati più gravi in Cielo delle camicie da notte, e credo che quei tipi abbiano ragione e buon senso a condannare l’uno quanto a lasciar perdere l’altro: questa è la mia opinione. Ma non ne parlerò più, se prometti di non piangere, questo è tutto; e tu prendi il bambino che è più leggero, e dammi il piccolo Jacob; e mentre andiamo (e dobbiamo farlo piuttosto in fretta) ti darò la notizia che porto, che ti sorprenderà un po’, te lo posso dire. Ecco, va bene così. Ora sembri che non abbia mai visto Little Bethel in tutta la tua vita, come io spero che non vedrai mai più; ed ecco il bambino; e piccolo Jacob, sali in groppa e stringimi forte intorno al collo, e ogni volta che un parroco di Little Bethel ti chiama un prezioso agnello o dice che tuo fratello è uno, digli che sono le cose più vere che ha detto da un anno, e che se avesse un po’ più di agnello in sé e meno di salsa al mento — non essendo così acuto e aspro al riguardo — lo apprezzerei ancora di più. Questo è ciò che devi dirgli, Jacob.»

Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and cheering up his mother, the children, and himself, by the one simple process of determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them briskly forward; and on the road home, he related what had passed at the Notary’s house, and the purpose with which he had intruded on the solemnities of Little Bethel.

His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was required of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of which the most prominent were that it was a great honour and dignity to ride in a post-chaise, and that it was a moral impossibility to leave the children behind. But this objection, and a great many others, founded on certain articles of dress being at the wash, and certain other articles having no existence in the wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were overcome by Kit, who opposed to each and every of them, the pleasure of recovering Nell, and the delight it would be to bring her back in triumph.

‘There’s only ten minutes now, mother,’ said Kit when they reached home. ‘There’s a bandbox. Throw in what you want, and we’ll be off directly.’

To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which could, by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out everything likely to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was persuaded to come and stop with the children, and how the children at first cried dismally, and then laughed heartily on being promised all kinds of impossible and unheard-of toys; how Kit’s mother wouldn’t leave off kissing them, and how Kit couldn’t make up his mind to be vexed with her for doing it; would take more time and room than you and I can spare. So, passing over all such matters, it is sufficient to say that within a few minutes after the two hours had expired, Kit and his mother arrived at the Notary’s door, where a post-chaise was already waiting.

‘With four horses I declare!’ said Kit, quite aghast at the preparations. ‘Well you ARE going to do it, mother! Here she is, Sir. Here’s my mother. She’s quite ready, sir.’

‘That’s well,’ returned the gentleman. ‘Now, don’t be in a flutter, ma’am; you’ll be taken great care of. Where’s the box with the new clothing and necessaries for them?’

‘Here it is,’ said the Notary. ‘In with it, Christopher.’

‘All right, Sir,’ replied Kit. ‘Quite ready now, sir.’

‘Then come along,’ said the single gentleman. And thereupon he gave his arm to Kit’s mother, handed her into the carriage as politely as you please, and took his seat beside her.

Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels, and off they rattled, with Kit’s mother hanging out at one window waving a damp pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many messages to little Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a word.

Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with tears in his eyes—not brought there by the departure he witnessed, but by the return to which he looked forward. ‘They went away,’ he thought, ‘on foot with nobody to speak to them or say a kind word at parting, and they’ll come back, drawn by four horses, with this rich gentleman for their friend, and all their troubles over! She’ll forget that she taught me to write—’

Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of, for he stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the chaise had disappeared, and did not return into the house until the Notary and Mr Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the sound of the wheels was no longer distinguishable, had several times wondered what could possibly detain him.

Parlando così, a metà scherzando e a metà sul serio, e rincuorando sua madre, i bambini e se stesso, con l’unico semplice processo di decidere di essere di buon umore, Kit li guidò con vivacità in avanti; e sulla strada per casa, raccontò ciò che era accaduto nella casa del notaio e lo scopo per cui aveva fatto irruzione nelle solennità del Piccolo Bethel.

Sua madre rimase piuttosto sorpresa nel venire a conoscenza del servizio che le veniva richiesto, e ben presto cadde in una confusione di idee, tra le quali spiccavano il fatto che fosse un grande onore e una grande dignità viaggiare in una carrozza postale, e che fosse moralmente impossibile lasciare i bambini indietro. Ma questa obiezione, e molte altre, fondate sul fatto che alcuni capi d’abbigliamento erano in lavanderia e che altri non esistevano affatto nell’armadio della signora Nubbles, furono superate da Kit, che contrappose a ciascuna di esse il piacere di ritrovare Nell e la gioia che sarebbe stata riportarla indietro trionfalmente.

«Non ci sono che dieci minuti, mamma», disse Kit quando arrivarono a casa. «C’è una scatola di cartone. Metti dentro quello che vuoi, e ce ne andremo subito».

Raccontare come Kit infilò nella scatola ogni sorta di cose che non sarebbero servite in alcuna circostanza, e come tralasciò tutto ciò che poteva essere utile; come un vicino fu persuaso a venire a stare con i bambini, e come i bambini dapprima piansero disperatamente, e poi risero di gusto quando gli fu promesso ogni sorta di giocattoli impossibili e mai visti; come la madre di Kit non smetteva di baciarli, e come Kit non riusciva a decidersi ad arrabbiarsi con lei per questo; richiederebbe più tempo e spazio di quanto tu e io possiamo concedere. Quindi, passando oltre tutti questi particolari, è sufficiente dire che pochi minuti dopo la scadenza delle due ore, Kit e sua madre arrivarono alla porta del notaio, dove una carrozza postale era già in attesa.

«Con quattro cavalli, dichiaro!» disse Kit, completamente sbalordito dalle preparazioni. «Beh ci state andando, madre! Ecco qui, signore. Ecco mia madre. È pronta, signore.»

«Questo è bene», rispose il gentiluomo. «Ora, non si agiti, signora; le verrà prestata grande cura. Dov’è la scatola con i nuovi vestiti e gli oggetti necessari per loro?»

‘Ecco qua’, disse il notaio. ‘Avanti, Christopher’.

‘Va bene, signore’, rispose Kit. ‘Sono pronto, signore.’

«Allora andiamo», disse il signore scapolo. E dopo di che offrì il braccio alla madre di Kit, la fece salire in carrozza con la massima cortesia e prese posto al suo fianco.

Su andarono i gradini, sbatté la porta, girarono le ruote e via partirono, con la madre di Kit che si affacciava da un finestrino agitando un fazzoletto bagnato e gridando un sacco di raccomandazioni a piccolo Giacobbe e al bebè, delle quali nessuno sentì una parola.

Kit si fermò in mezzo alla strada e li guardò andar via con le lacrime agli occhi, lacrime non dovute alla partenza che stava assistendo, ma al ritorno che tanto desiderava. «Sono andati via», pensò, «a piedi, senza che nessuno li salutasse o dicesse loro una parola gentile, e torneranno, trainati da quattro cavalli, con questo ricco signore come amico, e tutti i loro guai saranno finiti! Lei dimenticherà che mi ha insegnato a scrivere, »

Qualunque cosa Kit pensasse dopo questo, ci volle un po’ di tempo per pensarci, perché rimase a fissare le file di lampade lucenti, molto tempo dopo che la carrozza era scomparsa, e non rientrò nella casa finché il notaio e il signor Abel, che erano rimasti fuori anche loro finché il rumore delle ruote non era più distinguibile, si furono chiesti più volte cosa potesse trattenerlo.

CHAPTER 42

It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant, and to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of the narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back.

In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the two sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with them and her recognition in their trials of something akin to her own loneliness of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such moments a time of deep delight, though the softened pleasure they yielded was of that kind which lives and dies in tears—in one of those wanderings at the quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and earth, and air, and rippling water, and sound of distant bells, claimed kindred with the emotions of the solitary child, and inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of a child’s world or its easy joys—in one of those rambles which had now become her only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into darkness and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene and still, when noise of tongues and glare of garish lights would have been solitude indeed.

The sisters had gone home, and she was alone. She raised her eyes to the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air, and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and more beyond, and more beyond again, until the whole great expanse sparkled with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in immeasurable space, eternal in their numbers as in their changeless and incorruptible existence. She bent over the calm river, and saw them shining in the same majestic order as when the dove beheld them gleaming through the swollen waters, upon the mountain tops down far below, and dead mankind, a million fathoms deep.

The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by the stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders. The time and place awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope—less hope, perhaps, than resignation—on the past, and present, and what was yet before her. Between the old man and herself there had come a gradual separation, harder to bear than any former sorrow. Every evening, and often in the day-time too, he was absent, alone; and although she well knew where he went, and why—too well from the constant drain upon her scanty purse and from his haggard looks—he evaded all inquiry, maintained a strict reserve, and even shunned her presence.

She sat meditating sorrowfully upon this change, and mingling it, as it were, with everything about her, when the distant church-clock bell struck nine. Rising at the sound, she retraced her steps, and turned thoughtfully towards the town.

She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the stream, led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon a ruddy light, and looking forward more attentively, discerned that it proceeded from what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who had made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path, and were sitting or lying round it. As she was too poor to have any fear of them, she did not alter her course (which, indeed, she could not have done without going a long way round), but quickened her pace a little, and kept straight on.

A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the spot, to glance towards the fire. There was a form between it and her, the outline strongly developed against the light, which caused her to stop abruptly. Then, as if she had reasoned with herself and were assured that it could not be, or had satisfied herself that it was not that of the person she had supposed, she went on again.

But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had been carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the voice that spoke—she could not distinguish words—sounded as familiar to her as her own.

She turned, and looked back. The person had been seated before, but was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick on which he rested both hands. The attitude was no less familiar to her than the tone of voice had been. It was her grandfather.

Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his associates could be, and for what purpose they were together. Some vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong inclination it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not advancing across the open field, however, but creeping towards it by the hedge.

In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and standing among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without much danger of being observed.

There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy camps they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy—a tall athletic man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree at a little distance off, looking now at the fire, and now, under his black eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with a watchful but half-concealed interest in their conversation. Of these, her grandfather was one; the others she recognised as the first card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the storm—the man whom they had called Isaac List, and his gruff companion. One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to that people, was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be, empty.

‘Well, are you going?’ said the stout man, looking up from the ground where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather’s face. ‘You were in a mighty hurry a minute ago. Go, if you like. You’re your own master, I hope?’

CAPITOLO 42

Ci conviene lasciare Kit per un po’, pensieroso e in attesa, e seguire le vicende di piccola Nell; riprendendo il filo della narrazione dal punto in cui era stato lasciato, alcuni capitoli fa.

In uno di quei giri serali, quando, seguendo le due sorelle a umile distanza, provava, nella sua simpatia per loro e nel riconoscere nelle loro prove qualcosa di affine alla propria solitudine d’animo, un conforto e una consolazione che rendevano quei momenti un tempo di profonda gioia, sebbene il piacere attenuato che ne derivava fosse di quel tipo che vive e muore in lacrime—in uno di quei giri all’ora tranquilla del crepuscolo, quando cielo, terra, aria e acqua increspata, e il suono di lontane campane, si identificavano con le emozioni del bambino solitario, e le ispiravano pensieri rassicuranti, ma non del mondo di un bambino o delle sue facili gioie—in uno di quei giri che erano ormai il suo unico piacere o sollievo dalle preoccupazioni, la luce era svanita nell’oscurità e la sera si era trasformata in notte, eppure la giovane creatura continuava a indugiare nell’ombra; sentendo una compagnia nella Natura così serena e silenziosa, quando il rumore delle lingue e lo splendore delle luci appariscenti sarebbero stati veramente solitudine.

Le sorelle erano tornate a casa, e lei era sola. Alzò gli occhi verso le luminose stelle, che guardavano dolcemente dall’ampio mondo dell’aria, e, fissandole, scoprì nuove stelle che apparivano alla sua vista, e altre ancora oltre, e ancora più oltre, finché l’intera vasta distesa scintillava di sfere luminose, che si elevavano sempre più in alto nello spazio immenso, eterne nel loro numero come nella loro esistenza immutabile e incorruttibile. Si chinò sul placido fiume, e le vide brillare nello stesso maestoso ordine in cui la colomba le aveva viste scintillare attraverso le acque gonfie, sulle cime delle montagne lontane, e sull’umanità morta, a un milione di braccia di profondità.

La bambina sedeva in silenzio sotto un albero, il respiro appena percettibile per la quiete della notte e per tutte le meraviglie che la accompagnavano. Il tempo e il luogo suscitavano riflessioni, e lei pensava con una tranquilla speranza — forse più rassegnazione che speranza — al passato, al presente e a ciò che ancora l’attendeva. Tra il vecchio e lei si era venuta a creare una graduale separazione, più difficile da sopportare di qualsiasi precedente dolore. Ogni sera, e spesso anche durante il giorno, lui era assente, solo; e sebbene lei ben sapesse dove andava e perché — troppo ben lo sapeva dal costante impoverimento del suo magro portafoglio e dal suo sguardo smunto — lui evitava ogni domanda, manteneva un rigido riserbo e persino evitava la sua presenza.

Ella sedeva meditando con tristezza su questo cambiamento, e mescolandolo, per così dire, con tutto ciò che la circondava, quando la campana lontana del campanile della chiesa suonò le nove. Al suono, si alzò, ripercorse i suoi passi e si diresse pensierosa verso la città.

Era riuscita a raggiungere un piccolo ponte di legno che, gettato sul torrente, conduceva a un prato lungo il suo cammino, quando si trovò improvvisamente davanti a una luce rossastra e, guardando più attentamente davanti a sé, scorse che proveniva da quello che sembrava essere un accampamento di zingari, i quali avevano acceso un fuoco in un angolo non molto lontano dal sentiero e sedevano o giacevano intorno ad esso. Poiché era troppo povera per avere qualche paura di loro, non cambiò la sua rotta (che, del resto, non avrebbe potuto fare senza fare un lungo giro), ma accelerò un po’ il passo e proseguì dritto.

Un moto di timida curiosità la spinse, quando si avvicinò al punto, a dare un’occhiata verso il fuoco. C’era una figura tra esso e lei, il contorno fortemente delineato contro la luce, che la fece fermare bruscamente. Poi, come se avesse ragionato con se stessa e fosse sicura che non poteva essere, o si fosse convinta che non era quella della persona che aveva supposto, riprese a camminare.

Ma in quell’istante la conversazione, qualunque fosse, che si era svolta vicino a questo fuoco riprese, e i toni della voce che parlava - non riusciva a distinguere le parole - le suonavano familiari quanto la sua stessa voce.

Si voltò e guardò indietro. La persona era stata seduta prima, ma ora era in piedi, e si appoggiava in avanti su un bastone su cui riposava entrambe le mani. L’atteggiamento era per lei non meno familiare del tono della voce. Era suo nonno.

Il suo primo impulso fu di chiamarlo; il successivo fu di chiedersi chi potessero essere i suoi compagni e a quale scopo si trovassero insieme. Seguì una vaga apprensione, e, cedendo alla forte inclinazione che questa suscitò, si avvicinò al luogo; non avanzando però attraverso il campo aperto, ma strisciando verso di esso lungo la siepe.

In questo modo si avvicinò a pochi passi dal fuoco, e stando in mezzo a qualche giovane albero, poteva vedere e sentire, senza correre grande pericolo di essere notata.

Non c’erano donne né bambini, come aveva visto in altri accampamenti di zingari che avevano superato nel loro vagabondaggio, e solo uno zingaro—un uomo alto e atletico, che stava con le braccia incrociate, appoggiato a un albero a poca distanza, guardando ora il fuoco, e ora, sotto le sue ciglia nere, a tre altri uomini che erano lì, con un interesse vigile ma mezzo nascosto nella loro conversazione. Di questi, suo nonno era uno; gli altri li riconobbe come i primi giocatori di carte alla locanda sulla notte memorabile della tempesta—l’uomo che avevano chiamato Isaac List, e il suo compagno burbero. Una delle basse, arcuate tende zingare, comuni a quel popolo, era stata montata vicino, ma era o era, o sembrava essere, vuota.

«Bene, andate?» disse l’uomo robusto, alzando lo sguardo dal terreno dove giaceva comodamente, verso il viso del nonno di lei. «Un attimo fa avevate una gran fretta. Andate, se volete. Siete il vostro padrone, spero?»

‘Don’t vex him,’ returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog on the other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that he seemed to be squinting all over; ‘he didn’t mean any offence.’

‘You keep me poor, and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me besides,’ said the old man, turning from one to the other. ‘Ye’ll drive me mad among ye.’

The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child, contrasted with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands he was, smote upon the little listener’s heart. But she constrained herself to attend to all that passed, and to note each look and word.

‘Confound you, what do you mean?’ said the stout man rising a little, and supporting himself on his elbow. ‘Keep you poor! You’d keep us poor if you could, wouldn’t you? That’s the way with you whining, puny, pitiful players. When you lose, you’re martyrs; but I don’t find that when you win, you look upon the other losers in that light. As to plunder!’ cried the fellow, raising his voice—‘Damme, what do you mean by such ungentlemanly language as plunder, eh?’

The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or two short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his unbounded indignation. It was quite plain that he acted the bully, and his friend the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or rather, it would have been to any one but the weak old man; for they exchanged glances quite openly, both with each other and with the gipsy, who grinned his approval of the jest until his white teeth shone again.

The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then said, turning to his assailant:

‘You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know. Don’t be so violent with me. You were, were you not?’

‘Not of plundering among present company! Honour among—among gentlemen, Sir,’ returned the other, who seemed to have been very near giving an awkward termination to the sentence.

‘Don’t be hard upon him, Jowl,’ said Isaac List. ‘He’s very sorry for giving offence. There—go on with what you were saying—go on.’

‘I’m a jolly old tender-hearted lamb, I am,’ cried Mr Jowl, ‘to be sitting here at my time of life giving advice when I know it won’t be taken, and that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains. But that’s the way I’ve gone through life. Experience has never put a chill upon my warm-heartedness.’

‘I tell you he’s very sorry, don’t I?’ remonstrated Isaac List, ‘and that he wishes you’d go on.’

‘Does he wish it?’ said the other.

‘Ay,’ groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and fro. ‘Go on, go on. It’s in vain to fight with it; I can’t do it; go on.’

‘I go on then,’ said Jowl, ‘where I left off, when you got up so quick. If you’re persuaded that it’s time for luck to turn, as it certainly is, and find that you haven’t means enough to try it (and that’s where it is, for you know, yourself, that you never have the funds to keep on long enough at a sitting), help yourself to what seems put in your way on purpose. Borrow it, I say, and, when you’re able, pay it back again.’

‘Certainly,’ Isaac List struck in, ‘if this good lady as keeps the wax-works has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to bed, and doesn’t lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing; quite a Providence, I should call it—but then I’ve been religiously brought up.’

‘You see, Isaac,’ said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing himself closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to come between them; ‘you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out every hour of the day; nothing would be more likely than for one of these strangers to get under the good lady’s bed, or lock himself in the cupboard; suspicion would be very wide, and would fall a long way from the mark, no doubt. I’d give him his revenge to the last farthing he brought, whatever the amount was.’

‘But could you?’ urged Isaac List. ‘Is your bank strong enough?’

‘Strong enough!’ answered the other, with assumed disdain. ‘Here, you Sir, give me that box out of the straw!’

This was addressed to the gipsy, who crawled into the low tent on all fours, and after some rummaging and rustling returned with a cash-box, which the man who had spoken opened with a key he wore about his person.

‘Do you see this?’ he said, gathering up the money in his hand and letting it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water. ‘Do you hear it? Do you know the sound of gold? There, put it back—and don’t talk about banks again, Isaac, till you’ve got one of your own.’

Isaac List, with great apparent humility, protested that he had never doubted the credit of a gentleman so notorious for his honourable dealing as Mr Jowl, and that he had hinted at the production of the box, not for the satisfaction of his doubts, for he could have none, but with a view to being regaled with a sight of so much wealth, which, though it might be deemed by some but an unsubstantial and visionary pleasure, was to one in his circumstances a source of extreme delight, only to be surpassed by its safe depository in his own personal pockets. Although Mr List and Mr Jowl addressed themselves to each other, it was remarkable that they both looked narrowly at the old man, who, with his eyes fixed upon the fire, sat brooding over it, yet listening eagerly—as it seemed from a certain involuntary motion of the head, or twitching of the face from time to time—to all they said.

‘My advice,’ said Jowl, lying down again with a careless air, ‘is plain—I have given it, in fact. I act as a friend. Why should I help a man to the means perhaps of winning all I have, unless I considered him my friend? It’s foolish, I dare say, to be so thoughtful of the welfare of other people, but that’s my constitution, and I can’t help it; so don’t blame me, Isaac List.’

«Non infastiditelo», rispose Isaac List, che stava accovacciato come una rana dall’altra parte del fuoco, e si era così rannicchiato che sembrava strizzare gli occhi dappertutto; «non intendeva offendere».

«Mi tenete povero, mi derubate, e in più vi prendete gioco di me», disse il vecchio, voltandosi dall’uno all’altro. «Mi farete diventare matto con voi.»

L’assoluta irresolutezza e debolezza del bambino dai capelli grigi, in contrasto con gli sguardi acuti e astuti di coloro che lo tenevano in mano, colpì il cuore della piccola ascoltatrice. Ma lei si impose di prestare attenzione a tutto ciò che accadeva, e di notare ogni sguardo e ogni parola.

«Maledizione, che intendete dire?» disse l’uomo robusto alzandosi un po’ e appoggiandosi sul gomito. «Tenervi poveri! Ci terreste poveri se poteste, vero? Questa è la vostra maniera, voi piagnucolosi, deboli, pietosi giocatori. Quando perdete, siete martiri; ma non vedo che quando vincete, guardiate gli altri perdenti in quella luce. Per quanto riguarda il saccheggio!» gridò il tizio, alzando la voce — «Maledizione, che intendete dire con un linguaggio così poco da gentiluomo come saccheggio, eh?»

L’oratore si distese di nuovo a tutta lunghezza e diede uno o due calci brevi e rabbiosi, come per esprimere ulteriormente la sua illimitata indignazione. Era chiaro che agiva da prepotente e il suo amico da paciere per un motivo particolare; o meglio, lo sarebbe stato per chiunque tranne che per il vecchio debole; perché si scambiavano sguardi apertamente, sia tra loro che con il zingaro, che ghignava approvando la battuta fino a far risplendere di nuovo i suoi denti bianchi.

Il vecchio rimase impotente in mezzo a loro per un po’ di tempo, e poi disse, rivolgendosi al suo aggressore:

«Anche voi, poco fa, parlavate di saccheggio, lo sapete. Non siate così violento con me. È vero, no?»

«Non di saccheggio tra la compagnia presente! Onore tra—tra gentiluomini, signore», rispose l’altro, che sembrava essere stato molto vicino a dare una conclusione imbarazzante alla frase.

«Non essere severo con lui, Jowl», disse Isaac List. «È molto dispiaciuto di aver dato fastidio. Ecco, continua con quello che stavi dicendo, continua.»

«Sono un vecchio agnello tenero e gioviale», gridò il signor Jowl, «a sedere qui a questa mia età a dare consigli che so non verranno seguiti, e che per la mia fatica non otterrò altro che insulti. Ma questa è la strada che ho percorso nella vita. L’esperienza non ha mai raffreddato il mio cuore caldo».

«Vi dico che è molto dispiaciuto, no?» protestò Isaac List, «e che desidera che continuiate.»

«Lo desidera?» disse l’altro.

«Sì», gemette il vecchio sedendosi e dondolandosi avanti e indietro. «Continua, continua. È inutile lottare contro di essa; non posso farlo; continua.»

«Allora continuo», disse Jowl, «da dove ho interrotto, quando vi siete alzato così in fretta. Se siete convinto che sia tempo che la fortuna cambi, come certamente è, e scoprite di non avere abbastanza mezzi per provarci (e qui sta il problema, perché sapete bene voi stesso che non avete mai i fondi per continuare abbastanza a lungo in una volta sola), approfittate di ciò che sembra messo apposta sulla vostra strada. Prendetelo in prestito, dico, e, quando potrete, restituitelo.»

«Certamente», intervenne Isaac List, «se questa brava donna che tiene la mostra delle cere ha dei soldi, e li tiene in una scatola di latta quando va a letto, e non chiude la porta a chiave per paura del fuoco, sembra una cosa facile; una vera Provvidenza, la chiamerei — ma poi sono stato educato in modo religioso».

«Vedi, Isaac», disse il suo amico, sempre più appassionato, e avvicinandosi al vecchio, mentre faceva cenno al gitano di non mettersi tra loro; «vedi, Isaac, gli estranei entrano ed escono ogni ora del giorno; non ci sarebbe nulla di più probabile che uno di questi estranei si nascondesse sotto il letto della buona signora, o si chiudesse a chiave nell’armadio; i sospetti sarebbero molto ampi, e cadrebbero lontano dal bersaglio, senza dubbio. Gli darei la sua vendetta fino all’ultimo centesimo che ha portato, qualunque fosse l’importo».

“Ma potresti?” insistette Isaac List. “La tua banca è abbastanza solida?”

«Abbastanza forte!» rispose l’altro, con disprezzo simulato. «Ecco, lei, signore, mi passi quella scatola dalla paglia!»

Questo era rivolto al gitano, che strisciò nella bassa tenda a quattro zampe, e dopo aver frugato e frusciato un po’ tornò con una cassetta di sicurezza, che l’uomo che aveva parlato aprì con una chiave che portava addosso.

«Vedi questo?», disse, raccogliendo il denaro nella mano e lasciandolo cadere di nuovo nella scatola, tra le dita, come acqua. «Lo senti? Conosci il suono dell’oro? Ecco, rimettilo a posto — e non parlare più di banche, Isaac, finché non ne avrai una tua.»

Isaac List, con grande apparente umiltà, protestò che non aveva mai dubitato del credito di un gentiluomo così noto per la sua onorevole condotta come il signor Jowl, e che aveva accennato alla produzione della scatola, non per soddisfare i suoi dubbi, perché non ne poteva avere, ma con l’intento di essere rallegrato dalla vista di tanta ricchezza, che, sebbene potesse essere considerata da alcuni solo un piacere insostanziale e visionario, era per uno nelle sue circostanze una fonte di estremo piacere, superata solo dal suo sicuro deposito nelle sue stesse tasche personali. Sebbene il signor List e il signor Jowl si rivolgessero l’uno all’altro, era notevole che entrambi guardassero attentamente il vecchio, che, con gli occhi fissi sul fuoco, sedeva meditando su di esso, eppure ascoltando con attenzione — come sembrava da un certo movimento involontario della testa, o scossa del viso di tempo in tempo — tutto ciò che dicevano.

«Il mio consiglio», disse Jowl, sdraiandosi di nuovo con aria noncurante, «è chiaro: anzi, l’ho già dato. Io agisco come un amico. Perché dovrei aiutare un uomo a procurarsi i mezzi per forse ottenere tutto ciò che ho io, se non lo considerassi mio amico? È forse sciocco preoccuparsi tanto del benessere degli altri, ma è la mia natura, e non posso farci nulla; quindi non incolpate me, Isaac List.»

‘I blame you!’ returned the person addressed; ‘not for the world, Mr Jowl. I wish I could afford to be as liberal as you; and, as you say, he might pay it back if he won—and if he lost—’

‘You’re not to take that into consideration at all,’ said Jowl.

‘But suppose he did (and nothing’s less likely, from all I know of chances), why, it’s better to lose other people’s money than one’s own, I hope?’

‘Ah!’ cried Isaac List rapturously, ‘the pleasures of winning! The delight of picking up the money—the bright, shining yellow-boys—and sweeping ‘em into one’s pocket! The deliciousness of having a triumph at last, and thinking that one didn’t stop short and turn back, but went half-way to meet it! The—but you’re not going, old gentleman?’

‘I’ll do it,’ said the old man, who had risen and taken two or three hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly. ‘I’ll have it, every penny.’

‘Why, that’s brave,’ cried Isaac, jumping up and slapping him on the shoulder; ‘and I respect you for having so much young blood left. Ha, ha, ha! Joe Jowl’s half sorry he advised you now. We’ve got the laugh against him. Ha, ha, ha!’

‘He gives me my revenge, mind,’ said the old man, pointing to him eagerly with his shrivelled hand: ‘mind—he stakes coin against coin, down to the last one in the box, be there many or few. Remember that!’

‘I’m witness,’ returned Isaac. ‘I’ll see fair between you.’

‘I have passed my word,’ said Jowl with feigned reluctance, ‘and I’ll keep it. When does this match come off? I wish it was over.—To-night?’

‘I must have the money first,’ said the old man; ‘and that I’ll have to-morrow—’

‘Why not to-night?’ urged Jowl.

‘It’s late now, and I should be flushed and flurried,’ said the old man. ‘It must be softly done. No, to-morrow night.’

‘Then to-morrow be it,’ said Jowl. ‘A drop of comfort here. Luck to the best man! Fill!’

The gipsy produced three tin cups, and filled them to the brim with brandy. The old man turned aside and muttered to himself before he drank. Her own name struck upon the listener’s ear, coupled with some wish so fervent, that he seemed to breathe it in an agony of supplication.

‘God be merciful to us!’ cried the child within herself, ‘and help us in this trying hour! What shall I do to save him!’

The remainder of their conversation was carried on in a lower tone of voice, and was sufficiently concise; relating merely to the execution of the project, and the best precautions for diverting suspicion. The old man then shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew.

They watched his bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly, and when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved their hands, or shouted some brief encouragement. It was not until they had seen him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the distant road, that they turned to each other, and ventured to laugh aloud.

‘So,’ said Jowl, warming his hands at the fire, ‘it’s done at last. He wanted more persuading than I expected. It’s three weeks ago, since we first put this in his head. What’ll he bring, do you think?’

‘Whatever he brings, it’s halved between us,’ returned Isaac List.

The other man nodded. ‘We must make quick work of it,’ he said, ‘and then cut his acquaintance, or we may be suspected. Sharp’s the word.’

List and the gipsy acquiesced. When they had all three amused themselves a little with their victim’s infatuation, they dismissed the subject as one which had been sufficiently discussed, and began to talk in a jargon which the child did not understand. As their discourse appeared to relate to matters in which they were warmly interested, however, she deemed it the best time for escaping unobserved; and crept away with slow and cautious steps, keeping in the shadow of the hedges, or forcing a path through them or the dry ditches, until she could emerge upon the road at a point beyond their range of vision. Then she fled homeward as quickly as she could, torn and bleeding from the wounds of thorns and briars, but more lacerated in mind, and threw herself upon her bed, distracted.

The first idea that flashed upon her mind was flight, instant flight; dragging him from that place, and rather dying of want upon the roadside, than ever exposing him again to such terrible temptations. Then, she remembered that the crime was not to be committed until next night, and there was the intermediate time for thinking, and resolving what to do. Then, she was distracted with a horrible fear that he might be committing it at that moment; with a dread of hearing shrieks and cries piercing the silence of the night; with fearful thoughts of what he might be tempted and led on to do, if he were detected in the act, and had but a woman to struggle with. It was impossible to bear such torture. She stole to the room where the money was, opened the door, and looked in. God be praised! He was not there, and she was sleeping soundly.

She went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed. But who could sleep—sleep! who could lie passively down, distracted by such terrors? They came upon her more and more strongly yet. Half undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old man’s bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and roused him from his sleep.

‘What’s this!’ he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes upon her spectral face.

‘I have had a dreadful dream,’ said the child, with an energy that nothing but such terrors could have inspired. ‘A dreadful, horrible dream. I have had it once before. It is a dream of grey-haired men like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing sleepers of their gold. Up, up!’

The old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who prays.

‘Not to me,’ said the child, ‘not to me—to Heaven, to save us from such deeds! This dream is too real. I cannot sleep, I cannot stay here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come. Up! We must fly.’

He looked at her as if she were a spirit—she might have been for all the look of earth she had—and trembled more and more.

‘There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute,’ said the child. ‘Up! and away with me!’

‘To-night?’ murmured the old man.

‘Yes, to-night,’ replied the child. ‘To-morrow night will be too late. The dream will have come again. Nothing but flight can save us. Up!’

The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat of fear: and, bending before the child as if she had been an angel messenger sent to lead him where she would, made ready to follow her. She took him by the hand and led him on. As they passed the door of the room he had proposed to rob, she shuddered and looked up into his face. What a white face was that, and with what a look did he meet hers!

She took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand as if she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the little stock she had, and hung her basket on her arm. The old man took his wallet from her hands and strapped it on his shoulders—his staff, too, she had brought away—and then she led him forth.

Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their trembling feet passed quickly. Up the steep hill too, crowned by the old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once looked behind.

But as they drew nearer the ruined walls, the moon rose in all her gentle glory, and, from their venerable age, garlanded with ivy, moss, and waving grass, the child looked back upon the sleeping town, deep in the valley’s shade: and on the far-off river with its winding track of light: and on the distant hills; and as she did so, she clasped the hand she held, less firmly, and bursting into tears, fell upon the old man’s neck.

«La colpa è sua!» rispose la persona a cui si rivolgeva; «non per il mondo, signor Jowl. Vorrei potermi permettere di essere altrettanto generoso come lei; e, come dice lei, potrebbe restituirla se vince—e se perdesse—»

«Non dovete prendere in considerazione affatto questo», disse Jowl.

«Ma supponiamo che lo facesse (e nulla è meno probabile, da tutto ciò che so delle possibilità), perché, è meglio perdere i soldi degli altri che i propri, spero?»

«Ah!» esclamò Isaac List rapito, «i piaceri della vittoria! La gioia di raccogliere i soldi, i bei, lucenti scellini d’oro, e spazzarli in tasca! La delizia di avere finalmente un trionfo, e di pensare che non ci si è fermati e non si è tornati indietro, ma si è andati a metà strada per incontrarlo! La—ma lei non se ne va, vecchio signore?»

«Lo farò», disse il vecchio, che si era alzato e aveva fatto due o tre passi affrettati, e ora tornava altrettanto in fretta. «Lo avrò, ogni centesimo».

«Perbacco, è coraggioso», esclamò Isaac, balzando in piedi e dandogli una pacca sulla spalla; «e ti rispetto per avere ancora tanto sangue giovane. Ha, ha, ha! Joe Jowl è mezzo pentito di aver dato questo consiglio. Abbiamo la meglio su di lui. Ha, ha, ha!»

«Mi dà la mia vendetta, bada bene», disse il vecchio, indicandolo con entusiasmo con la sua mano raggrinzita: «bada bene: scommette moneta contro moneta, fino all’ultima nella scatola, che siano molte o poche. Ricordatelo!»

«Sono testimone», rispose Isaac. «Mi assicurerò che sia tutto corretto.»

«Ho dato la mia parola», disse Jowl fingendosi riluttante, «e la manterrò. Quando si svolgerà questo incontro? Vorrei che fosse già finito. — Stasera?»

‘Devo avere prima i soldi’, disse il vecchio; ‘e li avrò domani’

«Perché non stasera?» insistette Jowl.

‘È tardi ora, e dovrei essere in preda al panico e al trambusto’, disse il vecchio. ‘Deve essere fatto con calma. No, domani notte.’

«Allora sia domani», disse Jowl. «Un sorso di conforto qui. Buona fortuna al migliore! Riempite!»

Il zingaro produsse tre tazze di stagno e le riempì fino all’orlo di brandy. Il vecchio si voltò dall’altra parte e borbottò tra sé prima di bere. Il suo stesso nome colpì l’orecchio dell’ascoltatore, unito a un desiderio così fervente, che sembrava di respirarlo in un’agonia di supplica.

«Dio abbia pietà di noi!» esclamò il bambino tra sé, «e aiutaci in questo momento difficile! Cosa posso fare per salvarlo!»

Il resto della loro conversazione fu portato avanti a voce più bassa e fu sufficientemente concisa; riguardava soltanto l’esecuzione del progetto e le migliori precauzioni per distogliere i sospetti. Poi il vecchio strinse la mano ai suoi seduttori e se ne andò.

Osservarono la sua figura curva e ingobbita mentre si allontanava lentamente, e quando girava la testa per guardarsi indietro, cosa che faceva spesso, agitavano le mani o gli gridavano qualche breve incoraggiamento. Fu solo quando lo videro ridursi gradualmente a un semplice puntino sulla lontana strada che si voltarono l’uno verso l’altro e si permisero di ridere ad alta voce.

«Bene», disse Jowl, riscaldandosi le mani al fuoco, «è fatta. Ha voluto più persuasione di quanto mi aspettassi. Sono tre settimane che gli abbiamo messo questa idea in testa. Cosa porterà, secondo voi?»

«Qualunque cosa porti, è divisa a metà tra noi», rispose Isaac List.

L’altro uomo annuì. «Dobbiamo sbrigare la faccenda in fretta», disse, «e poi tagliare i ponti con lui, altrimenti potremmo essere sospettati. La parola d’ordine è “veloce”.»

List e la zingara acconsentirono. Dopo che tutti e tre si furono divertiti un po’ con l’infatuazione della loro vittima, lasciarono cadere l’argomento, considerandolo sufficientemente discusso, e iniziarono a parlare in un gergo che la bambina non capiva. Poiché il loro discorso sembrava riguardare questioni che li interessavano vivamente, tuttavia, lei ritenne che fosse il momento migliore per fuggire inosservata; e si allontanò con passi lenti e cauti, tenendosi nell’ombra dei fossati, o aprendosi un varco attraverso di essi o i fossi asciutti, finché non poté emergere sulla strada in un punto oltre il loro campo visivo. Poi fuggì verso casa il più velocemente possibile, lacerata e sanguinante per le ferite di spine e rovi, ma più dilaniata nello spirito, e si gettò sul suo letto, disperata.

La prima idea che le balenò in mente fu la fuga, la fuga immediata; trascinarlo via da quel luogo, e preferire morire di fame sul ciglio della strada, piuttosto che esporlo mai più a tali terribili tentazioni. Poi, ricordò che il crimine non doveva essere commesso prima della notte seguente, e c’era il tempo intermedio per riflettere e decidere cosa fare. Poi, fu distratta da una orribile paura che lui potesse starglielo commettendo in quel momento; dalla paura di sentire grida e lamenti che squarciano il silenzio della notte; con pensieri spaventosi di ciò che lui potesse essere tentato e spinto a fare, se fosse stato scoperto nell’atto, e avesse avuto solo una donna con cui lottare. Era impossibile sopportare una tale tortura. Si avvicinò in punta di piedi alla stanza dove c’erano i soldi, aprì la porta, e guardò dentro. Grazie a Dio! Non c’era, ed ella dormiva profondamente.

Tornò nella sua stanza e cercò di prepararsi per andare a letto. Ma chi poteva dormire—chi poteva dormire! chi poteva coricarsi passivamente, distratta da tali terrore? Le venivano addosso sempre più forti. Mezza spogliata, e con i capelli in disordine, corse al capezzale del vecchio, lo afferrò per il polso e lo svegliò dal suo sonno.

«Che cosa è questa!» esclamò, alzandosi a sedere sul letto e fissando gli occhi sul suo volto spettrale.

«Ho fatto un sogno terribile», disse il bambino, con un’energia che nulla, se non tali terrore, avrebbe potuto ispirare. «Un sogno terribile, orribile. L’ho già fatto una volta. È un sogno di uomini dai capelli grigi come te, in stanze buie di notte, che derubano i dormienti del loro oro. Su, su!»

Il vecchio tremava in ogni giunto e si stringeva le mani come uno che prega.

«Non a me», disse il bambino, «non a me, ma al Cielo, affinché ci salvi da tali azioni! Questo sogno è troppo reale. Non posso dormire, non posso rimanere qui, non posso lasciarti sola sotto il tetto dove vengono tali sogni. Alzati! Dobbiamo fuggire.»

La guardò come se fosse uno spirito - e poteva ben essere tale, a giudicare dall’aspetto terreno che aveva - e tremava sempre più.

«Non c’è tempo da perdere; non perderò un minuto», disse il bambino. «Su! e andiamocene!»

«Questa sera?» mormorò il vecchio.

«Sì, stasera», rispose il bambino. «Domani sera sarà troppo tardi. Il sogno tornerà. Solo la fuga può salvarci. Su!»

Il vecchio si alzò dal letto: la sua fronte era bagnata dal sudore freddo della paura: e, chinandosi davanti alla bambina come se fosse stata un angelo messaggero inviato a condurlo dove voleva, si preparò a seguirla. Lei lo prese per mano e lo condusse. Mentre passavano davanti alla porta della stanza che lui aveva proposto di derubare, lei rabbrividì e alzò lo sguardo verso il suo viso. Che faccia pallida era quella, e con quale sguardo la incontrò!

Lo condusse nella sua stanza e, continuando a tenerlo per mano come se avesse paura di perderlo anche per un istante, raccolse le poche cose che possedeva e si mise il cesto al braccio. Il vecchio prese la borsa dalle sue mani e se la legò sulle spalle - aveva anche portato via il suo bastone - e poi lo condusse fuori.

Attraverso le strade strette e i vicoli stretti e tortuosi, i loro piedi tremanti passarono rapidamente. Anche su per la ripida collina, coronata dall’antico grigio castello, si affannarono con passi veloci, e non si erano mai guardati indietro.

Ma mentre si avvicinavano alle mura in rovina, la luna sorse in tutta la sua dolce gloria, e, dalla loro venerabile età, incoronata da edera, muschio e erba ondeggiante, il bambino guardò indietro verso la città addormentata, immersa nell’ombra della valle: e sul fiume lontano con la sua traccia sinuosa di luce: e sulle colline distanti; e mentre lo faceva, strinse la mano che teneva meno saldamente, e scoppiando in lacrime, cadde sul collo del vecchio.

CHAPTER 43

Her momentary weakness past, the child again summoned the resolution which had until now sustained her, and, endeavouring to keep steadily in her view the one idea that they were flying from disgrace and crime, and that her grandfather’s preservation must depend solely on her firmness, unaided by one word of advice or any helping hand, urged him onward and looked back no more.

While he, subdued and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to shrink and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior creature, the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within her, which elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and confidence she had never known. There was no divided responsibility now; the whole burden of their two lives had fallen upon her, and henceforth she must think and act for both. ‘I have saved him,’ she thought. ‘In all dangers and distresses, I will remember that.’

At any other time, the recollection of having deserted the friend who had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of justification—the thought that they were guilty, in appearance, of treachery and ingratitude—even the having parted from the two sisters—would have filled her with sorrow and regret. But now, all other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and anxieties of their wild and wandering life; and the very desperation of their condition roused and stimulated her.

In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate face where thoughtful care already mingled with the winning grace and loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spiritual head, the lips that pressed each other with such high resolve and courage of the heart, the slight figure firm in its bearing and yet so very weak, told their silent tale; but told it only to the wind that rustled by, which, taking up its burden, carried, perhaps to some mother’s pillow, faint dreams of childhood fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that knows no waking.

The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Then, from behind a distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in phantom shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly forms till darkness came again. When it had climbed higher into the sky, and there was warmth in its cheerful beams, they laid them down to sleep, upon a bank, hard by some water.

But Nell retained her grasp upon the old man’s arm, and long after he was slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes. Fatigue stole over her at last; her grasp relaxed, tightened, relaxed again, and they slept side by side.

A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her. A man of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them, and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping. The boat had neither oar nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to which they were harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting on the path.

‘Holloa!’ said the man roughly. ‘What’s the matter here?’

‘We were only asleep, Sir,’ said Nell. ‘We have been walking all night.’

‘A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,’ observed the man who had first accosted them. ‘One of you is a trifle too old for that sort of work, and the other a trifle too young. Where are you going?’

Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which the man inquired if she meant a certain town which he named. Nell, to avoid more questioning, said ‘Yes, that was the place.’

‘Where have you come from?’ was the next question; and this being an easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in which their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to be known to the men or to provoke further inquiry.

‘I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,’ said the man. ‘That’s all. Good day.’

Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure, Nell looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat went on. It had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she saw the men beckoning to her.

‘Did you call to me?’ said Nell, running up to them.

‘You may go with us if you like,’ replied one of those in the boat. ‘We’re going to the same place.’

The child hesitated for a moment. Thinking, as she had thought with great trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she had seen with her grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness for the booty, follow them, and regaining their influence over him, set hers at nought; and that if they went with these men, all traces of them must surely be lost at that spot; determined to accept the offer. The boat came close to the bank again, and before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.

The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes shaded by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country, intersected by running streams, and rich with wooded hills, cultivated land, and sheltered farms. Now and then, a village with its modest spire, thatched roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out from among the trees; and, more than once, a distant town, with great church towers looming through its smoke, and high factories or workshops rising above the mass of houses, would come in view, and, by the length of time it lingered in the distance, show them how slowly they travelled. Their way lay, for the most part, through the low grounds, and open plains; and except these distant places, and occasionally some men working in the fields, or lounging on the bridges under which they passed, to see them creep along, nothing encroached on their monotonous and secluded track.

CAPITOLO 43

Passato il suo momento di debolezza, la bambina rievocò la risolutezza che fino ad allora l’aveva sostenuta, e, cercando di tenere saldamente presente l’unica idea che stavano fuggendo dal disonore e dal crimine, e che la salvezza di suo nonno dipendeva esclusivamente dalla sua fermezza, senza l’aiuto di una sola parola di consiglio o di una mano amica, lo spinse avanti e non guardò più indietro.

Mentre lui, sottomesso e confuso, sembrava accovacciarsi davanti a lei, e ritrarsi e rannicchiarsi, come se fosse in presenza di una creatura superiore, la bambina stessa era consapevole di un nuovo sentimento dentro di sé, che elevava la sua natura, e le ispirava un’energia e una fiducia che non aveva mai conosciuto. Non c’era più una responsabilità divisa; tutto il peso delle loro due vite era ricaduto su di lei, e da quel momento in poi doveva pensare e agire per entrambi. «L’ho salvato», pensò. «In tutti i pericoli e le angosce, me lo ricorderò.»

In ogni altro momento, il ricordo di aver abbandonato l’amica che aveva dimostrato loro tanta gentilezza, senza una parola di giustificazione, il pensiero di essere apparsi colpevoli di tradimento e ingratitudine, persino il fatto di essersi separati dalle due sorelle, l’avrebbero riempita di dolore e rimpianto. Ma ora, tutte le altre considerazioni erano perse nelle nuove incertezze e ansie della loro vita selvaggia e errante; e la disperazione stessa della loro condizione la risvegliava e la stimolava.

Nella pallida luce della luna, che conferiva una sua propria pallore al delicato volto dove la riflessiva preoccupazione si mescolava già con la grazia e la bellezza giovanile, l’occhio troppo luminoso, la testa spirituale, le labbra che si stringevano l’una contro l’altra con così alta risolutezza e coraggio del cuore, la figura esile ma ferma nel suo portamento eppure così debole, raccontavano la loro storia silenziosa; ma la raccontavano solo al vento che sibilava accanto, il quale, prendendo su di sé il suo carico, portava forse al cuscino di qualche madre, deboli sogni dell’infanzia che svanivano nel suo fiore, e riposavano nel sonno che non conosce risveglio.

La notte avanzò rapidamente, la luna tramontò, le stelle divennero pallide e fioche, e la mattina, fredda come loro, si avvicinò lentamente. Poi, da dietro una lontana collina, il nobile sole sorse, spingendo le nebbie in forme fantasma davanti a sé, e liberando la terra dalle loro forme spettrali finché non tornò l’oscurità. Quando esso si fu inerpicato più in alto nel cielo, e nei suoi raggi allegri c’era calore, essi si coricarono a dormire, su un declivio, vicino a qualche acqua.

Ma Nell continuò a stringere il braccio del vecchio e, anche molto tempo dopo che lui si era addormentato profondamente, lo guardò con occhi instancabili. Alla fine la stanchezza la vinse; la sua presa si allentò, si strinse, si allentò di nuovo, e dormirono fianco a fianco.

Un confuso suono di voci, che si mescolava ai suoi sogni, la svegliò. Un uomo dall’aspetto molto rozzi e grossolano stava in piedi sopra di loro, e due dei suoi compagni li osservavano da una lunga e pesante barca che si era avvicinata alla riva mentre dormivano. La barca non aveva né remi né vele, ma era trainata da una coppia di cavalli, che, con la corda a cui erano attaccati allentata e gocciolante nell’acqua, riposavano sul sentiero.

“Ehi!” disse l’uomo in modo brusco. “Che succede qui?”

«Non eravamo che addormentati, signore», disse Nell. «Abbiamo camminato tutta la notte.»

«Una coppia di strani viaggiatori che camminano tutta la notte», osservò l’uomo che li aveva prima fermati. «Uno di voi è un po’ troppo vecchio per questo tipo di lavoro, e l’altro un po’ troppo giovane. Dove state andando?»

Nell esitò e indicò a caso verso ovest, e l’uomo le chiese se intendesse una certa città che nominò. Per evitare altre domande, Nell disse: «Sì, è quel posto».

«Da dove venite?» fu la domanda successiva; e questa essendo più facile da rispondere, Nell menzionò il nome del villaggio in cui abitava il loro amico il maestro di scuola, poiché era meno probabile che gli uomini lo conoscessero o che suscitasse ulteriori domande.

«Pensavo che qualcuno vi avesse derubato e maltrattato, forse», disse l’uomo. «Questo è tutto. Buona giornata.»

Rispondendo al suo saluto e sentendosi molto sollevata dalla sua partenza, Nell lo guardò mentre montava uno dei cavalli, e la barca ripartì. Non era andata molto lontano, quando si fermò di nuovo, e lei vide gli uomini che le facevano cenno di avvicinarsi.

«Avete chiamato?» disse Nell, correndo verso di loro.

«Potete venire con noi, se volete», rispose uno di quelli sulla barca. «Stiamo andando nello stesso posto.»

La bambina esitò per un momento. Pensando, come aveva pensato con grande trepidazione più di una volta prima, che gli uomini che aveva visto con suo nonno potessero, forse, nella loro avidità di bottino, seguirli, riconquistare la loro influenza su di lui e ridurre a zero la sua; e che se fossero andati con quegli uomini, tutte le tracce di loro sarebbero certamente andate perdute in quel luogo; decise di accettare l’offerta. La barca si avvicinò nuovamente alla riva e, prima che avesse avuto altro tempo per riflettere, lei e suo nonno erano a bordo e scivolavano dolcemente lungo il canale.

Il sole splendeva piacevolmente sull’acqua luminosa, che a volte era ombreggiata dagli alberi e a volte si apriva su un vasto paesaggio, attraversato da corsi d’acqua e ricco di colline boschive, terreni coltivati e fattorie riparate. Ogni tanto, un villaggio con la sua modesta guglia, tetti di paglia e frontoni, sbucava tra gli alberi; e, più di una volta, una città lontana, con grandi torri di chiese che si intravedevano attraverso il fumo e alte fabbriche o officine che si ergevano sopra la massa di case, appariva alla vista, e, per la lunghezza del tempo che rimaneva in lontananza, mostrava loro quanto lentamente viaggiassero. Il loro percorso passava, per la maggior parte, attraverso le terre basse e le piane aperte; e a parte questi luoghi lontani, e occasionalmente alcuni uomini che lavoravano nei campi o se ne stavano appoggiati ai ponti sotto i quali passavano, per vedere strisciare lungo il loro cammino, nulla interrompeva la loro monotona e isolata traiettoria.

Nell was rather disheartened, when they stopped at a kind of wharf late in the afternoon, to learn from one of the men that they would not reach their place of destination until next day, and that, if she had no provision with her, she had better buy it there. She had but a few pence, having already bargained with them for some bread, but even of these it was necessary to be very careful, as they were on their way to an utterly strange place, with no resource whatever. A small loaf and a morsel of cheese, therefore, were all she could afford, and with these she took her place in the boat again, and, after half an hour’s delay during which the men were drinking at the public-house, proceeded on the journey.

They brought some beer and spirits into the boat with them, and what with drinking freely before, and again now, were soon in a fair way of being quarrelsome and intoxicated. Avoiding the small cabin, therefore, which was very dark and filthy, and to which they often invited both her and her grandfather, Nell sat in the open air with the old man by her side: listening to their boisterous hosts with a palpitating heart, and almost wishing herself safe on shore again though she should have to walk all night.

They were, in truth, very rugged, noisy fellows, and quite brutal among themselves, though civil enough to their two passengers. Thus, when a quarrel arose between the man who was steering and his friend in the cabin, upon the question who had first suggested the propriety of offering Nell some beer, and when the quarrel led to a scuffle in which they beat each other fearfully, to her inexpressible terror, neither visited his displeasure upon her, but each contented himself with venting it on his adversary, on whom, in addition to blows, he bestowed a variety of compliments, which, happily for the child, were conveyed in terms, to her quite unintelligible. The difference was finally adjusted, by the man who had come out of the cabin knocking the other into it head first, and taking the helm into his own hands, without evincing the least discomposure himself, or causing any in his friend, who, being of a tolerably strong constitution and perfectly inured to such trifles, went to sleep as he was, with his heels upwards, and in a couple of minutes or so was snoring comfortably.

By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold, being but poorly clad, her anxious thoughts were far removed from her own suffering or uneasiness, and busily engaged in endeavouring to devise some scheme for their joint subsistence. The same spirit which had supported her on the previous night, upheld and sustained her now. Her grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the crime to which his madness urged him, was not committed. That was her comfort.

How every circumstance of her short, eventful life, came thronging into her mind, as they travelled on! Slight incidents, never thought of or remembered until now; faces, seen once and ever since forgotten; words scarcely heeded at the time; scenes, of a year ago and those of yesterday, mixing up and linking themselves together; familiar places shaping themselves out in the darkness from things which, when approached, were, of all others, the most remote and most unlike them; sometimes, a strange confusion in her mind relative to the occasion of her being there, and the place to which she was going, and the people she was with; and imagination suggesting remarks and questions which sounded so plainly in her ears, that she would start, and turn, and be almost tempted to reply;—all the fancies and contradictions common in watching and excitement and restless change of place, beset the child.

She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of the man on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had now succeeded to the boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a short pipe, quilted over with string for its longer preservation, requested that she would oblige him with a song.

‘You’ve got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong memory,’ said this gentleman; ‘the voice and eye I’ve got evidence for, and the memory’s an opinion of my own. And I’m never wrong. Let me hear a song this minute.’

‘I don’t think I know one, sir,’ returned Nell.

‘You know forty-seven songs,’ said the man, with a gravity which admitted of no altercation on the subject. ‘Forty-seven’s your number. Let me hear one of ‘em—the best. Give me a song this minute.’

Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her friend, and trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him some little ditty which she had learned in happier times, and which was so agreeable to his ear, that on its conclusion he in the same peremptory manner requested to be favoured with another, to which he was so obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and with no words at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy for its deficiency in other respects. The noise of this vocal performance awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck and shaking his late opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his pride and joy and chief delight, and that he desired no better entertainment. With a third call, more imperative than either of the two former, Nell felt obliged to comply, and this time a chorus was maintained not only by the two men together, but also by the third man on horseback, who being by his position debarred from a nearer participation in the revels of the night, roared when his companions roared, and rent the very air. In this way, with little cessation, and singing the same songs again and again, the tired and exhausted child kept them in good humour all that night; and many a cottager, who was roused from his soundest sleep by the discordant chorus as it floated away upon the wind, hid his head beneath the bed-clothes and trembled at the sounds.

At length the morning dawned. It was no sooner light than it began to rain heavily. As the child could not endure the intolerable vapours of the cabin, they covered her, in return for her exertions, with some pieces of sail-cloth and ends of tarpaulin, which sufficed to keep her tolerably dry and to shelter her grandfather besides. As the day advanced the rain increased. At noon it poured down more hopelessly and heavily than ever without the faintest promise of abatement.

They had, for some time, been gradually approaching the place for which they were bound. The water had become thicker and dirtier; other barges, coming from it, passed them frequently; the paths of coal-ash and huts of staring brick, marked the vicinity of some great manufacturing town; while scattered streets and houses, and smoke from distant furnaces, indicated that they were already in the outskirts. Now, the clustered roofs, and piles of buildings, trembling with the working of engines, and dimly resounding with their shrieks and throbbings; the tall chimneys vomiting forth a black vapour, which hung in a dense ill-favoured cloud above the housetops and filled the air with gloom; the clank of hammers beating upon iron, the roar of busy streets and noisy crowds, gradually augmenting until all the various sounds blended into one and none was distinguishable for itself, announced the termination of their journey.

The boat floated into the wharf to which it belonged. The men were occupied directly. The child and her grandfather, after waiting in vain to thank them or ask them whither they should go, passed through a dirty lane into a crowded street, and stood, amid its din and tumult, and in the pouring rain, as strange, bewildered, and confused, as if they had lived a thousand years before, and were raised from the dead and placed there by a miracle.

Nell fu piuttosto scoraggiata, quando si fermarono a una specie di molo nel tardo pomeriggio, nell’apprendere da uno degli uomini che non avrebbero raggiunto il loro luogo di destinazione prima del giorno dopo, e che, se non aveva provviste con sé, sarebbe stato meglio comprarle lì. Aveva solo pochi spiccioli, avendo già contrattato con loro per un po’ di pane, ma anche di questi era necessario essere molto parsimoniosi, dato che erano in viaggio verso un luogo completamente sconosciuto, senza alcuna risorsa. Un piccolo pane e un boccone di formaggio, quindi, erano tutto ciò che poteva permettersi, e con questi riprese il suo posto sulla barca, e, dopo mezz’ora di ritardo durante la quale gli uomini stavano bevendo al bar, proseguì il viaggio.

Portarono con sé della birra e dell’alcol nella barca, e tra i libagioni fatte prima e quelle che stavano facendo ora, si trovarono presto sulla buona strada per diventare litigiosi e ubriachi. Evitando quindi la piccola cabina, che era molto buia e sporca, e nella quale spesso invitavano sia lei che suo nonno, Nell si sedette all’aria aperta con il vecchio al suo fianco: ascoltando con il cuore in gola i loro chiassosi ospiti, e quasi desiderando di essere al sicuro a riva di nuovo, anche se avrebbe dovuto camminare per tutta la notte.

Erano, in realtà, dei tipi molto rozzi e rumorosi, e tra loro piuttosto brutali, sebbene abbastanza gentili con i due passeggeri. Così, quando scoppiò una lite tra l’uomo che stava al timone e il suo amico nella cabina, sulla questione di chi avesse per primo suggerito la convenienza di offrire a Nell un po’ di birra, e quando la lite sfociò in una rissa in cui si picchiarono a vicenda in modo terribile, procurandole un terrore indicibile, nessuno dei due riversò il suo disappunto su di lei, ma ognuno si accontentò di sfogarlo sul suo avversario, al quale, oltre ai colpi, rivolse una varietà di complimenti che, per fortuna del bambino, erano formulati in termini per lei del tutto incomprensibili. La disputa fu infine risolta quando l’uomo che era uscito dalla cabina spinse l’altro dentro di testa, e prese il timone nelle proprie mani, senza mostrare il minimo turbamento né provocarne alcuno nel suo amico, che, essendo di costituzione abbastanza robusta e perfettamente abituato a tali sciocchezze, andò a dormire così com’era, con i piedi all’aria, e in un paio di minuti o giù di lì russava sonoramente.

A quest’ora era di nuovo notte, e sebbene il bambino avvertisse freddo, essendo vestito in modo misero, i suoi pensieri ansiosi erano lontani dalla propria sofferenza o inquietudine, e erano impegnati a escogitare qualche piano per il loro sostentamento comune. Lo stesso spirito che l’aveva sostenuta la notte precedente, la sostenne ora. Suo nonno giaceva al sicuro accanto a lei, e il crimine a cui la sua pazzia lo spingeva non era stato commesso. Questo era il suo conforto.

Come ogni circostanza della sua breve, avventurosa vita, affollava la sua mente, mentre viaggiavano! Incidenti banali, mai pensati o ricordati fino ad ora; volti, visti una volta e da allora dimenticati; parole appena notate al momento; scene di un anno fa e di ieri, che si mescolavano e si collegavano tra loro; luoghi familiari che si delineavano nell’oscurità da cose che, quando si avvicinavano, erano, tra tutte, le più lontane e le più diverse da loro; a volte, una strana confusione nella sua mente relativa al motivo per cui si trovava lì, al luogo verso cui stava andando e alle persone con cui era; e l’immaginazione suggeriva osservazioni e domande che risuonavano così chiaramente nelle sue orecchie, che si sarebbe svegliata, si sarebbe voltata e sarebbe stata quasi tentata di rispondere;—tutte le fantasie e le contraddizioni comuni nel vegliare, nell’agitazione e nel riposo inquieto, assalivano la bambina.

Le capitò, mentre era così impegnata, di incontrare il volto dell’uomo sul ponte, in cui lo stadio sentimentale dell’ubriachezza aveva ora preso il posto di quello turbolento, e che, togliendosi dalla bocca una corta pipa, avvolta con dello spago per preservarla più a lungo, le chiese di volerlo favorire con una canzone.

«Avete una voce molto bella, un occhio molto dolce e una memoria molto forte», disse questo signore; «per la voce e l’occhio ho le prove, e la memoria è un’opinione personale. E non mi sbaglio mai. Cantatemi una canzone subito.»

«Non credo di conoscerne uno, signore», rispose Nell.

«Conosci quarantasette canzoni», disse l’uomo, con una gravità che non ammetteva alcuna discussione sull’argomento. «Quarantasette è il tuo numero. Fammi sentire una di queste, la migliore. Dammi una canzone in questo momento.»

Non sapendo quali potessero essere le conseguenze di irritare la sua amica, e tremando per la paura di farlo, la povera Nell gli cantò una piccola canzoncina che aveva imparato in tempi più felici, e che era così gradevole al suo orecchio, che al termine la richiese con lo stesso tono perentorio, chiedendo di essere favorito con un’altra canzone, alla quale fu così gentile da ruggire un ritornello senza una melodia particolare, e senza parole alcuna, ma che compensava ampiamente la sua mancanza di altri aspetti con la sua incredibile energia. Il rumore di questa esibizione vocale svegliò l’altro uomo, che, barcollando sul ponte e stringendo la mano al suo recente avversario, giurò che cantare era il suo orgoglio e gioia e principale diletto, e che non desiderava intrattenimento migliore. Con una terza richiesta, più imperativa delle due precedenti, Nell si sentì obbligata a cedere, e questa volta un ritornello fu mantenuto non solo dai due uomini insieme, ma anche dal terzo uomo a cavallo, che essendo impedito dalla sua posizione a partecipare più da vicino ai festeggiamenti della notte, ruggiva quando ruggivano i suoi compagni, e squarciava l’aria. In questo modo, con poca interruzione, e cantando le stesse canzoni ancora e ancora, il bambino stanco ed esausto li mantenne in buon umore per tutta quella notte; e molti contadini, che furono risvegliati dal loro più profondo sonno dal discordante ritornello mentre si disperdeva sul vento, si nascosero la testa sotto le coperte e tremavano ai suoni.

Finalmente spuntò il mattino. Non appena fu giorno, cominciò a piovere a dirotto. Poiché la bambina non poteva sopportare i vapori insopportabili della cabina, la coprirono, in cambio dei suoi sforzi, con alcuni pezzi di tela cerata e stracci di telone, che bastavano a tenerla abbastanza asciutta e a riparare anche suo nonno. Man mano che la giornata avanzava, la pioggia aumentava. A mezzogiorno diluviava più disperatamente e pesantemente che mai, senza la minima promessa di diminuire.

Per qualche tempo erano stati gradualmente avvicinandosi al luogo verso cui erano diretti. L’acqua era diventata più densa e sporca; altre chiatte, provenienti da essa, li superavano frequentemente; i sentieri di cenere di carbone e le capanne di mattoni spogli segnavano la vicinanza di qualche grande città industriale; mentre strade e case sparse, e il fumo di fornaci lontane, indicavano che erano già nella periferia. Ora, i tetti ammassati e le pile di edifici, tremanti per il lavoro delle macchine, e risuonanti in modo confuso dei loro strilli e pulsazioni; i camini alti che vomitavano un vapore nero, che si addensava in una nuvola densa e sgradevole sopra i tetti delle case e riempiva l’aria di oscurità; il clangore dei martelli che battevano sul ferro, il ruggito delle strade affollate e delle folle rumorose, aumentavano gradualmente fino a quando tutti i vari suoni si fondevano in uno e nessuno era distinguibile per sé, annunciavano la fine del loro viaggio.

La barca galleggiò fino al molo a cui apparteneva. Gli uomini si misero subito al lavoro. La bambina e suo nonno, dopo aver atteso invano di ringraziarli o di chiedere loro dove dovessero andare, passarono per un vicolo sporco fino a una strada affollata, e lì rimasero, tra il frastuono e il tumulto, sotto la pioggia battente, così smarriti, disorientati e confusi, come se fossero vissuti mille anni prima e fossero stati risuscitati dai morti e collocati lì per un miracolo.

CHAPTER 44

The throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no symptom of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs; and undisturbed in their business speculations, by the roar of carts and waggons laden with clashing wares, the slipping of horses’ feet upon the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the rain on windows and umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more impatient passengers, and all the noise and tumult of a crowded street in the high tide of its occupation: while the two poor strangers, stunned and bewildered by the hurry they beheld but had no part in, looked mournfully on; feeling, amidst the crowd, a solitude which has no parallel but in the thirst of the shipwrecked mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the billows of a mighty ocean, his red eyes blinded by looking on the water which hems him in on every side, has not one drop to cool his burning tongue.

They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a ray of encouragement or hope. Some frowned, some smiled, some muttered to themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating the conversation in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the cunning look of bargaining and plotting, some were anxious and eager, some slow and dull; in some countenances, were written gain; in others, loss. It was like being in the confidence of all these people to stand quietly there, looking into their faces as they flitted past. In busy places, where each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that every other man has his, his character and purpose are written broadly in his face. In the public walks and lounges of a town, people go to see and to be seen, and there the same expression, with little variety, is repeated a hundred times. The working-day faces come nearer to the truth, and let it out more plainly.

Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude awakens, the child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a wondering interest, amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness of her own condition. But cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and lack of any place in which to lay her aching head, soon brought her thoughts back to the point whence they had strayed. No one passed who seemed to notice them, or to whom she durst appeal. After some time, they left their place of refuge from the weather, and mingled with the concourse.

Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with fewer people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own breasts, and the same indifference from all around. The lights in the streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, for with their help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster. Shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her utmost firmness and resolution even to creep along.

Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were peaceful country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered and thirsted, with less suffering than in its squalid strife! They were but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very sight of which increased their hopelessness and suffering.

The child had not only to endure the accumulated hardships of their destitute condition, but to bear the reproaches of her grandfather, who began to murmur at having been led away from their late abode, and demand that they should return to it. Being now penniless, and no relief or prospect of relief appearing, they retraced their steps through the deserted streets, and went back to the wharf, hoping to find the boat in which they had come, and to be allowed to sleep on board that night. But here again they were disappointed, for the gate was closed, and some fierce dogs, barking at their approach, obliged them to retreat.

‘We must sleep in the open air to-night, dear,’ said the child in a weak voice, as they turned away from this last repulse; ‘and to-morrow we will beg our way to some quiet part of the country, and try to earn our bread in very humble work.’

‘Why did you bring me here?’ returned the old man fiercely. ‘I cannot bear these close eternal streets. We came from a quiet part. Why did you force me to leave it?’

‘Because I must have that dream I told you of, no more,’ said the child, with a momentary firmness that lost itself in tears; ‘and we must live among poor people, or it will come again. Dear grandfather, you are old and weak, I know; but look at me. I never will complain if you will not, but I have some suffering indeed.’

‘Ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!’ cried the old man, clasping his hands and gazing as if for the first time upon her anxious face, her travel-stained dress, and bruised and swollen feet; ‘has all my agony of care brought her to this at last! Was I a happy man once, and have I lost happiness and all I had, for this!’

‘If we were in the country now,’ said the child, with assumed cheerfulness, as they walked on looking about them for a shelter, we should find some good old tree, stretching out his green arms as if he loved us, and nodding and rustling as if he would have us fall asleep, thinking of him while he watched. Please God, we shall be there soon—to-morrow or next day at the farthest—and in the meantime let us think, dear, that it was a good thing we came here; for we are lost in the crowd and hurry of this place, and if any cruel people should pursue us, they could surely never trace us further. There’s comfort in that. And here’s a deep old doorway—very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind don’t blow in here—What’s that!’

CAPITOLO 44

La folla di persone si affrettava, in due flussi opposti, senza alcun segno di cessazione o esaurimento; intenta ai propri affari; e indisturbata nelle proprie speculazioni commerciali, dal rimbombo dei carri e dei carriaggi carichi di merci che tintinnavano, dallo scivolare degli zoccoli dei cavalli sul marciapiede bagnato e unto, dal crepitio della pioggia sulle finestre e sui parapetti degli ombrelli, dalla spinta dei passeggeri più impazienti, e da tutto il rumore e il tumulto di una strada affollata nel pieno della sua attività: mentre i due poveri stranieri, storditi e confusi dalla fretta che vedevano ma in cui non partecipavano, guardavano tristemente; sentendo, in mezzo alla folla, una solitudine che non ha paragone se non nella sete del naufrago, che, gettato avanti e indietro sulle onde di un oceano immenso, con gli occhi rossi accecati dal guardare l’acqua che lo circonda da ogni lato, non ha una goccia per rinfrescare la sua lingua ardente.

Si ritirarono in un basso androne per ripararsi dalla pioggia, e osservarono i volti di coloro che passavano, cercando in uno di essi un barlume di incoraggiamento o di speranza. Alcuni aggrottavano la fronte, alcuni sorridevano, alcuni borbottavano tra sé, alcuni facevano piccoli gesti, come se anticipassero la conversazione in cui sarebbero stati presto coinvolti, alcuni avevano l’aria astuta di chi contratta e ordisce piani, alcuni erano ansiosi e impazienti, alcuni lenti e ottusi; in alcuni volti era scritto il guadagno; in altri, la perdita. Era come essere al corrente di tutti questi pensieri, stare lì tranquillamente, osservando i loro volti mentre passavano. Nei luoghi affollati, dove ogni uomo ha un proprio obiettivo e si sente sicuro che ogni altro uomo ne ha uno, il suo carattere e il suo scopo sono scritti chiaramente sul suo volto. Nei luoghi pubblici e nei salotti di una città, la gente va a vedere e a farsi vedere, e lì la stessa espressione, con poca varietà, si ripete cento volte. I volti dei giorni lavorativi sono più vicini alla verità, e la rivelano più apertamente.

Cadendo in quel tipo di astrazione che una solitudine del genere risveglia, la bambina continuò a fissare la folla che passava con un interesse curioso, che sfiorava quasi un temporaneo dimenticamento della sua stessa condizione. Ma il freddo, l’umidità, la fame, la mancanza di riposo e la mancanza di un luogo in cui posare la sua testa dolorante, presto riportarono i suoi pensieri al punto da cui si erano allontanati. Nessuno passava che sembrasse notarli, o a cui lei osasse rivolgersi. Dopo un po’ di tempo, lasciarono il loro rifugio dal maltempo e si mischiarono alla folla.

La sera calò. Erano ancora in giro, con meno persone intorno, ma con lo stesso senso di solitudine nel proprio petto e la stessa indifferenza da parte di tutti. Le luci nelle strade e nei negozi li facevano sentire ancora più desolati, perché con il loro aiuto, la notte e l’oscurità sembravano calare più rapidamente. Rabbrividendo per il freddo e l’umidità, malato nel corpo e malato fino alla morte nel cuore, la bambina aveva bisogno della sua massima fermezza e risolutezza anche solo per strisciare avanti.

Perché mai erano venuti in questa rumorosa città, quando c’erano luoghi tranquilli in campagna, dove almeno avrebbero potuto patire fame e sete con meno sofferenza che nella sua misera lotta! Erano solo un atomo, qui, in un cumulo di miseria che solo a vederlo aumentava la loro disperazione e la loro sofferenza.

Il bambino non solo doveva sopportare le difficoltà accumulate della loro condizione di estrema povertà, ma anche sopportare le recriminazioni di suo nonno, che cominciava a lamentarsi di essere stato allontanato dal loro recente alloggio, e chiedeva che vi facessero ritorno. Ora senza un soldo, e senza alcun aiuto o prospettiva di aiuto, ripercorsero i loro passi attraverso le strade deserte, e tornarono al molo, sperando di trovare la barca in cui erano venuti, e di poter dormire a bordo quella notte. Ma anche qui furono delusi, perché il cancello era chiuso, e alcuni feroci cani, abbaiando al loro avvicinarsi, li obbligarono a ritirarsi.

«Dobbiamo dormire all’aperto stasera, caro», disse il bambino con voce debole, mentre si allontanavano da quell’ultima sconfitta; «e domani chiederemo l’elemosina fino a raggiungere qualche tranquillo angolo di campagna, e cercheremo di guadagnarci il pane con un lavoro molto umile.»

«Perché mi hai portato qui?» rispose il vecchio con furore. «Non posso sopportare queste strade eternamente strette. Venivamo da un quartiere tranquillo. Perché mi hai costretto a lasciarlo?»

«Perché devo avere quel sogno di cui ti ho parlato, e nient’altro», disse il bambino, con una fermezza momentanea che si perse in lacrime; «e dobbiamo vivere tra la gente povera, altrimenti tornerà. Caro nonno, so che sei vecchio e debole; ma guardami. Non mi lamenterò mai, se non lo farai tu, ma ho davvero qualche sofferenza.»

«Ah! povero, senza casa, errante, senza madre bambino!» esclamò il vecchio, stringendosi le mani e fissando come se per la prima volta il suo viso ansioso, il suo abito sporco di viaggio e i piedi lividi e gonfi; «tutto il mio agonia di cura l’ha portata a questo alla fine! Ero un uomo felice una volta, e ho perso la felicità e tutto ciò che avevo, per questo!»

‘Se fossimo ora in campagna’, disse il bambino, con un tono di voce forzatamente allegro, mentre camminavano guardandosi intorno in cerca di un riparo, ‘troveremmo qualche vecchio albero buono, che stenderebbe i suoi rami verdi come se ci amasse, e che farebbe cenni e fruscii come se volesse farci addormentare, pensando a lui mentre veglia. Dio voglia che siamo lì presto, domani o al più tardi dopodomani, e nel frattempo pensiamo, tesoro, che è stata una buona cosa venire qui; perché siamo persi nella folla e nella fretta di questo posto, e se ci dovessero inseguire delle persone crudeli, non potrebbero certo rintracciarci. C’è consolazione in questo. E qui c’è un vecchio portone profondo, molto buio, ma completamente asciutto, e caldo anche, perché il vento non soffia qui dentro. Che cos’è quello!’

Uttering a half shriek, she recoiled from a black figure which came suddenly out of the dark recess in which they were about to take refuge, and stood still, looking at them.

‘Speak again,’ it said; ‘do I know the voice?’

‘No,’ replied the child timidly; ‘we are strangers, and having no money for a night’s lodging, were going to rest here.’

There was a feeble lamp at no great distance; the only one in the place, which was a kind of square yard, but sufficient to show how poor and mean it was. To this, the figure beckoned them; at the same time drawing within its rays, as if to show that it had no desire to conceal itself or take them at an advantage. The form was that of a man, miserably clad and begrimed with smoke, which, perhaps by its contrast with the natural colour of his skin, made him look paler than he really was. That he was naturally of a very wan and pallid aspect, however, his hollow cheeks, sharp features, and sunken eyes, no less than a certain look of patient endurance, sufficiently testified. His voice was harsh by nature, but not brutal; and though his face, besides possessing the characteristics already mentioned, was overshadowed by a quantity of long dark hair, its expression was neither ferocious nor bad.

‘How came you to think of resting there?’ he said. ‘Or how,’ he added, looking more attentively at the child, ‘do you come to want a place of rest at this time of night?’

‘Our misfortunes,’ the grandfather answered, ‘are the cause.’

‘Do you know,’ said the man, looking still more earnestly at Nell, ‘how wet she is, and that the damp streets are not a place for her?’

‘I know it well, God help me,’ he replied. ‘What can I do!’

The man looked at Nell again, and gently touched her garments, from which the rain was running off in little streams. ‘I can give you warmth,’ he said, after a pause; ‘nothing else. Such lodging as I have, is in that house,’ pointing to the doorway from which he had emerged, ‘but she is safer and better there than here. The fire is in a rough place, but you can pass the night beside it safely, if you’ll trust yourselves to me. You see that red light yonder?’

They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the dark sky; the dull reflection of some distant fire.

‘It’s not far,’ said the man. ‘Shall I take you there? You were going to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes—nothing better.’

Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their looks, he took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.

Carrying her as tenderly, and as easily too, as if she had been an infant, and showing himself both swift and sure of foot, he led the way through what appeared to be the poorest and most wretched quarter of the town; and turning aside to avoid the overflowing kennels or running waterspouts, but holding his course, regardless of such obstructions, and making his way straight through them. They had proceeded thus, in silence, for some quarter of an hour, and had lost sight of the glare to which he had pointed, in the dark and narrow ways by which they had come, when it suddenly burst upon them again, streaming up from the high chimney of a building close before them.

‘This is the place,’ he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down and take her hand. ‘Don’t be afraid. There’s nobody here will harm you.’

It needed a strong confidence in this assurance to induce them to enter, and what they saw inside did not diminish their apprehension and alarm. In a large and lofty building, supported by pillars of iron, with great black apertures in the upper walls, open to the external air; echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers and roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal plunged in water, and a hundred strange unearthly noises never heard elsewhere; in this gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame and smoke, dimly and fitfully seen, flushed and tormented by the burning fires, and wielding great weapons, a faulty blow from any one of which must have crushed some workman’s skull, a number of men laboured like giants. Others, reposing upon heaps of coals or ashes, with their faces turned to the black vault above, slept or rested from their toil. Others again, opening the white-hot furnace-doors, cast fuel on the flames, which came rushing and roaring forth to meet it, and licked it up like oil. Others drew forth, with clashing noise, upon the ground, great sheets of glowing steel, emitting an insupportable heat, and a dull deep light like that which reddens in the eyes of savage beasts.

Through these bewildering sights and deafening sounds, their conductor led them to where, in a dark portion of the building, one furnace burnt by night and day—so, at least, they gathered from the motion of his lips, for as yet they could only see him speak: not hear him. The man who had been watching this fire, and whose task was ended for the present, gladly withdrew, and left them with their friend, who, spreading Nell’s little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and showing her where she could hang her outer-clothes to dry, signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep. For himself, he took his station on a rugged mat before the furnace-door, and resting his chin upon his hands, watched the flame as it shone through the iron chinks, and the white ashes as they fell into their bright hot grave below.

The warmth of her bed, hard and humble as it was, combined with the great fatigue she had undergone, soon caused the tumult of the place to fall with a gentler sound upon the child’s tired ears, and was not long in lulling her to sleep. The old man was stretched beside her, and with her hand upon his neck she lay and dreamed.

It was yet night when she awoke, nor did she know how long, or for how short a time, she had slept. But she found herself protected, both from any cold air that might find its way into the building, and from the scorching heat, by some of the workmen’s clothes; and glancing at their friend saw that he sat in exactly the same attitude, looking with a fixed earnestness of attention towards the fire, and keeping so very still that he did not even seem to breathe. She lay in the state between sleeping and waking, looking so long at his motionless figure that at length she almost feared he had died as he sat there; and softly rising and drawing close to him, ventured to whisper in his ear.

Emettendo un mezzo urlo, indietreggiò da una figura nera che era apparsa improvvisamente dal buio anfratto in cui stavano per rifugiarsi, e rimase ferma, guardandoli.

“Parla ancora”, disse; “conosco quella voce?”

‘No,’ rispose il bambino timidamente; ‘siamo forestieri, e non avendo soldi per un alloggio per la notte, stavamo per riposarci qui.’

C’era una debole lampada a poca distanza; l’unica del posto, che era una specie di cortile quadrato, ma sufficiente a mostrare quanto fosse povero e squallido. A questa, la figura li invitò con un cenno; nello stesso tempo attirandoli entro i suoi raggi, come per mostrare che non aveva alcun desiderio di nascondersi o di coglierli di sorpresa. La forma era quella di un uomo, miseramente vestito e imbrattato di fumo, che, forse per contrasto con il colore naturale della sua pelle, lo faceva apparire più pallido di quanto non fosse in realtà. Che fosse naturalmente di un aspetto molto smunto e pallido, tuttavia, le sue guance scavate, i tratti affilati e gli occhi infossati, non meno di un certo sguardo di rassegnazione paziente, lo testimoniavano sufficientemente. La sua voce era dura per natura, ma non brutale; e sebbene il suo volto, oltre a possedere le caratteristiche già menzionate, fosse ombreggiato da una quantità di lunghi capelli scuri, la sua espressione non era né feroce né cattiva.

«Come vi è venuto in mente di riposare lì?» disse. «O come», aggiunse, guardando più attentamente il bambino, «vi è venuto il desiderio di un luogo di riposo a quest’ora di notte?»

‘Le nostre disgrazie’, rispose il nonno, ‘sono la causa’.

«Sapete», disse l’uomo, guardando Nell ancora più seriamente, «quanto sia bagnata, e che le strade umide non sono un luogo adatto per lei?»

«Lo so bene, Dio mi aiuti», rispose. «Che cosa posso fare!»

L’uomo guardò di nuovo Nell e le toccò delicatamente i vestiti, dai quali l’acqua piovana scorreva in piccoli rivoli. «Posso offrirvi un po’ di calore», disse dopo una pausa, «nient’altro. L’alloggio che ho è in quella casa», indicando la porta da cui era uscito, «ma lei è più al sicuro e più comoda lì che qui. Il fuoco è in un posto un po’ rustico, ma potete passarvi la notte accanto in tutta sicurezza, se vi fidate di me. Vedete quella luce rossa laggiù?»

Alzarono gli occhi e videro una luce livida che aleggiava nel cielo scuro; la debole riflessione di un qualche lontano fuoco.

«Non è lontano», disse l’uomo. «Posso accompagnarla? Stava per dormire su mattoni freddi; posso offrirle un letto di ceneri calde, niente di meglio».

Senza aspettare altra risposta che quella che lesse nei loro sguardi, prese Nell tra le braccia e intimò al vecchio di seguirlo.

La portava con altrettanta tenerezza e facilità, come se fosse stata un bambino, dimostrandosi allo stesso tempo veloce e sicuro di passo, e apriva la strada attraverso quella che sembrava essere la zona più povera e miserabile della città; e deviando per evitare i canali di scolo traboccanti o i getti d’acqua che scorrevano, ma mantenendo la sua rotta, indifferente a tali ostacoli, e facendo strada attraverso di essi. Avevano proceduto così, in silenzio, per circa un quarto d’ora, e avevano perso di vista il bagliore a cui aveva indicato, nelle vie buie e strette per cui erano passati, quando all’improvviso esso si riaccese di nuovo, riversandosi dal alto camino di un edificio proprio davanti a loro.

«Questo è il posto», disse, fermandosi davanti a una porta per deporre Nell e prenderle la mano. «Non aver paura. Qui non c’è nessuno che possa farti del male.»

Ci voleva una grande fiducia in questa rassicurazione per spingerli a entrare, e ciò che videro all’interno non diminuì la loro apprensione e il loro allarme. In un edificio grande e imponente, sostenuto da pilastri di ferro, con grandi aperture nere nelle pareti superiori, aperte all’aria esterna; che riecheggiava fino alla volta con il battito dei martelli e il ruggito delle fornaci, mescolati al sibilo del metallo rovente immerso nell’acqua, e a centinaia di strani rumori ultraterreni mai uditi altrove; in questo luogo cupo, uomini che si muovevano come demoni tra fiamme e fumo, visibili in modo vago e intermittente, arrossati e tormentati dai fuochi ardenti, e brandendo grandi armi, di cui un colpo mancato avrebbe schiacciato il cranio di qualche operaio, lavoravano come giganti. Altri, riposando su cumuli di carbone o cenere, con il viso rivolto verso la volta nera sopra di loro, dormivano o riposavano dalla loro fatica. Altri ancora, aprendo le porte bianche di fornaci roventi, gettavano combustibile sulle fiamme, che uscivano a fiotti e ruggendo per incontrarlo, e lo leccavano come olio. Altri estraevano, con un rumore di cozzare, a terra, grandi lastre di acciaio incandescente, emanando un calore insopportabile e una luce profonda e opaca come quella che arrossa negli occhi delle bestie selvagge.

Attraverso queste visioni sconcertanti e questi suoni assordanti, il loro guida li condusse in un luogo dove, in una parte buia dell’edificio, un forno ardeva notte e giorno — così, almeno, dedussero dal movimento delle sue labbra, perché per il momento potevano solo vederlo parlare, non sentirlo. L’uomo che aveva sorvegliato quel fuoco e il cui compito era finito per il momento, si ritirò volentieri, lasciandoli con il loro amico, che, stendendo il piccolo mantello di Nell su un mucchio di ceneri e mostrandole dove poteva appendere i suoi abiti esterni per asciugarli, fece loro cenno di sdraiarsi e dormire. Per quanto riguardava lui, prese posto su una rozza stuoia davanti alla porta del forno, appoggiando il mento sulle mani, osservando la fiamma che brillava attraverso le fessure di ferro e le ceneri bianche che cadevano nella loro luminosa e calda tomba sottostante.

Il calore del suo letto, duro e umile com’era, unito alla grande fatica che aveva sopportato, fece sì che il tumulto del luogo cadesse ben presto con un suono più dolce sulle orecchie stanche del bambino, e non passò molto tempo prima che la cullasse nel sonno. Il vecchio era disteso accanto a lei, e con la mano sul suo collo, giaceva e sognava.

Era ancora notte quando si svegliò, né sapeva per quanto tempo, o per quanto breve tempo, avesse dormito. Ma si trovò protetta, sia da qualsiasi aria fredda che potesse trovare la via per entrare nell’edificio, che dal calore cocente, da alcuni dei vestiti dei lavoratori; e gettando uno sguardo al loro amico vide che sedeva esattamente nella stessa posizione, guardando con una fissa intensità di attenzione verso il fuoco, e rimanendo così immobile che non sembrava nemmeno respirare. Giaceva in quello stato tra il sonno e la veglia, guardando così a lungo la sua figura immobile che alla fine temette quasi che fosse morto mentre sedeva lì; e alzandosi dolcemente e avvicinandosi a lui, osò sussurrargli all’orecchio.

He moved, and glancing from her to the place she had lately occupied, as if to assure himself that it was really the child so near him, looked inquiringly into her face.

‘I feared you were ill,’ she said. ‘The other men are all in motion, and you are so very quiet.’

‘They leave me to myself,’ he replied. ‘They know my humour. They laugh at me, but don’t harm me in it. See yonder there—that’s my friend.’

‘The fire?’ said the child.

‘It has been alive as long as I have,’ the man made answer. ‘We talk and think together all night long.’

The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise, but he had turned his eyes in their former direction, and was musing as before.

‘It’s like a book to me,’ he said—‘the only book I ever learned to read; and many an old story it tells me. It’s music, for I should know its voice among a thousand, and there are other voices in its roar. It has its pictures too. You don’t know how many strange faces and different scenes I trace in the red-hot coals. It’s my memory, that fire, and shows me all my life.’

The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse.

‘Yes,’ he said, with a faint smile, ‘it was the same when I was quite a baby, and crawled about it, till I fell asleep. My father watched it then.’

‘Had you no mother?’ asked the child.

‘No, she was dead. Women work hard in these parts. She worked herself to death they told me, and, as they said so then, the fire has gone on saying the same thing ever since. I suppose it was true. I have always believed it.’

‘Were you brought up here, then?’ said the child.

‘Summer and winter,’ he replied. ‘Secretly at first, but when they found it out, they let him keep me here. So the fire nursed me—the same fire. It has never gone out.’

‘You are fond of it?’ said the child.

‘Of course I am. He died before it. I saw him fall down—just there, where those ashes are burning now—and wondered, I remember, why it didn’t help him.’

‘Have you been here ever since?’ asked the child.

‘Ever since I came to watch it; but there was a while between, and a very cold dreary while it was. It burned all the time though, and roared and leaped when I came back, as it used to do in our play days. You may guess, from looking at me, what kind of child I was, but for all the difference between us I was a child, and when I saw you in the street to-night, you put me in mind of myself, as I was after he died, and made me wish to bring you to the fire. I thought of those old times again, when I saw you sleeping by it. You should be sleeping now. Lie down again, poor child, lie down again!’

With that, he led her to her rude couch, and covering her with the clothes with which she had found herself enveloped when she woke, returned to his seat, whence he moved no more unless to feed the furnace, but remained motionless as a statue. The child continued to watch him for a little time, but soon yielded to the drowsiness that came upon her, and, in the dark strange place and on the heap of ashes, slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace chamber, and the bed, a bed of down.

When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty openings in the walls, and, stealing in slanting rays but midway down, seemed to make the building darker than it had been at night. The clang and tumult were still going on, and the remorseless fires were burning fiercely as before; for few changes of night and day brought rest or quiet there.

Her friend parted his breakfast—a scanty mess of coffee and some coarse bread—with the child and her grandfather, and inquired whither they were going. She told him that they sought some distant country place remote from towns or even other villages, and with a faltering tongue inquired what road they would do best to take.

‘I know little of the country,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘for such as I, pass all our lives before our furnace doors, and seldom go forth to breathe. But there are such places yonder.’

‘And far from here?’ said Nell.

‘Aye surely. How could they be near us, and be green and fresh? The road lies, too, through miles and miles, all lighted up by fires like ours—a strange black road, and one that would frighten you by night.’

‘We are here and must go on,’ said the child boldly; for she saw that the old man listened with anxious ears to this account.

‘Rough people—paths never made for little feet like yours—a dismal blighted way—is there no turning back, my child?’

‘There is none,’ cried Nell, pressing forward. ‘If you can direct us, do. If not, pray do not seek to turn us from our purpose. Indeed you do not know the danger that we shun, and how right and true we are in flying from it, or you would not try to stop us, I am sure you would not.’

‘God forbid, if it is so!’ said their uncouth protector, glancing from the eager child to her grandfather, who hung his head and bent his eyes upon the ground. ‘I’ll direct you from the door, the best I can. I wish I could do more.’

He showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town, and what course they should hold when they had gained it. He lingered so long on these instructions, that the child, with a fervent blessing, tore herself away, and stayed to hear no more.

But, before they had reached the corner of the lane, the man came running after them, and, pressing her hand, left something in it—two old, battered, smoke-encrusted penny pieces. Who knows but they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels, as golden gifts that have been chronicled on tombs?

And thus they separated; the child to lead her sacred charge farther from guilt and shame; the labourer to attach a fresh interest to the spot where his guests had slept, and read new histories in his furnace fire.

Si mosse, e guardando da lei al posto che aveva appena occupato, come per assicurarsi che fosse davvero la bambina così vicina a lui, la scrutò con aria interrogativa.

«Temevo che fosse malato», disse. «Gli altri uomini sono tutti in movimento, e lei è così straordinariamente tranquillo.»

«Mi lasciano stare», rispose. «Conoscono il mio umore. Si ridono di me, ma non mi fanno del male. Guarda laggiù, quello è il mio amico.»

«Il fuoco?» disse il bambino.

«È stato vivo fin da quando io lo sono», rispose l’uomo. «Parliamo e pensiamo insieme tutta la notte lunga.»

La bambina lo guardò rapidamente, sorpresa, ma lui aveva già riportato lo sguardo nella direzione precedente e stava meditando come prima.

«È come un libro per me», disse, «l’unico libro che ho mai imparato a leggere; e mi racconta molte vecchie storie. È musica, perché riconoscerei la sua voce tra mille, e nel suo ruggito ci sono altre voci. Ha anche le sue immagini. Non sapete quanti volti strani e scene diverse traccio nelle braci ardenti. È la mia memoria, quel fuoco, e mi mostra tutta la mia vita.»

Il bambino, chinandosi per ascoltare le sue parole, non poté fare a meno di notare con che occhi illuminati continuasse a parlare e a meditare.

«Sì», disse con un sorriso lieve, «era la stessa cosa quando ero un bambino piccolo e strisciavo intorno a esso, fino a quando non mi addormentavo. Allora mio padre lo sorvegliava.»

«Non avevate una madre?» chiese il bambino.

«No, era morta. Le donne lavorano sodo in queste zone. Si è lavorata fino alla morte, mi dissero, e, mentre lo dicevano, il fuoco ha continuato a ripetere la stessa cosa da allora. Immagino fosse vero. L’ho sempre creduto.»

«Siete stato allevato qui, allora?» disse il bambino.

«Estate e inverno», rispose. «All’inizio di nascosto, ma quando lo scoprirono, gli permisero di tenermi qui. Così il fuoco mi ha accudito, lo stesso fuoco. Non si è mai spento.»

«Ne siete affezionato?» disse il bambino.

«Certo che lo sono. È morto prima. L’ho visto cadere giù, proprio lì, dove ora bruciano quelle ceneri, e mi ricordo di avermi chiesto perché non lo aiutasse.»

«Siete stato qui da allora?» chiese il bambino.

«Da quando sono venuto a guardarla; ma c’è stato un intervallo, e un intervallo molto freddo e triste. Tuttavia, ha continuato a bruciare, e quando sono tornato ha ruggito e saltato come faceva ai tempi dei nostri giochi. Potete immaginare, guardandomi, che tipo di bambino fossi, ma nonostante la differenza tra noi, ero un bambino, e quando vi ho visto in strada ieri sera, mi avete fatto pensare a me stesso, come ero dopo che lui morì, e mi ha fatto desiderare di portarvi al fuoco. Ho ripensato a quei vecchi tempi quando vi ho visto dormire accanto ad esso. Dovreste dormire ora. Riposatevi di nuovo, povero bambino, riposatevi di nuovo!»

Con ciò, la condusse al suo grezzo giaciglio e, coprendola con gli abiti con cui si era trovata avvolta al risveglio, tornò al suo posto, da cui non si mosse più se non per alimentare la fornace, rimanendo immobile come una statua. La bambina continuò a osservarlo per un poco di tempo, ma presto cedette alla sonnolenza che la assalì e, nel buio strano luogo e sul mucchio di cenere, dormì tranquillamente come se la stanza fosse stata una camera di palazzo e il letto, un letto di piume.

Quando si svegliò di nuovo, il giorno pieno splendeva attraverso le alte aperture nelle pareti, e, insinuandosi in raggi obliqui ma a metà strada, sembrava rendere l’edificio più scuro di quanto fosse stato alla notte. Il clangore e il tumulto continuavano ancora, e gli implacabili fuochi ardevano ferocemente come prima; poiché pochi cambiamenti di notte e giorno portavano riposo o tranquillità lì.

La sua amica divise la sua colazione - un misero pasto di caffè e del pane grezzo - con il bambino e suo nonno, e chiese loro dove stessero andando. Lei gli disse che cercavano un luogo di campagna lontano, lontano dalle città o anche da altri villaggi, e con un linguaggio esitante chiese quale strada sarebbe stato meglio prendere.

«So poco di quella zona», disse, scuotendo la testa, «perché gente come me passa tutta la vita davanti alle porte dei forni, e raramente esce per prendere aria. Ma ci sono posti del genere laggiù».

«E lontano da qui?» disse Nell.

«Certo, certo. Come potrebbero essere vicino a noi e essere verdi e freschi? La strada passa anche per miglia e miglia, tutte illuminate da fuochi come i nostri — una strana strada nera, e una che vi spaventerebbe di notte.»

«Siamo qui e dobbiamo andare avanti», disse la bambina con coraggio; perché vide che il vecchio ascoltava con orecchie ansiose questo racconto.

«Gente rozza, sentieri mai fatti per piccoli piedi come i tuoi, un cammino desolato e maledetto: non c’è modo di tornare indietro, mio bambino?»

«Non c’è nessuno», gridò Nell, facendosi avanti. «Se potete indicarci la strada, fatelo. Se no, vi prego, non cercate di distoglierci dal nostro proposito. In verità non sapete il pericolo che stiamo evitando, e quanto giusto e vero sia il nostro fuggirlo, altrimenti non cerchereste di fermarci, sono sicura che non lo fareste.»

«Dio ce ne scampi, se è così!» disse il loro rozzi protettore, guardando dall’bambina ansiosa al nonno, che abbassò la testa e fissò gli occhi a terra. «Vi indicherò la strada meglio che posso dalla porta. Vorrei poter fare di più.»

Loro mostrò, dunque, per quale strada dovevano lasciare la città e quale rotta avrebbero dovuto seguire una volta raggiunta. Si soffermò così a lungo su queste istruzioni che la bambina, con una fervente benedizione, si strappò via e non rimase ad ascoltare oltre.

Ma, prima che avessero raggiunto l’angolo del vicolo, l’uomo li raggiunse correndo e, stringendole la mano, le lasciò qualcosa nel palmo: due vecchie, ammaccate, fuligginose monetine da un penny. Chi sa se non brillavano agli occhi degli angeli quanto i doni d’oro che sono stati scolpiti sulle tombe?

E così si separarono; la bambina per condurre il suo sacro fardello più lontano dalla colpa e dalla vergogna; il lavoratore per attribuire un nuovo interesse al luogo dove i suoi ospiti avevano dormito, e leggere nuove storie nel fuoco della sua fornace.

CHAPTER 45

In all their journeying, they had never longed so ardently, they had never so pined and wearied, for the freedom of pure air and open country, as now. No, not even on that memorable morning, when, deserting their old home, they abandoned themselves to the mercies of a strange world, and left all the dumb and senseless things they had known and loved, behind—not even then, had they so yearned for the fresh solitudes of wood, hillside, and field, as now, when the noise and dirt and vapour, of the great manufacturing town reeking with lean misery and hungry wretchedness, hemmed them in on every side, and seemed to shut out hope, and render escape impossible.

‘Two days and nights!’ thought the child. ‘He said two days and nights we should have to spend among such scenes as these. Oh! if we live to reach the country once again, if we get clear of these dreadful places, though it is only to lie down and die, with what a grateful heart I shall thank God for so much mercy!’

With thoughts like this, and with some vague design of travelling to a great distance among streams and mountains, where only very poor and simple people lived, and where they might maintain themselves by very humble helping work in farms, free from such terrors as that from which they fled—the child, with no resource but the poor man’s gift, and no encouragement but that which flowed from her own heart, and its sense of the truth and right of what she did, nerved herself to this last journey and boldly pursued her task.

‘We shall be very slow to-day, dear,’ she said, as they toiled painfully through the streets; ‘my feet are sore, and I have pains in all my limbs from the wet of yesterday. I saw that he looked at us and thought of that, when he said how long we should be upon the road.’

‘It was a dreary way he told us of,’ returned her grandfather, piteously. ‘Is there no other road? Will you not let me go some other way than this?’

‘Places lie beyond these,’ said the child, firmly, ‘where we may live in peace, and be tempted to do no harm. We will take the road that promises to have that end, and we would not turn out of it, if it were a hundred times worse than our fears lead us to expect. We would not, dear, would we?’

‘No,’ replied the old man, wavering in his voice, no less than in his manner. ‘No. Let us go on. I am ready. I am quite ready, Nell.’

The child walked with more difficulty than she had led her companion to expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of no common severity, and every exertion increased them. But they wrung from her no complaint, or look of suffering; and, though the two travellers proceeded very slowly, they did proceed. Clearing the town in course of time, they began to feel that they were fairly on their way.

A long suburb of red brick houses—some with patches of garden-ground, where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the shrinking leaves, and coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling vegetation sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace, making them by its presence seem yet more blighting and unwholesome than in the town itself—a long, flat, straggling suburb passed, they came, by slow degrees, upon a cheerless region, where not a blade of grass was seen to grow, where not a bud put forth its promise in the spring, where nothing green could live but on the surface of the stagnant pools, which here and there lay idly sweltering by the black road-side.

Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its dark depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them with a dismal gloom. On every side, and far as the eye could see into the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and presenting that endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form, which is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air. On mounds of ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their agonies. Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited. Men, women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in attire, tended the engines, fed their tributary fire, begged upon the road, or scowled half-naked from the doorless houses. Then came more of the wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in their wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and round again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left, was the same interminable perspective of brick towers, never ceasing in their black vomit, blasting all things living or inanimate, shutting out the face of day, and closing in on all these horrors with a dense dark cloud.

But night-time in this dreadful spot!—night, when the smoke was changed to fire; when every chimney spirited up its flame; and places, that had been dark vaults all day, now shone red-hot, with figures moving to and fro within their blazing jaws, and calling to one another with hoarse cries—night, when the noise of every strange machine was aggravated by the darkness; when the people near them looked wilder and more savage; when bands of unemployed labourers paraded the roads, or clustered by torch-light round their leaders, who told them, in stern language, of their wrongs, and urged them on to frightful cries and threats; when maddened men, armed with sword and firebrand, spurning the tears and prayers of women who would restrain them, rushed forth on errands of terror and destruction, to work no ruin half so surely as their own—night, when carts came rumbling by, filled with rude coffins (for contagious disease and death had been busy with the living crops); when orphans cried, and distracted women shrieked and followed in their wake—night, when some called for bread, and some for drink to drown their cares, and some with tears, and some with staggering feet, and some with bloodshot eyes, went brooding home—night, which, unlike the night that Heaven sends on earth, brought with it no peace, nor quiet, nor signs of blessed sleep—who shall tell the terrors of the night to the young wandering child!

CAPITOLO 45

In tutto il loro viaggio, non avevano mai desiderato così ardentemente, non avevano mai così languito e stancato, per la libertà dell’aria pura e della campagna aperta, come ora. No, nemmeno in quella memorabile mattina, quando, abbandonando la loro vecchia casa, si abbandonarono alle merci di un mondo straniero, e lasciarono dietro di sé tutte le cose muthe e insensate che avevano conosciuto e amato - nemmeno allora, avevano anelato così per le fresche solitudini del bosco, del pendio e del campo, come ora, quando il rumore e la sporcizia e il vapore, della grande città manifatturiera che esala magra miseria e affamata miseria, li circondavano da ogni lato, e sembravano escludere la speranza, e rendere impossibile la fuga.

«Due giorni e due notti!» pensò il bambino. «Ha detto che avremmo dovuto passare due giorni e due notti in mezzo a scene come queste. Oh! se riusciremo a tornare in campagna, se riusciremo a liberarci di questi luoghi terribili, anche se solo per stenderci e morire, con quale cuore grato ringrazierò Dio per tanta misericordia!»

Con pensieri come questi, e con qualche vago progetto di viaggiare a grande distanza tra fiumi e montagne, dove vivevano solo persone molto povere e semplici, e dove potevano mantenersi con umili lavori di aiuto nelle fattorie, liberi da tali terrore come quello da cui fuggivano—il bambino, senza risorse se non il dono dell’uomo povero, e senza incoraggiamento se non quello che scaturiva dal suo stesso cuore, e dal suo senso della verità e della giustezza di ciò che faceva, si preparò per questo ultimo viaggio e con coraggio proseguì il suo compito.

«Oggi faremo molta fatica, tesoro», disse mentre si affaticavano penosamente per le strade; «ho i piedi doloranti e ho mal di tutti i muscoli per l’umidità di ieri. Ho visto che ci guardava e pensava a questo, quando ha detto quanto tempo avremmo impiegato sulla strada.»

«Era un modo triste quello in cui ce lo ha raccontato», rispose il nonno, pietosamente. «Non c’è un’altra strada? Non mi lascerai andare in un altro modo che non sia questo?»

«Ci sono luoghi oltre questi», disse il bambino, con fermezza, «dove potremo vivere in pace e non saremo tentati di fare del male. Prenderemo la strada che promette di portarci a quel fine, e non ci allontaneremmo da essa, anche se fosse cento volte peggiore di quanto temiamo. Non lo faremmo, vero, caro?»

«No», rispose il vecchio, incerto tanto nella voce quanto nei movimenti. «No. Andiamo avanti. Sono pronto. Sono proprio pronto, Nell.»

La bambina camminava con più difficoltà di quanto avesse fatto credere al suo compagno, perché i dolori che le attanagliavano le articolazioni erano di una gravità non comune, e ogni sforzo li aumentava. Ma non le strapparono né un lamento né uno sguardo di sofferenza; e, sebbene i due viaggiatori procedessero molto lentamente, procedevano. Dopo aver lasciato la città nel corso del tempo, cominciarono a sentirsi davvero in cammino.

Un lungo sobborgo di case di mattoni rossi, alcune con piccoli appezzamenti di giardino, dove la polvere di carbone e il fumo delle fabbriche annerivano le foglie che si appassivano e i fiori grossolani e rigogliosi, e dove la vegetazione, in lotta per sopravvivere, si ammalava e soccombeva sotto il caldo respiro dei forni e delle fornaci, rendendo la zona ancora più devastante e insalubre che in città, un lungo, piatto, suburbio disseminato che passava, e lentamente si arrivava a una regione desolata, dove non si vedeva crescere una sola foglia d’erba, dove non un germoglio sbocciava in primavera, dove nulla di verde poteva vivere se non sulla superficie delle pozze stagnanti, che qua e là giacevano oziosamente a marcire lungo il lato della strada nera.

Avanzando sempre più nell’ombra di questo luogo desolato, la sua influenza oscura e opprimente si insinuò nei loro spiriti, riempiendoli di un cupo sconforto. Da ogni lato, e fino a dove l’occhio poteva spingersi nella pesante distanza, alte ciminiere, ammassate l’una sull’altra, e presentando quella infinita ripetizione della stessa forma noiosa e brutta, che è l’orrore dei sogni opprimenti sogni, riversavano la loro piaga di fumo, oscuravano la luce e inquinavano l’aria malinconica. Su cumuli di cenere lungo il cammino, riparati solo da qualche rozza tavola, o tetti di tettoie marci, strani macchinari giravano e si contorcevano come creature torturate; sferragliando con le loro catene di ferro, strillando nella loro rapida rotazione da tempo a tempo come se fossero in una sofferenza insopportabile, e facendo tremare il terreno con le loro agonie. Qui e là apparivano case smantellate, in procinto di crollare, sorrette da frammenti di altre che erano crollate, senza tetto, senza finestre, annerite, desolate, ma ancora abitate. Uomini, donne, bambini, pallidi nel loro aspetto e stracciati nel loro abbigliamento, curavano i macchinari, alimentavano il loro fuoco tributario, chiedevano l’elemosina sulla strada, o si scagliavano mezzi nudi dalle case senza porte. Poi arrivavano altri dei mostruosi mostri, i cui simili sembravano quasi essere nella loro ferocia e nel loro aspetto indomito, strillando e girando e rigirando; e ancora, davanti, dietro, e a destra e a sinistra, era la stessa prospettiva interminabile di torri di mattoni, che non cessavano nel loro vomito nero, devastando tutte le cose viventi o inanimate, oscurando il volto del giorno, e chiudendosi su tutti questi orrori con una densa nuvola scura.

Ma la notte in questo terribile luogo!—la notte in cui il fumo si trasformava in fuoco; quando ogni camino sputava fiamme; e i luoghi che erano stati bui sotterranei durante il giorno, ora ardevano roventi, con figure che si muovevano avanti e indietro nelle loro fauci fiammeggianti, e si chiamavano l’un l’altro con grida rauche—la notte in cui il rumore di ogni strana macchina era esacerbato dall’oscurità; quando le persone vicine a loro apparivano più selvagge e più feroci; quando bande di operai disoccupati sfilavano per le strade, o si radunavano alla luce delle torce intorno ai loro capi, che in un linguaggio severo, parlavano loro dei loro torti, e li incitavano a grida e minacce spaventose; quando uomini impazziti, armati di spada e fiaccola, respingendo le lacrime e le preghiere delle donne che li avrebbero trattenuti, si lanciavano in missioni di terrore e distruzione, per non causare rovina più certa di quella loro stessa—la notte in cui carri passavano rombando, pieni di rozze coffini (perché la malattia contagiosa e la morte avevano fatto strage tra i vivi); quando orfani piangevano, e donne disperate urlavano e li seguivano—la notte in cui alcuni chiedevano pane, e alcuni bevande per annegare le loro pene, e alcuni con lacrime, e alcuni con passi vacillanti, e alcuni con occhi iniettati di sangue, andavano a meditare nella loro casa—la notte, che, a differenza della notte che il Cielo manda sulla terra, non portava con sé pace, né quiete, né segni di beato sonno—chi potrà raccontare gli orrori della notte al giovane bambino smarrito!

And yet she lay down, with nothing between her and the sky; and, with no fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer for the poor old man. So very weak and spent, she felt, so very calm and unresisting, that she had no thought of any wants of her own, but prayed that God would raise up some friend for him. She tried to recall the way they had come, and to look in the direction where the fire by which they had slept last night was burning. She had forgotten to ask the name of the poor man, their friend, and when she had remembered him in her prayers, it seemed ungrateful not to turn one look towards the spot where he was watching.

A penny loaf was all they had had that day. It was very little, but even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that crept over her senses. She lay down, very gently, and, with a quiet smile upon her face, fell into a slumber. It was not like sleep—and yet it must have been, or why those pleasant dreams of the little scholar all night long! Morning came. Much weaker, diminished powers even of sight and hearing, and yet the child made no complaint—perhaps would have made none, even if she had not had that inducement to be silent, travelling by her side. She felt a hopelessness of their ever being extricated together from that forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very ill, perhaps dying; but no fear or anxiety.

A loathing of food that she was not conscious of until they expended their last penny in the purchase of another loaf, prevented her partaking even of this poor repast. Her grandfather ate greedily, which she was glad to see.

Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety or improvement. There was the same thick air, difficult to breathe; the same blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the same misery and distress. Objects appeared more dim, the noise less, the path more rugged and uneven, for sometimes she stumbled, and became roused, as it were, in the effort to prevent herself from falling. Poor child! the cause was in her tottering feet.

Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained bitterly of hunger. She approached one of the wretched hovels by the way-side, and knocked with her hand upon the door.

‘What would you have here?’ said a gaunt man, opening it.

‘Charity. A morsel of bread.’

‘Do you see that?’ returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a kind of bundle on the ground. ‘That’s a dead child. I and five hundred other men were thrown out of work, three months ago. That is my third dead child, and last. Do you think I have charity to bestow, or a morsel of bread to spare?’

The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her. Impelled by strong necessity, she knocked at another: a neighbouring one, which, yielding to the slight pressure of her hand, flew open.

It seemed that a couple of poor families lived in this hovel, for two women, each among children of her own, occupied different portions of the room. In the centre, stood a grave gentleman in black who appeared to have just entered, and who held by the arm a boy.

‘Here, woman,’ he said, ‘here’s your deaf and dumb son. You may thank me for restoring him to you. He was brought before me, this morning, charged with theft; and with any other boy it would have gone hard, I assure you. But, as I had compassion on his infirmities, and thought he might have learnt no better, I have managed to bring him back to you. Take more care of him for the future.’

‘And won’t you give me back MY son!’ said the other woman, hastily rising and confronting him. ‘Won’t you give me back MY son, Sir, who was transported for the same offence!’

‘Was he deaf and dumb, woman?’ asked the gentleman sternly.

‘Was he not, Sir?’

‘You know he was not.’

‘He was,’ cried the woman. ‘He was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all that was good and right, from his cradle. Her boy may have learnt no better! where did mine learn better? where could he? who was there to teach him better, or where was it to be learnt?’

‘Peace, woman,’ said the gentleman, ‘your boy was in possession of all his senses.’

‘He was,’ cried the mother; ‘and he was the more easy to be led astray because he had them. If you save this boy because he may not know right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never taught the difference? You gentlemen have as good a right to punish her boy, that God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech, as you have to punish mine, that you kept in ignorance yourselves. How many of the girls and boys—ah, men and women too—that are brought before you and you don’t pity, are deaf and dumb in their minds, and go wrong in that state, and are punished in that state, body and soul, while you gentlemen are quarrelling among yourselves whether they ought to learn this or that?—Be a just man, Sir, and give me back my son.’

‘You are desperate,’ said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box, ‘and I am sorry for you.’

‘I AM desperate,’ returned the woman, ‘and you have made me so. Give me back my son, to work for these helpless children. Be a just man, Sir, and, as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me back my son!’

The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a place at which to ask for alms. She led the old man softly from the door, and they pursued their journey.

With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with an undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her sinking state, so long as she had energy to move, the child, throughout the remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to proceed: not even stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to compensate in some measure for the tardy pace at which she was obliged to walk. Evening was drawing on, but had not closed in, when—still travelling among the same dismal objects—they came to a busy town.

Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable. After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being repulsed, they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and try if the inmates of any lone house beyond, would have more pity on their exhausted state.

They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers would bear no more. There appeared before them, at this juncture, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who, with a portmanteau strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as he walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand.

It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. At length, he stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book. Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and, going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to implore his help.

He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.

Eppure si sdraiò, senza nulla tra lei e il cielo; e, senza alcuna paura per se stessa, perché ormai era passata, fece una preghiera per il povero vecchio. Si sentiva così debole e sfinita, così calma e rassegnata, che non pensava a nessun suo bisogno, ma pregava che Dio gli mandasse un amico. Cercò di ricordare la strada che avevano fatto e di guardare nella direzione in cui ardeva il fuoco accanto al quale avevano dormito la sera prima. Aveva dimenticato di chiedere il nome del povero uomo, il loro amico, e quando lo aveva ricordato nelle sue preghiere, le era sembrato ingrato non rivolgere uno sguardo verso il luogo dove lui stava vegliando.

Un pane da un penny era tutto ciò che avevano avuto quel giorno. Era molto poco, ma anche la fame era dimenticata nella strana tranquillità che si insinuava nei suoi sensi. Si sdraiò, molto dolcemente, e, con un sorriso tranquillo sul viso, cadde in un sonno. Non era come dormire—eppure doveva esserlo, altrimenti perché quei piacevoli sogni dello scolaro per tutta la notte! Venne il mattino. Molto più debole, ridotte anche le capacità di vista e udito, eppure il bambino non si lamentava—forse non si sarebbe lamentato, anche se non avesse avuto quel motivo per tacere, viaggiando al suo fianco. Sentiva una disperazione per il fatto che non sarebbero mai stati estratti insieme da quel luogo desolato; una cupa convinzione che fosse molto malata, forse morente; ma nessuna paura o ansia.

Un disgusto per il cibo che non aveva mai provato fino a quando non spesero l’ultimo centesimo per comprare un altro pane, le impedì di partecipare anche a questo misero pasto. Il nonno mangiava avidamente, e questo la rallegrava.

Il loro cammino passava attraverso le stesse scene di ieri, senza varietà né miglioramenti. C’era la stessa aria pesante, difficile da respirare; lo stesso terreno devastato, la stessa prospettiva disperata, la stessa miseria e angoscia. Gli oggetti apparivano più sfocati, il rumore più debole, il sentiero più accidentato e irregolare, perché a volte inciampava e si risvegliava, per così dire, nello sforzo di evitare di cadere. Povera bambina! la causa era nei suoi piedi vacillanti.

Verso il pomeriggio, suo nonno si lamentò amaramente di fame. Si avvicinò a una delle squallide baracche lungo la strada e bussò alla porta con la mano.

«Cosa volete qui?» disse un uomo magro, aprendola.

«Carità. Un pezzetto di pane.»

«Vedete quello?», rispose l’uomo con voce rauca, indicando una specie di fagotto a terra. «È un bambino morto. Io e altri cinquecento uomini siamo stati licenziati tre mesi fa. Questo è il mio terzo bambino morto, e l’ultimo. Credete che io abbia carità da elargire, o un boccone di pane da risparmiare?»

La bambina indietreggiò dalla porta, e questa si chiuse su di lei. Spinta da un forte bisogno, bussò a un’altra: una vicina, che, cedendo alla leggera pressione della sua mano, si spalancò.

Sembra che in questa baracca vivesse una coppia di famiglie povere, poiché due donne, ciascuna con i propri bambini, occupavano diverse parti della stanza. Al centro, stava in piedi un grave signore in nero che sembrava essere appena entrato e che teneva per il braccio un ragazzo.

«Ecco, donna», disse, «ecco qui suo figlio sordo-muto. Può ringraziarmi per averglielo restituito. Questa mattina è stato portato davanti a me, accusato di furto; e con un altro ragazzo non sarebbe andata bene, glielo assicuro. Ma, dato che ho avuto compassione delle sue infermità, e ho pensato che non avrebbe potuto imparare a fare meglio, ho fatto in modo di riportarglielo. Prenda più cura di lui in futuro.»

«E non mi renderete MIO figlio!» disse l’altra donna, alzandosi in fretta e fronteggiandolo. «Non mi renderete MIO figlio, signore, che fu deportato per lo stesso reato!»

«Era sordo e muto, donna?» chiese il signore severamente.

“Non lo era, signore?”

‘Sai che non lo era.’

«Era», gridò la donna, «era sordo, muto e cieco a tutto ciò che era buono e giusto, fin dalla culla. Il suo ragazzo potrebbe non aver imparato di meglio! Dove ha imparato di meglio il mio? Dove avrebbe potuto? Chi c’era per insegnargli di meglio, o dove si sarebbe potuto imparare?»

‘Pace, donna’, disse il gentiluomo, ‘vostro figlio era in pieno possesso delle sue facoltà.’

«Era mio figlio», gridò la madre, «e fu più facile traviarlo proprio perché li aveva. Se salvate questo ragazzo perché forse non sa distinguere il bene dal male, perché non avete salvato il mio che non fu mai istruito sulla differenza? Voi signori avete lo stesso diritto di punire il suo ragazzo, che Dio ha tenuto nell’ignoranza del suono e della parola, che avete di punire il mio, che avete tenuto nell’ignoranza voi stessi. Quante ragazze e ragazzi - ah, uomini e donne anche - che vi vengono presentati e voi non compatite, sono sordi e muti nella loro mente, e sbagliano in quello stato, e sono puniti in quello stato, corpo e anima, mentre voi signori vi contendete se dovrebbero imparare questo o quello? - Siate un uomo giusto, Signore, e restituitemi mio figlio.»

«Siete disperato», disse il signore, tirando fuori il tabacchiera, «e mi dispiace per voi».

«SONO disperata», rispose la donna, «e voi mi avete resa tale. Restituitemi mio figlio, per farlo lavorare per questi poveri bambini. Siate un uomo giusto, signore, e, poiché avete avuto pietà per questo ragazzo, restituitemi mio figlio!»

La bambina aveva visto e sentito abbastanza da sapere che quel posto non era adatto a chiedere l’elemosina. Condusse il vecchio dolcemente lontano dalla porta, e continuarono il loro viaggio.

Con sempre meno speranza e forza, man mano che procedevano, ma con una risolutezza immutata a non tradire con alcuna parola o sospiro il suo stato di debolezza, finché avesse avuto l’energia per muoversi, la bambina, per tutto il resto di quella dura giornata, si costrinse a proseguire: senza fermarsi a riposare nemmeno con la frequenza abituale, per compensare in qualche misura il ritardo con cui era costretta a camminare. La sera stava calando, ma non era ancora scesa, quando, continuando a viaggiare tra gli stessi tristi oggetti, giunsero a una città vivace.

Per quanto fossero deboli e senza forze, le sue strade erano insopportabili. Dopo aver chiesto umilmente aiuto a poche porte e essere stati respinti, decisero di uscire il più rapidamente possibile e provare se gli abitanti di qualche casa solitaria oltre avrebbero avuto più pietà della loro condizione di sfinimento.

Si trascinavano lungo l’ultima strada, e la bambina sentiva che il momento era vicino in cui le sue deboli forze non avrebbero potuto sopportare oltre. In quel momento, davanti a loro, apparve un viaggiatore a piedi che andava nella stessa direzione, con un portamantelli legato alla schiena, appoggiandosi a un robusto bastone mentre camminava e leggendo un libro che teneva nell’altra mano.

Non era facile raggiungerlo e supplicarlo di aiutarli, perché camminava svelto e si trovava un po’ più avanti. Alla fine si fermò per esaminare più attentamente un passaggio del suo libro. Animata da un barlume di speranza, la bambina corse avanti al nonno e, avvicinandosi allo sconosciuto senza svegliarlo col rumore dei suoi passi, cominciò, con poche parole deboli, a implorare il suo aiuto.

Girò la testa. La bambina si batté le mani, emise un urlo selvaggio e cadde priva di sensi ai suoi piedi.

CHAPTER 46

It was the poor schoolmaster. No other than the poor schoolmaster. Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she had been on recognising him, he stood, for a moment, silent and confounded by this unexpected apparition, without even the presence of mind to raise her from the ground.

But, quickly recovering his self-possession, he threw down his stick and book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured, by such simple means as occurred to him, to restore her to herself; while her grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and implored her with many endearing expressions to speak to him, were it only a word.

‘She is quite exhausted,’ said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into his face. ‘You have taxed her powers too far, friend.’

‘She is perishing of want,’ rejoined the old man. ‘I never thought how weak and ill she was, till now.’

Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate, the schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man gather up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at his utmost speed.

There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had been directing his steps when so unexpectedly overtaken. Towards this place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make way for God’s sake, deposited it on a chair before the fire.

The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster’s entrance, did as people usually do under such circumstances. Everybody called for his or her favourite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more air, at the same time carefully excluding what air there was, by closing round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody else didn’t do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by themselves.

The landlady, however, who possessed more readiness and activity than any of them, and who had withal a quicker perception of the merits of the case, soon came running in, with a little hot brandy and water, followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar, hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which, being duly administered, recovered the child so far as to enable her to thank them in a faint voice, and to extend her hand to the poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, hard by. Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir a finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed; and, having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel, they despatched a messenger for the doctor.

The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his watch, and felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.

‘I should give her,’ said the doctor at length, ‘a tea-spoonful, every now and then, of hot brandy and water.’

‘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 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!

CAPITOLO 46

Era il povero maestro di scuola. Nessun altro che il povero maestro di scuola. Non meno emozionato e sorpreso alla vista del bambino di quanto lei fosse stata nel riconoscerlo, egli rimase, per un momento, silenzioso e confuso da questa inaspettata apparizione, senza nemmeno la presenza di spirito di farla alzare da terra.

Ma, riprendendosi rapidamente dal suo autocontrollo, gettò a terra il bastone e il libro, e inginocchiandosi accanto a lei, cercò, con i mezzi semplici che gli venivano in mente, di riportarla in sé; mentre il nonno, in piedi accanto a loro, si torceva le mani e la implorava con molte espressioni affettuose di parlargli, anche solo una parola.

«È completamente esausta», disse il maestro di scuola, guardando in su verso il suo viso. «Hai sfruttato troppo le sue capacità, amico mio.»

«Sta morendo di fame», replicò il vecchio. «Non mi ero mai reso conto di quanto fosse debole e malata, fino a ora.»

Dandogli un’occhiata, a metà tra il rimprovero e la compassione, il maestro di scuola prese il bambino tra le braccia e, ordinando al vecchio di raccogliere il suo piccolo cestino e di seguirlo immediatamente, la portò via alla massima velocità.

C’era una piccola locanda in vista, verso la quale, sembrava, si stava dirigendo quando fu così inaspettatamente raggiunto. Verso questo luogo si affrettò con il suo inconsapevole fardello, e irrompendo in cucina, e chiamando la compagnia lì riunita a farsi da parte per l’amor di Dio, lo depositò su una sedia davanti al fuoco.

La compagnia, che si era levata in confusione all’ingresso del maestro, fece come la gente di solito fa in tali circostanze. Tutti chiedevano il loro rimedio preferito, che nessuno portava; ognuno gridava per avere più aria, nello stesso tempo facendo attenzione a escludere l’aria che c’era, chiudendosi intorno all’oggetto della compassione; e tutti si chiedevano perché qualcun altro non facesse ciò che non sembrava mai venire loro in mente di poter fare da soli.

La padrona di casa, tuttavia, che possedeva più prontezza e attività di tutti loro, e che aveva inoltre una percezione più rapida dei meriti della situazione, presto arrivò correndo, con un po’ di brandy caldo e acqua, seguita dalla sua domestica, che portava aceto, acqua di canfora, sali da annusare e altri rimedi del genere; che, una volta somministrati, fecero riprendere la bambina al punto da permetterle di ringraziarli con una voce flebile e di tendere la mano al povero maestro di scuola, che stava lì vicino con un’aria ansiosa. Senza farle dire un’altra parola, o anche solo muovere un dito, le donne la portarono subito a letto; e, dopo averla coperta bene, le lavarono i piedi freddi e li avvolsero in flanella, inviarono un messaggero per il dottore.

Il dottore, che era un signore dal naso rosso con un gran mazzo di sigilli che gli pendeva da un panciotto di raso nero a coste, arrivò con tutta celerità, e sedendosi accanto al letto della povera Nell, tirò fuori l’orologio e le prese il polso. Poi le guardò la lingua, poi le prese di nuovo il polso, e mentre lo faceva, osservava il bicchiere di vino mezzo vuoto come se fosse profondamente assorto.

«Lei dovrebbe darle», disse il dottore dopo un po’, «un cucchiaino di tanto in tanto di acqua calda con brandy.»

«Ma è proprio quello che abbiamo fatto, signore!» disse la padrona di casa, tutta contenta.

«Dovrei anche», osservò il dottore, che aveva superato il pediluvio sulle scale, «dovrei anche», disse il dottore, con la voce di un oracolo, «metterle i piedi in acqua calda e avvolgerli in flanella. Dovrei inoltre», disse il dottore con crescente solennità, «darle qualcosa di leggero per cena - l’ala di un pollo arrosto ora -»

«Ma, buon Dio, signore, sta cuocendo sul fuoco della cucina in questo preciso istante!» esclamò la padrona di casa. E così era infatti, perché il maestro di scuola aveva ordinato che fosse messo sul fuoco, e stava andando così bene che il dottore avrebbe potuto sentirne l’odore se ci avesse provato; forse l’ha fatto.

«Potete allora», disse il dottore, alzandosi con gravità, «darle un bicchiere di vino di Porto caldo speziato, se le piace il vino, »

«E un brindisi, signore?» suggerì la locandiera.

«Sì», disse il dottore, con il tono di un uomo che fa una concessione dignitosa. «E un toast - di pane. Ma si prega di fare in modo che sia di pane, per favore, signora.»

Con tale raccomandazione finale, pronunciata lentamente e in modo portentoso, il dottore se ne andò, lasciando l’intera casa in ammirazione di quella saggezza che coincideva così perfettamente con la loro. Tutti dissero che era davvero un dottore molto astuto e che conosceva perfettamente le costituzioni delle persone; e sembra che ci siano ragioni per supporre che lo facesse.

Mentre preparavano la sua cena, la bambina si addormentò di un sonno ristoratore, dal quale dovettero svegliarla quando fu pronta. Poiché mostrò un’agitazione straordinaria nel venire a sapere che suo nonno era al piano di sotto, e poiché era molto turbata al pensiero di essere separata da lui, lui fece la sua cena con lei. Vedendola ancora molto inquieta per questo motivo, le prepararono un letto in una stanza interna, nella quale si ritirò subito. La chiave di questa camera si trovava per fortuna sul lato della porta che dava nella stanza di Nell; lei la girò quando la padrona di casa si fu ritirata, e tornò a letto con un cuore grato.

L’insegnante rimase a lungo seduto a fumare la pipa accanto al fuoco della cucina, ormai deserto, pensando, con un’espressione molto felice, alla fortunata coincidenza che lo aveva portato così opportunamente in aiuto del bambino, e parando, come bene poteva con la sua semplicità, l’indagatrice interrogatorio della padrona di casa, che aveva una grande curiosità di conoscere ogni particolare della vita e della storia di Nell. Il povero insegnante era così sincero e poco esperto nelle più comuni astuzie o inganni, che non avrebbe potuto fallire nei primi cinque minuti, se non fosse stato per il fatto che non conosceva ciò che lei desiderava sapere; e così glielo disse. La padrona di casa, tutt’altro che soddisfatta di questa assicurazione, che considerava un’abile elusione della domanda, ribatté che naturalmente aveva le sue ragioni. Dio la guardi dal voler ficcare il naso negli affari dei suoi clienti, che in realtà non erano affari suoi, lei che ne aveva così tanti dei suoi. Aveva semplicemente posto una domanda educata, e naturalmente sapeva che avrebbe ricevuto una risposta altrettanto educata. Era completamente soddisfatta, completamente. Forse avrebbe preferito che lui avesse detto subito che non voleva essere comunicativo, perché sarebbe stato chiaro e comprensibile. Comunque, non aveva certo il diritto di offendersi. Lui era il miglior giudice, e aveva tutto il diritto di dire ciò che voleva; nessuno poteva contestarlo neanche per un momento. Oh, no, certo che 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 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 fitted 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 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.

«Le assicuro, mia buona signora», disse il mite maestro di scuola, «che le ho detto la verità. Come spero di essere salvato, le ho detto la verità.»

«Allora, credo proprio che tu sia serio», replicò la padrona di casa, con pronta benevolenza, «e mi dispiace molto di averti preso in giro. Ma la curiosità, lo sai, è la maledizione del nostro sesso, e questo è un fatto.»

Il locatore si grattò la testa, come se pensasse che la maledizione a volte coinvolgeva anche l’altro sesso; ma fu impedito di fare qualsiasi osservazione in tal senso, se l’aveva in mente di farlo, dalla risposta del maestro di scuola.

«Dovreste interrogarmi per sei ore di seguito, e sarei benvenuto, e vi risponderei pazientemente per la gentilezza di cuore che avete mostrato questa sera, se potessi», disse. «Com’è, vi prego di prendervi cura di lei al mattino, e fatemi sapere presto come sta; e di capire che sono il pagatore per i tre.»

Così, salutandoli in termini molto amichevoli (forse non meno cordiali per quest’ultima direttiva), il maestro di scuola andò a letto, e l’oste e l’ostessa al loro.

La relazione del mattino era che la bambina stava meglio, ma era estremamente debole e avrebbe almeno avuto bisogno di un giorno di riposo e di cure attente, prima di poter riprendere il suo viaggio. Il maestro ricevette questa comunicazione con perfetta allegria, osservando che aveva un giorno a disposizione, anzi, due giorni, e poteva aspettare senza problemi. Poiché la paziente doveva stare seduta la sera, lui decise di andarla a trovare nella sua stanza a un certo orario, e vagando fuori con il suo libro, non tornò fino a quando non arrivò l’ora.

Nell non poté fare a meno di piangere quando rimasero sole; e a questo, e alla vista del suo viso pallido e della sua figura smunta, il semplice maestro di scuola versò anche lui alcune lacrime, mostrando nello stesso tempo con parole molto energiche quanto fosse sciocco farlo e quanto sarebbe stato facile evitarlo, se ci si fosse provato.

«Mi rende infelice anche in mezzo a tutta questa gentilezza» disse il bambino, «pensare che siamo un peso per voi. Come potrò mai ringraziarvi? Se non vi avessi incontrato così lontano da casa, sarei morto, e lui sarebbe rimasto solo.»

«Non parleremo di morte», disse il maestro di scuola, «e per quanto riguarda i pesi, ho fatto fortuna da quando hai dormito nella mia casetta.»

«Davvero!» esclamò il bambino gioiosamente.

«Oh sì», rispose l’amico, «mi hanno nominato scrivano e maestro di scuola in un villaggio lontano da qui — e lontano anche da quello vecchio, come potete immaginare — con uno stipendio di trentacinque sterline l’anno. Trentacinque sterline!»

«Sono molto felice», disse il bambino, «molto, molto felice.»

«Mi sto recando lì proprio ora», riprese il maestro di scuola. «Mi hanno concesso il viaggio in diligenza - viaggio in diligenza esterna per tutto il percorso. Dio li benedica, non mi negano nulla. Ma poiché il tempo in cui mi aspettano mi lasciava ampio tempo libero, ho deciso di camminare invece. Quanto sono felice di averlo fatto!»

‘Quanto dovremmo essere felici!’

«Sì, sì», disse il maestro, muovendosi irrequieto sulla sedia, «certamente, è molto vero. Ma tu—dove stai andando, da dove vieni, cosa hai fatto da quando mi hai lasciato, cosa facevi prima? Ora, dimmi—dimmi. So molto poco del mondo, e forse tu sei più adatto a consigliarmi nelle sue faccende di quanto io sia qualificato a darti consigli; ma sono molto sincero, e ho una ragione (non l’hai dimenticata) per amarti. Ho sentito da allora come se il mio amore per colui che morì, fosse stato trasferito a te che stavi accanto al suo letto. Se questo», aggiunse, guardando in alto, «è la bella creazione che nasce dalle ceneri, lascia che la sua pace prosperi con me, mentre tratto con tenerezza e compassione questo giovane bambino!»

La semplice e schietta gentilezza del leale maestro, l’affettuosa sincerità del suo parlare e del suo comportamento, la verità che era impressa in ogni sua parola e sguardo, ispirarono alla bambina una fiducia in lui che tutte le arti della perfidia e della dissimulazione non avrebbero mai potuto suscitare nel suo cuore. Gli raccontò tutto: che non avevano né amici né parenti, che era fuggita con il vecchio per salvarlo da un manicomio e da tutte le miserie che temeva, che ora stava scappando per salvarlo da se stesso, e che cercava un rifugio in qualche luogo remoto e primitivo, dove la tentazione che lo aveva travolto non avrebbe mai fatto la sua comparsa, e le sue recenti pene e tribolazioni non avrebbero avuto posto.

Il maestro la ascoltò con stupore. ‘Questo bambino!’—pensò—‘Questo bambino ha eroicamente perseverato in mezzo a dubbi e pericoli, lottando con la povertà e la sofferenza, sostenuto e incoraggiato da un forte affetto e dalla coscienza della rettitudine sola! Eppure il mondo è pieno di questo eroismo. Devo ancora imparare che le prove più dure e meglio sopportate sono quelle che non sono mai registrate in alcun documento terreno, e che vengono subite ogni giorno! E dovrei essere sorpreso di sentire la storia di questo bambino!’

Non importa cosa pensò o disse di più. Fu deciso che Nell e suo nonno lo avrebbero accompagnato al villaggio dove si recava, e che avrebbe cercato di trovare loro qualche umile occupazione con cui sbarcare il lunario. «Sicuramente ci riusciremo», disse il maestro di scuola, con entusiasmo. «La causa è troppo buona per fallire.»

Stabilirono di proseguire il loro viaggio la sera successiva, poiché un carro postale, che percorreva per un certo tratto la stessa strada che avrebbero dovuto prendere, si sarebbe fermato all’osteria per cambiare i cavalli, e il conducente, per una piccola mancia, avrebbe dato a Nell un posto all’interno. Un accordo fu presto raggiunto quando arrivò il carro; e nel dovuto tempo esso si allontanò, con la bambina comodamente sistemata tra i pacchi più morbidi, il nonno e il maestro camminavano accanto al conducente, e la locandiera e tutti i buoni clienti dell’osteria gridavano i loro auguri e saluti.

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 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. 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.

Che modo così rilassante, lussuoso e sonnolento di viaggiare, sdraiarsi all’interno di quella montagna che si muove lentamente, ascoltando il tintinnio delle campane dei cavalli, lo schiocco occasionale della frusta del carrettiere, il dolce rotolio delle grandi ruote larghe, lo scricchiolio delle redini, i cordiali saluti della buonanotte dei viaggiatori che passano a cavallo di piccoli cavalli dal passo corto—tutti resi piacevolmente indistinti dallo spesso telone, che sembrava fatto apposta per ascoltare pigramente sotto di esso, fino a quando non ci si addormenta! Il fatto stesso di andare a dormire, ancora con un’idea indistinta, mentre la testa dondola avanti e indietro sul cuscino, di muoversi in avanti senza alcun disturbo o fatica, e sentire tutti questi suoni come una musica onirica, che culla i sensi—e il lento risveglio, e scoprire di trovarsi a fissare attraverso la tenda sventolante semiaperta sul davanti, lontano nel freddo cielo luminoso con le sue innumerevoli stelle, e in basso la lanterna del conducente che danza come il suo omonimo Jack delle paludi e delle paludi, e di lato gli alberi scuri e cupi, e in avanti la lunga strada deserta strada che si alza, su, su, su, fino a fermarsi bruscamente su una ripida cresta alta come se non ci fosse più strada, e tutto oltre fosse cielo—e la sosta alla locanda per nutrire i cavalli, e venire aiutati a scendere, e andare in una stanza con fuoco e candele, e strizzare molto gli occhi, e ricordare piacevolmente che la notte era fredda, e desiderare per il solo conforto di pensare che fosse più fredda di quanto non fosse!—Che viaggio delizioso era quel viaggio nel carro.

Poi la ripresa del viaggio, così fresca all’inizio, e poco dopo così sonnolenta. Il risveglio da un sonno profondo mentre la diligenza sfrecciava accanto come una cometa stradale, con lampade scintillanti e zoccoli che tintinnavano, e visioni di un guardiano che si alzava per tenere caldi i piedi, e di un gentiluomo con un cappello di pelliccia che apriva gli occhi e guardava selvaggio e stordito—la sosta al casello dove l’uomo era andato a letto, e bussare alla porta finché non rispondeva con un urlo soffocato da sotto le coperte nella piccola stanza sopra, dove la luce fioca era accesa, e poi scendeva, con il cappello da notte e tremante, per aprire ampiamente il cancello e augurare che tutti i carri stiano lontani dalla strada tranne di giorno. L’intervallo freddo e pungente tra notte e mattino—la lontana striscia di luce che si allarga e si diffonde, e passa dal grigio al bianco, e dal bianco al giallo, e dal giallo al rosso ardente—la presenza del giorno, con tutta la sua allegria e vita—uomini e cavalli al lavoro—uccelli negli alberi e nelle siepi, e ragazzi in campi solitari, che li spaventano via con sonagli. L’arrivo in una città— gente indaffarata nei mercati; carretti leggeri e calesse intorno al cortile della locanda; commercianti in piedi alle loro porte; uomini che fanno correre su e giù per la strada cavalli in vendita; maiali che si dibattono e grugniscono in lontananza sporca, con lunghi lacci alle gambe, che corrono in farmacie pulite e vengono scacciati con scope da apprendisti; la diligenza di notte che cambia cavalli—i passeggeri tristi, freddi, brutti e insoddisfatti, con tre mesi di crescita di capelli in una notte—il cocchiere fresco come da una scatola da cappello, e squisitamente bello per contrasto:—tanto trambusto, così tante cose in movimento, una tale varietà di incidenti—quando c’è stato un viaggio con così tanti piaceri come quel viaggio nel carro!

A volte camminava per un miglio o due mentre il nonno viaggiava all’interno, e a volte addirittura convinceva il maestro di scuola a prendere il suo posto e a sdraiarsi per riposare, Nell viaggiava molto felicemente fino a quando non arrivarono in una grande città, dove il carro si fermò, e dove trascorsero una notte. Passarono accanto a una grande chiesa; e nelle strade c’erano un gran numero di vecchie case, costruite con una specie di terra o intonaco, attraversate e riattraversate in molte direzioni con travi nere, che conferivano loro un aspetto notevole e molto antico. Anche le porte erano arcuate e basse, alcune con portali in quercia e bizzarri banchi, dove gli ex abitanti si erano seduti alle serate estive. Le finestre erano a graticcio con piccoli vetri a rombo, che sembravano ammiccare e strizzare l’occhio ai viaggiatori come se fossero di vista corta. Erano ormai lontani dal fumo e dai forni, tranne in uno o due casi isolati, dove una fabbrica piantata tra i campi avvizziva lo spazio intorno a essa, come una montagna in fiamme. Quando ebbero superato questa città, entrarono di nuovo in campagna, e iniziarono ad avvicinarsi al loro luogo di destinazione.

Non era però così vicino che non trascorressero un’altra notte sulla strada; non che fosse proprio necessario, ma il maestro di scuola, quando si avvicinarono a poche miglia dal suo villaggio, aveva un’idea capricciosa della sua dignità di nuovo impiegato e non voleva entrare con le scarpe impolverate e l’abito scomposto dal viaggio. Era una bella mattina di autunno limpida quando giunsero nel luogo della sua promozione e si fermarono ad ammirarne le bellezze.

«Guardate, ecco la chiesa!» esclamò il maestro di scuola, pieno di gioia, a bassa voce; «e quell’antico edificio vicino, è la scuola, lo giuro. Trentacinque sterline l’anno in questo bellissimo posto!»

Ammiravano tutto: il vecchio portico grigio, le finestre a mullione, le venerabili lapidi che punteggiavano il verde camposanto, l’antica torre, il gallo canto; i tetti di paglia marrone di casetta, fienile e fattoria, che sbucavano tra gli alberi; il ruscello che gorgogliava accanto al lontano mulino ad acqua; le lontane montagne gallese blu. Era per un posto così che il bambino si era affaticato nelle fitte, buie, miserevoli tane del lavoro. Sul suo letto di cenere, e tra gli squallidi orrori attraverso i quali si erano fatti strada, visioni di tali scene - davvero belle, ma non più belle di questa dolce realtà - erano sempre state presenti alla sua mente. Sembravano dissolversi in una distanza sfumata e aerea, man mano che la prospettiva di rivederle si faceva più debole; ma, mentre si allontanavano, le aveva amate e desiderate ancora di più.

‘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 he had carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and hurried off, full of ardour and excitement.

The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage hid him from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old churchyard—so solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress upon the fallen leaves, which strewed the path and made her footsteps noiseless, seemed an invasion of its silence. It was a very aged, ghostly place; the church had been built many hundreds of years ago, and had once had a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing; while other portions of the old building, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as if they too claimed a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes with the dust of men. Hard by these gravestones of dead years, and forming a part of the ruin which some pains had been taken to render habitable in modern times, were two small dwellings with sunken windows and oaken doors, fast hastening to decay, empty and desolate.

Upon these tenements, the attention of the child became exclusively riveted. She knew not why. The church, the ruin, the antiquated graves, had equal claims at least upon a stranger’s thoughts, but from the moment when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings, she could turn to nothing else. Even when she had made the circuit of the enclosure, and, returning to the porch, sat pensively waiting for their friend, she took her station where she could still look upon them, and felt as if fascinated towards that spot.

«Devo lasciarvi da qualche parte per qualche minuto», disse il maestro, rompendo finalmente il silenzio in cui erano caduti nella loro gioia. «Ho una lettera da presentare e domande da fare, sapete. Dove vi porto? Alla piccola locanda laggiù?»

«Aspettiamoci qui», rispose Nell. «Il cancello è aperto. Ci siederemo sul portico della chiesa finché non tornerete.»

«Un buon posto anche questo», disse il maestro di scuola, facendoci strada verso di esso, liberandosi del suo portamantelli e posandolo sulla panchina di pietra. «Siate certi che tornerò con buone notizie e che non starò via a lungo!»

Così, il felice maestro di scuola si mise un paio di guanti nuovi di zecca che aveva portato in un pacchettino in tasca per tutto il tragitto, e si affrettò a partire, pieno di ardore ed eccitazione.

La bambina lo osservò dal portico finché il fogliame interposto non lo nascose alla sua vista, e poi uscì silenziosamente nel vecchio cimitero, così solenne e tranquillo che ogni fruscio del suo abito sulle foglie cadute, che tappezzavano il sentiero e rendevano i suoi passi inudibili, sembrava un’offesa al suo silenzio. Era un luogo molto antico e spettrale; la chiesa era stata costruita molti secoli fa e aveva avuto un convento o un monastero annesso; infatti erano ancora in piedi archi in rovina, resti di finestre a sesto acuto e frammenti di mura annerite, mentre altre parti dell’antico edificio, che si erano sgretolate e crollate, erano mescolate alla terra del cimitero e ricoperte d’erba, come se anch’esse rivendicassero una sepoltura e cercassero di mescolare le loro ceneri con la polvere degli uomini. Vicino a queste lapidi di anni defunti, e facendo parte della rovina che si era cercato di rendere abitabile in tempi moderni, c’erano due piccole abitazioni con finestre infossate e porte di quercia, che si stavano rapidamente avviando al deperimento, vuote e desolate.

L’attenzione del bambino si concentrò esclusivamente su questi edifici. Non sapeva perché. La chiesa, le rovine, le tombe antiche avevano almeno gli stessi diritti su i pensieri di uno straniero, ma dal momento in cui i suoi occhi si posarono per la prima volta su queste due abitazioni, non poté rivolgere l’attenzione a nulla altro. Anche quando aveva fatto il giro del recinto e, tornando al portico, sedeva pensierosa in attesa del loro amico, si sistemò in modo da poterli ancora vedere e si sentiva come affascinata da quel luogo.

CHAPTER 47

Kit’s mother and the single gentleman—upon whose track it is expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its characters in situations of uncertainty and doubt—Kit’s mother and the single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four whose departure from the Notary’s door we have already witnessed, soon left the town behind them, and struck fire from the flints of the broad highway.

The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of her situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by this time little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the fire, or tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or had scalded their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst at the spouts of tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and meeting from the window the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers, and others, felt in the new dignity of her position like a mourner at a funeral, who, not being greatly afflicted by the loss of the departed, recognizes his every-day acquaintance from the window of the mourning coach, but is constrained to preserve a decent solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent to all external objects.

To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single gentleman would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of steel. Never did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless gentleman as he. He never sat in the same position for two minutes together, but was perpetually tossing his arms and legs about, pulling up the sashes and letting them violently down, or thrusting his head out of one window to draw it in again and thrust it out of another. He carried in his pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious and unknown construction; and as sure as ever Kit’s mother closed her eyes, so surely—whisk, rattle, fizz—there was the single gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of fire, and letting the sparks fall down among the straw as if there were no such thing as a possibility of himself and Kit’s mother being roasted alive before the boys could stop their horses. Whenever they halted to change, there he was—out of the carriage without letting down the steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before he put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that Kit’s mother was quite afraid of him. Then, when the horses were to, in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile, out came the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit’s mother as wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage.

‘Are you comfortable?’ the single gentleman would say after one of these exploits, turning sharply round.

‘Quite, Sir, thank you.’

‘Are you sure? An’t you cold?’

‘It is a little chilly, Sir,’ Kit’s mother would reply.

‘I knew it!’ cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the front glasses. ‘She wants some brandy and water! Of course she does. How could I forget it? Hallo! Stop at the next inn, and call out for a glass of hot brandy and water.’

It was in vain for Kit’s mother to protest that she stood in need of nothing of the kind. The single gentleman was inexorable; and whenever he had exhausted all other modes and fashions of restlessness, it invariably occurred to him that Kit’s mother wanted brandy and water.

In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they stopped to supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered everything eatable that the house contained; and because Kit’s mother didn’t eat everything at once, and eat it all, he took it into his head that she must be ill.

‘You’re faint,’ said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself but walk about the room. ‘I see what’s the matter with you, ma’am. You’re faint.’

‘Thank you, sir, I’m not indeed.’

‘I know you are. I’m sure of it. I drag this poor woman from the bosom of her family at a minute’s notice, and she goes on getting fainter and fainter before my eyes. I’m a pretty fellow! How many children have you got, ma’am?’

‘Two, sir, besides Kit.’

‘Boys, ma’am?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Are they christened?’

‘Only half baptised as yet, sir.’

‘I’m godfather to both of ‘em. Remember that, if you please, ma’am. You had better have some mulled wine.’

‘I couldn’t touch a drop indeed, sir.’

‘You must,’ said the single gentleman. ‘I see you want it. I ought to have thought of it before.’

Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the recovery of some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman made Kit’s mother swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature that the tears ran down her face, and then hustled her off to the chaise again, where—not impossibly from the effects of this agreeable sedative—she soon became insensible to his restlessness, and fell fast asleep. Nor were the happy effects of this prescription of a transitory nature, as, notwithstanding that the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the single gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town.

‘This is the place!’ cried her companion, letting down all the glasses. ‘Drive to the wax-work!’

The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his horse, to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke into a smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise that brought the good folks wondering to their doors and windows, and drowned the sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out half-past eight. They drove up to a door round which a crowd of persons were collected, and there stopped.

CAPITOLO 47

La madre di Kit e il gentiluomo scapolo — sulla cui traccia è opportuno seguire con passi affrettati, affinché questa storia non sia accusata di incoerenza e di lasciare i suoi personaggi in situazioni di incertezza e dubbio — la madre di Kit e il gentiluomo scapolo, procedendo velocemente nella carrozza postale trainata da quattro cavalli la cui partenza dalla porta dello studio del notaio abbiamo già assistito, presto lasciarono la città alle loro spalle e fecero scintille scintille sui sassi della larga strada.

La brava donna, essendo non poco imbarazzata dalla novità della sua situazione, e da certe preoccupazioni materiali che forse in quel momento il piccolo Giacobbe, o il bambino, o entrambi, erano caduti nel fuoco, o rotolati giù dalle scale, o erano stati schiacciati dietro le porte, o si erano scottati le vie respiratorie cercando di placare la sete ai beccucci dei bollitori, manteneva un inquieto silenzio; e incontrando negli occhi dei finestra dei custodi dei caselli, dei conducenti di omnibus e di altri, si sentiva nella nuova dignità della sua posizione come un luttatore a un funerale, che, non essendo molto addolorato per la perdita del defunto, riconosce le sue conoscenze quotidiane dalla finestra della carrozza funebre, ma è costretto a mantenere una dignità decorosa e l’apparenza di essere indifferente a tutti gli oggetti esterni.

Essere stato indifferente alla compagnia del signore single sarebbe stato equivalente a essere dotati di nervi d’acciaio. Mai carrozza racchiuse, o cavalli trainarono, un gentiluomo così irrequieto come lui. Non si sedette mai nella stessa posizione per due minuti di fila, ma era costantemente intento a muovere braccia e gambe, a tirare su le tendine e a farle sbattere giù violentemente, o a sporgere la testa da una finestra per ritrarla e sporgere la testa da un’altra. Portava in tasca anche un acciarino di costruzione misteriosa e sconosciuta; e ogni volta che la madre di Kit chiudeva gli occhi, ecco che—fruscio, scricchiolio, crepitio—il signore single consultava il suo orologio alla luce di una fiamma di fuoco, e lasciava cadere le scintille tra la paglia come se non ci fosse la possibilità che lui e la madre di Kit venissero arrostiti vivi prima che i ragazzi potessero fermare i cavalli. Ogni volta che si fermavano per cambiare i cavalli, eccolo lì—fuori dalla carrozza senza abbassare i gradini, che si agitava nel cortile della locanda come un petardo acceso, che tirava fuori l’orologio alla luce della lampada e dimenticava di guardarlo prima di rimetterlo in tasca, e in breve commetteva tante di quelle pazzie che la madre di Kit aveva proprio paura di lui. Poi, quando i cavalli erano pronti, entrava come un Arlecchino, e prima che avessero percorso un miglio, fuori venivano l’orologio e l’acciarino insieme, e la madre di Kit era di nuovo ben sveglia, senza speranza di un pisolino per quel tratto.

«È comoda?» chiedeva l’unico signore dopo uno di questi exploit, girandosi bruscamente.

‘Certamente, signore, grazie.’

“Ne sei sicuro? Non hai freddo?”

«Fa un po’ freddo, signore», rispondeva la madre di Kit.

«Lo sapevo!» esclamò il signore da solo, abbassando uno dei vetri anteriori. «Vuole un po’ di brandy e acqua! Certo che lo vuole. Come ho potuto dimenticarmene? Ehi! Fermati alla prossima locanda e chiedi un bicchiere di brandy caldo e acqua.»

Fu inutile che la madre di Kit protestasse che non aveva bisogno di niente del genere. Il signore scapolo era inflessibile; e ogni volta che aveva esaurito tutti gli altri modi e metodi di irrequietezza, gli veniva sempre in mente che la madre di Kit avesse bisogno di brandy e acqua.

In questo modo continuarono il viaggio fino a tarda notte, quando si fermarono per cenare, e per quel pasto il signore da solo ordinò tutto ciò che era commestibile che contenesse la casa; e poiché la madre di Kit non mangiava tutto in una volta, e non lo mangiava tutto, gli venne in mente che doveva essere malata.

«Siete svenuta», disse il signore, che non faceva altro che passeggiare per la stanza. «So qual è il vostro problema, signora. Siete svenuta.»

‘Grazie, signore, non lo sono davvero.’

«So che lo è. Ne sono sicuro. Trascino questa povera donna dal seno della sua famiglia senza preavviso, e lei diventa sempre più pallida davanti ai miei occhi. Che bel tipo che sono! Quanti figli ha, signora?»

‘Due, signore, oltre a Kit.’

«Ragazzi, signora?»

“Sì, signore.”

‘Sono stati battezzati?’

‘Per ora solo a metà battezzato, signore.’

«Sono il padrino di entrambi. Ricordatevelo, per favore, signora. È meglio che prendiate un po’ di vino caldo.»

‘Non avrei potuto toccare una goccia, davvero, signore.’

«Dovete», disse il signore da solo. «Vedo che lo volete. Avrei dovuto pensarci prima».

Si precipitò subito alla campanella e chiese del vin brulé con la stessa impetuosità con cui si chiederebbe per rianimare immediatamente una persona apparentemente annegata. Il gentiluomo fece ingoiare alla madre di Kit un boccale di vin brulé così caldo che le lacrime le scorrevano lungo il viso, e poi la fece risalire sulla carrozza, dove, forse per effetto di questo piacevole sedativo, ben presto divenne insensibile alla sua irrequietezza e si addormentò profondamente. Gli effetti benefici di questa prescrizione non furono di natura effimera, poiché, nonostante la distanza fosse maggiore e il viaggio più lungo di quanto il gentiluomo si aspettasse, lei non si svegliò fino a quando non fu pieno giorno e non stavano sferragliando sul selciato di una città.

«Questo è il posto!» esclamò la sua compagna, abbassando tutti i finestrini. «Guida verso la mostra delle cere!»

Il ragazzo sulla bicicletta si toccò il cappello e, spronando il suo cavallo, affinché potessero entrare in modo brillante, tutti e quattro si lanciarono in un vivace trotto e sfrecciarono per le strade con un rumore che fece affacciare i buoni cittadini alle porte e alle finestre, soffocando le voci sobrie degli orologi della città che suonavano le otto e mezza. Si fermarono davanti a una porta attorno alla quale si era radunata una folla di persone.

‘What’s this?’ said the single gentleman thrusting out his head. ‘Is anything the matter here?’

‘A wedding Sir, a wedding!’ cried several voices. ‘Hurrah!’

The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of the postilions, and handed out Kit’s mother, at sight of whom the populace cried out, ‘Here’s another wedding!’ and roared and leaped for joy.

‘The world has gone mad, I think,’ said the single gentleman, pressing through the concourse with his supposed bride. ‘Stand back here, will you, and let me knock.’

Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. A score of dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question. Having rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little, preferring that the single gentleman should bear their consequences alone.

‘Now, sir, what do you want!’ said a man with a large white bow at his button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical aspect.

‘Who has been married here, my friend?’ said the single gentleman.

‘I have.’

‘You! and to whom in the devil’s name?’

‘What right have you to ask?’ returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from top to toe.

‘What right!’ cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit’s mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had it in contemplation to run away. ‘A right you little dream of. Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor—tut, tut, that can’t be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call her Nell. Where is she?’

As he propounded this question, which Kit’s mother echoed, somebody in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the bridegroom’s arm.

‘Where is she!’ cried this lady. ‘What news have you brought me? What has become of her?’

The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length he stammered out,

‘I ask YOU where she is? What do you mean?’

‘Oh sir!’ cried the bride, ‘If you have come here to do her any good, why weren’t you here a week ago?’

‘She is not—not dead?’ said the person to whom she addressed herself, turning very pale.

‘No, not so bad as that.’

‘I thank God!’ cried the single gentleman feebly. ‘Let me come in.’

They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.

‘You see in me, good people,’ he said, turning to the newly-married couple, ‘one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons whom I seek. They would not know me. My features are strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with you, and let them see her first, for her they both know. If you deny them from any mistaken regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their old humble friend.’

‘I always said it!’ cried the bride, ‘I knew she was not a common child! Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we could do, has been tried in vain.’

With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment, all that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance; adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible effort to trace them, but without success; having been at first in great alarm for their safety, as well as on account of the suspicions to which they themselves might one day be exposed in consequence of their abrupt departure. They dwelt upon the old man’s imbecility of mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always testified when he was absent, upon the company he had been supposed to keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually crept over her and changed her both in health and spirits. Whether she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing or conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or whether they had left the house together, they had no means of determining. Certain they considered it, that there was but slender prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there was now no hope of their return. To all this, the single gentleman listened with the air of a man quite borne down by grief and disappointment. He shed tears when they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep affliction.

Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short work of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the interview came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had sufficient evidence of having been told the truth, and that he endeavoured to force upon the bride and bridegroom an acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child, which, however, they steadily declined accepting. In the end, the happy couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit’s mother stood ruefully before their carriage-door.

‘Where shall we drive you, sir?’ said the post-boy.

‘You may drive me,’ said the single gentleman, ‘to the—’ He was not going to add ‘inn,’ but he added it for the sake of Kit’s mother; and to the inn they went.

Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to show the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been stolen from her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced. Opinion was divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a duke, an earl, a viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main fact, and that the single gentleman was her father; and all bent forward to catch a glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.

What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been saved if he had only known, that at that moment both child and grandfather were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting the schoolmaster’s return!

«Che succede?» disse il signore da solo sporgendo la testa. «C’è qualche problema qui?»

“Un matrimonio, un matrimonio!” gridarono diverse voci. “Evviva!”

Il signore da solo, piuttosto smarrito nel trovarsi al centro di questa rumorosa folla, scese con l’aiuto di uno dei postiglioni e fece scendere la madre di Kit, alla vista della quale il popolo gridò: «Ecco un altro matrimonio!», e ruggì e saltò di gioia.

«Il mondo è impazzito, credo», disse il signore da solo, aprendosi la strada nella folla con la sua presunta sposa. «Restate indietro, per favore, e lasciate che io bussi.»

Qualsiasi cosa che faccia rumore è gradita a una folla. Una ventina di mani sporche furono alzate immediatamente per bussare per lui, e raramente un battente di pari potenza è stato fatto produrre suoni più assordanti di quelli prodotti da questo particolare meccanismo in quell’occasione. Dopo aver reso questi servizi volontari, la folla si ritirò modestamente un po’, preferendo che il signore da solo sopportasse le loro conseguenze da solo.

«Ora, signore, cosa vuole!», disse un uomo con un grande fiocco bianco all’occhiello, aprendo la porta e fronteggiandolo con un aspetto molto stoico.

«Chi si è sposato qui, mio caro?» disse il signore scapolo.

‘Ho fatto.’

‘Lei! E a chi, per l’amor del cielo?’

«Che diritto avete di chiedere?» rispose lo sposo, scrutandolo da capo a piedi.

«Che diritto!» esclamò il signore, stringendo più forte il braccio della madre di Kit nel suo, poiché quella brava donna evidentemente stava pensando di scappare. «Un diritto di cui non sognate nemmeno. Ascoltate, buona gente, se questo tizio ha sposato una minorenne, tut, tut, non può essere. Dov’è la bambina che avete qui, mio buon uomo? La chiamate Nell. Dov’è?»

Mentre formulava questa domanda, che la madre di Kit fece eco, qualcuno in una stanza vicina emise un grande urlo, e una robusta signora in un abito bianco corse alla porta e si appoggiò al braccio dello sposo.

«Dov’è?» gridò la signora. «Che notizie mi portate? Che ne è stato di lei?»

Il signore da solo fece un passo indietro e fissò il volto della defunta signora Jarley (sposata quella mattina al filosofico George, in eterna ira e disperazione del poeta Slum), con sguardi di apprensione contrastante, delusione e incredulità. Alla fine balbettò:

‘Lei mi chiede dove sia? Che cosa intende?’

«Oh, signore!» esclamò la sposa «se è venuto qui per farle del bene, perché non era qui una settimana fa?»

«Non è, non è morta?» disse la persona a cui si rivolgeva, impallidendo molto.

‘No, non così male.’

«Grazie a Dio!», esclamò l’uomo solo debolmente. «Lasciatemi entrare.»

Si ritirarono per lasciarlo entrare, e quando fu entrato, chiusero la porta.

«Vedete in me, buone persone», disse, rivolgendosi alla coppia appena sposata, «uno a cui la vita stessa non è più cara delle due persone che cerco. Non mi riconoscerebbero. I miei tratti sono sconosciuti a loro, ma se loro o uno di loro è qui, portate con voi questa buona donna e fatela vedere per prima, perché loro la conoscono entrambi. Se li negherete per un riguardo o una paura mal riposta per loro, giudicate delle mie intenzioni dal loro riconoscimento di questa persona come la loro vecchia umile amica.»

«L’ho sempre detto!» esclamò la sposa, «Sapevo che non era una bambina comune! Ahimè, signore, non abbiamo il potere di aiutarla, perché tutto ciò che avremmo potuto fare è stato provato invano.»

Con ciò, gli raccontarono senza riserve né omissioni tutto ciò che sapevano di Nell e di suo nonno, dal loro primo incontro fino al momento della loro improvvisa scomparsa; aggiungendo (il che era del tutto vero) che avevano fatto ogni sforzo possibile per rintracciarli, ma senza successo; essendo stati inizialmente molto preoccupati per la loro incolumità, così come per i sospetti ai quali essi stessi avrebbero potuto un giorno essere esposti a causa della loro brusca partenza. Insistettero sulla debolezza mentale del vecchio, sul disagio che la bambina aveva sempre manifestato quando lui era assente, sulla compagnia che si supponeva tenesse, e sulla crescente depressione che si era gradualmente impadronita di lei, cambiandola sia nella salute che nello spirito. Che la bambina avesse perso il vecchio nella notte, e sapendo o immaginando dove lui avesse diretto i suoi passi, lo avesse seguito, o che avessero lasciato la casa insieme, non avevano modo di stabilirlo. Erano certi che non ci fossero molte speranze di avere più notizie di loro, e che, che la fuga fosse stata decisa dal vecchio o dalla bambina, non c’era più alcuna speranza del loro ritorno. A tutto ciò, il gentiluomo ascoltò con l’aria di un uomo completamente sopraffatto dalla tristezza e dalla delusione. Versò lacrime quando parlarono del nonno, e apparve in profonda afflizione.

Per non prolungare questa parte della nostra narrazione e per abbreviare una storia lunga, scriviamo brevemente che prima che l’intervista giungesse al termine, il signore single ritenne di avere prove sufficienti di essere stato informato della verità, e che cercò di imporre agli sposi un riconoscimento della loro gentilezza verso il bambino senza amici, che però rifiutarono costantemente di accettare. Alla fine, la felice coppia partì sobbalzando nella roulotte per trascorrere la luna di miele in un’escursione in campagna; e il signore single e la madre di Kit rimasero malinconicamente davanti alla porta della loro carrozza.

«Dove vuole che la portiamo, signore?» disse il postiglione.

«Potete portarmi», disse il signore, «all’—» Non aveva intenzione di aggiungere «albergo», ma lo fece per il bene della madre di Kit; e così andarono all’albergo.

Già correvano voci che la bambina che mostrava la cera fosse la figlia di grandi personaggi, rubata ai genitori in tenera età e appena rintracciata. L’opinione era divisa sul fatto che fosse figlia di un principe, un duca, un conte, un visconte o un barone, ma tutti concordavano sul fatto principale, e che il signore scapolo fosse suo padre; e tutti si sporgevano in avanti per cogliere un’occhiata, anche solo della punta del suo nobile naso, mentre se ne andava, disperato, nella sua carrozza a quattro cavalli.

Che cosa avrebbe dato per saperlo, e quale dolore sarebbe stato risparmiato se solo avesse saputo che in quel momento sia il bambino che il nonno erano seduti sotto il vecchio portico della chiesa, aspettando pazientemente il ritorno del maestro di scuola!

CHAPTER 48

Popular rumour concerning the single gentleman and his errand, travelling from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the marvellous as it was bandied about—for your popular rumour, unlike the rolling stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its wanderings up and down—occasioned his dismounting at the inn-door to be looked upon as an exciting and attractive spectacle, which could scarcely be enough admired; and drew together a large concourse of idlers, who having recently been, as it were, thrown out of employment by the closing of the wax-work and the completion of the nuptial ceremonies, considered his arrival as little else than a special providence, and hailed it with demonstrations of the liveliest joy.

Not at all participating in the general sensation, but wearing the depressed and wearied look of one who sought to meditate on his disappointment in silence and privacy, the single gentleman alighted, and handed out Kit’s mother with a gloomy politeness which impressed the lookers-on extremely. That done, he gave her his arm and escorted her into the house, while several active waiters ran on before as a skirmishing party, to clear the way and to show the room which was ready for their reception.

‘Any room will do,’ said the single gentleman. ‘Let it be near at hand, that’s all.’

‘Close here, sir, if you please to walk this way.’

‘Would the gentleman like this room?’ said a voice, as a little out-of-the-way door at the foot of the well staircase flew briskly open and a head popped out. ‘He’s quite welcome to it. He’s as welcome as flowers in May, or coals at Christmas. Would you like this room, sir? Honour me by walking in. Do me the favour, pray.’

‘Goodness gracious me!’ cried Kit’s mother, falling back in extreme surprise, ‘only think of this!’

She had some reason to be astonished, for the person who proffered the gracious invitation was no other than Daniel Quilp. The little door out of which he had thrust his head was close to the inn larder; and there he stood, bowing with grotesque politeness; as much at his ease as if the door were that of his own house; blighting all the legs of mutton and cold roast fowls by his close companionship, and looking like the evil genius of the cellars come from underground upon some work of mischief.

‘Would you do me the honour?’ said Quilp.

‘I prefer being alone,’ replied the single gentleman.

‘Oh!’ said Quilp. And with that, he darted in again with one jerk and clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch clock when the hour strikes.

‘Why it was only last night, sir,’ whispered Kit’s mother, ‘that I left him in Little Bethel.’

‘Indeed!’ said her fellow-passenger. ‘When did that person come here, waiter?’

‘Come down by the night-coach, this morning, sir.’

‘Humph! And when is he going?’

‘Can’t say, sir, really. When the chambermaid asked him just now if he should want a bed, sir, he first made faces at her, and then wanted to kiss her.’

‘Beg him to walk this way,’ said the single gentleman. ‘I should be glad to exchange a word with him, tell him. Beg him to come at once, do you hear?’

The man stared on receiving these instructions, for the single gentleman had not only displayed as much astonishment as Kit’s mother at sight of the dwarf, but, standing in no fear of him, had been at less pains to conceal his dislike and repugnance. He departed on his errand, however, and immediately returned, ushering in its object.

‘Your servant, sir,’ said the dwarf, ‘I encountered your messenger half-way. I thought you’d allow me to pay my compliments to you. I hope you’re well. I hope you’re very well.’

There was a short pause, while the dwarf, with half-shut eyes and puckered face, stood waiting for an answer. Receiving none, he turned towards his more familiar acquaintance.

‘Christopher’s mother!’ he cried. ‘Such a dear lady, such a worthy woman, so blest in her honest son! How is Christopher’s mother? Have change of air and scene improved her? Her little family too, and Christopher? Do they thrive? Do they flourish? Are they growing into worthy citizens, eh?’

Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding question, Mr Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into the panting look which was customary with him, and which, whether it were assumed or natural, had equally the effect of banishing all expression from his face, and rendering it, as far as it afforded any index to his mood or meaning, a perfect blank.

‘Mr Quilp,’ said the single gentleman.

The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited the closest attention.

‘We two have met before—’

‘Surely,’ cried Quilp, nodding his head. ‘Oh surely, sir. Such an honour and pleasure—it’s both, Christopher’s mother, it’s both—is not to be forgotten so soon. By no means!’

‘You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the house to which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some of the neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for rest or refreshment?’

‘How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous measure!’ said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his friend Mr Sampson Brass.

‘I found,’ said the single gentleman, ‘you most unaccountably, in possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another man, and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon his property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden beggary, and driven from house and home.’

‘We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,’ rejoined Quilp, ‘we had our warrant. Don’t say driven either. He went of his own accord—vanished in the night, sir.’

CAPITOLO 48

Il popolare pettegolezzo riguardante il gentiluomo scapolo e la sua missione, che passava di bocca in bocca, ingigantendosi nella meraviglia man mano che veniva diffuso — poiché il vostro popolare pettegolezzo, a differenza della pietra che rotola del proverbio, è uno che raccoglie parecchio muschio nei suoi vagabondaggi avanti e indietro — fece sì che il suo smontare a cavallo alla porta della locanda fosse considerato uno spettacolo emozionante e attraente, che si poteva a malapena ammirare abbastanza; e attirò una grande folla di oziosi, che, essendo stati recentemente, per così dire, messi in disoccupazione dalla chiusura della mostra di cera e dal completamento delle cerimonie nuziali, considerarono il suo arrivo come poco più che una speciale provvidenza, e lo salutarono con dimostrazioni di gioia vivissima.

Non partecipando affatto alla sensazione generale, ma con l’aria depressa e stanca di chi cerca di meditare sulla sua delusione in silenzio e in privato, il signore scese e aiutò la madre di Kit a scendere con una cortesia cupa che colpì molto gli spettatori. Fatto ciò, le offrì il braccio e la scortò nella casa, mentre diversi camerieri attivi correvano avanti come una pattuglia di ricognizione, per liberare il passaggio e mostrare la stanza che era pronta per riceverli.

“Qualsiasi stanza va bene”, disse il signorino. “Basta che sia vicina.”

‘Chiuda qui, signore, se vuole essere così gentile da venire da questa parte.’

«Il signore gradirebbe questa stanza?» disse una voce, mentre una piccola porta fuori mano alla base della scala si aprì rapidamente e una testa spuntò fuori. «È più che benvenuto. È benvenuto come i fiori a maggio, o il carbone a Natale. Gradirebbe questa stanza, signore? Onori la con la sua presenza. Mi faccia il favore, la prego.»

«Dio mio!» esclamò la madre di Kit, arretrando in estrema sorpresa, «pensate un po’!»

Aveva qualche motivo di stupirsi, perché la persona che offriva l’invito gentile non era altri che Daniel Quilp. La piccola porta da cui aveva spinto fuori la testa era vicina alla dispensa dell’osteria; ed eccolo lì, che si inchinava con una grotesca cortesia, tanto a suo agio come se la porta fosse stata quella della sua casa; rovinando tutte le gambe di agnello e le carni fredde di pollame con la sua vicinanza, e sembrando il genio maligno delle cantine emerso dal sottosuolo per compiere qualche maleficio.

«Mi farebbe l’onore?» disse Quilp.

«Preferisco stare solo», rispose il signore scapolo.

«Oh!» disse Quilp. E con ciò, si tuffò di nuovo dentro con un balzo e sbatté la porticina, come una figura in un orologio olandese quando batte l’ora.

«Perché è stato solo ieri sera, signore», sussurrò la madre di Kit, «che l’ho lasciato a Little Bethel.»

“Proprio così!” disse il suo compagno di viaggio. “Quando è arrivata quella persona, cameriere?”

«Sono sceso con il diligenza notturna, questa mattina, signore.»

«Ehm! E quando se ne va?»

«Non posso dirlo, signore, davvero. Quando la cameriera gli ha chiesto poco fa se desiderasse un letto, signore, lui prima ha fatto delle smorfie e poi ha voluto baciarla.»

«Pregatelo di venire da questa parte», disse il signore da solo. «Sarei felice di scambiare due parole con lui, ditegli. Pregatelo di venire subito, avete capito?»

L’uomo rimase a fissare ricevute queste istruzioni, perché l’unico signore non aveva solo mostrato tanto stupore quanto la madre di Kit alla vista del nanerottolo, ma, non avendo alcun timore di lui, si era dato meno pena per nascondere il suo disappunto e la sua repulsione. Partì per la sua commissione, tuttavia, e tornò immediatamente, facendo entrare l’oggetto della sua ricerca.

«Il vostro servo, signore», disse il nanerottolo, «ho incontrato il vostro messaggero a metà strada. Ho pensato che mi avreste permesso di porgervi i miei omaggi. Spero che stiate bene. Spero che stiate molto bene.»

Ci fu una breve pausa, mentre il nanerottolo, con gli occhi semichiusi e il viso contratto, rimase in attesa di una risposta. Non ricevendone, si voltò verso la sua conoscenza più familiare.

«La madre di Christopher!» esclamò. «Una signora così cara, una donna così degna, così benedetta nel suo onesto figlio! Come sta la madre di Christopher? L’aria e il paesaggio nuovi le hanno giovato? E la sua piccola famiglia, e Christopher? Stanno prosperando? Stanno fiorendo? Stanno crescendo in cittadini degni, eh?»

Alzando la voce di tono ad ogni domanda successiva, Quilp terminò con un acuto strillo, e si calmò in quello sguardo ansimante che era abituale in lui, e che, fosse assunto o naturale, aveva ugualmente l’effetto di scacciare ogni espressione dal suo volto, e di renderlo, per quanto potesse offrire un indice del suo umore o del suo significato, un perfetto vuoto.

«Signor Quilp», disse il gentiluomo scapolo.

Il nanerottolo si mise una mano sul grande orecchio a sventola e simulò la più attenta ascolto.

‘Noi due ci siamo già incontrati prima—’

«Certo», esclamò Quilp, annuendo. «Oh, certo, signore. Un tale onore e piacere - è entrambe le cose, madre di Christopher, è entrambe le cose - non si dimentica così presto. Per niente!»

«Potreste ricordare che il giorno in cui arrivai a Londra, e trovai la casa a cui mi portarono, vuota e deserta, fui indirizzato da alcuni dei vicini a voi, e vi aspettai senza fermarmi per riposo o ristoro?»

«Com’era precipitoso, eppure che misura seria e vigorosa!» disse Quilp, consultandosi con se stesso, in imitazione del suo amico Sampson Brass.

«Ho scoperto», disse il signore da solo, «che tu eri in modo del tutto inspiegabile in possesso di tutto ciò che aveva appartenuto a un altro uomo, e che quell’altro uomo, che fino al momento in cui tu avevi messo piede nella sua proprietà era stato considerato benestante, era stato ridotto all’improvviso in condizioni di estrema povertà e cacciato da casa e famiglia.»

«Avevamo un mandato per quello che abbiamo fatto, mio buon signore», ribatté Quilp, «avevamo il nostro mandato. Non dica neanche spinto. Se ne è andato di sua spontanea volontà, è scomparso nella notte, signore.»

‘No matter,’ said the single gentleman angrily. ‘He was gone.’

‘Yes, he was gone,’ said Quilp, with the same exasperating composure. ‘No doubt he was gone. The only question was, where. And it’s a question still.’

‘Now, what am I to think,’ said the single gentleman, sternly regarding him, ‘of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any information then—nay, obviously holding back, and sheltering yourself with all kinds of cunning, trickery, and evasion—are dogging my footsteps now?’

‘I dogging!’ cried Quilp.

‘Why, are you not?’ returned his questioner, fretted into a state of the utmost irritation. ‘Were you not a few hours since, sixty miles off, and in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say her prayers?’

‘She was there too, I think?’ said Quilp, still perfectly unmoved. ‘I might say, if I was inclined to be rude, how do I know but you are dogging MY footsteps. Yes, I was at chapel. What then? I’ve read in books that pilgrims were used to go to chapel before they went on journeys, to put up petitions for their safe return. Wise men! journeys are very perilous—especially outside the coach. Wheels come off, horses take fright, coachmen drive too fast, coaches overturn. I always go to chapel before I start on journeys. It’s the last thing I do on such occasions, indeed.’

That Quilp lied most heartily in this speech, it needed no very great penetration to discover, although for anything that he suffered to appear in his face, voice, or manner, he might have been clinging to the truth with the quiet constancy of a martyr.

‘In the name of all that’s calculated to drive one crazy, man,’ said the unfortunate single gentleman, ‘have you not, for some reason of your own, taken upon yourself my errand? don’t you know with what object I have come here, and if you do know, can you throw no light upon it?’

‘You think I’m a conjuror, sir,’ replied Quilp, shrugging up his shoulders. ‘If I was, I should tell my own fortune—and make it.’

‘Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,’ returned the other, throwing himself impatiently upon a sofa. ‘Pray leave us, if you please.’

‘Willingly,’ returned Quilp. ‘Most willingly. Christopher’s mother, my good soul, farewell. A pleasant journey—back, sir. Ahem!’

With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features altogether indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of every monstrous grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the dwarf slowly retreated and closed the door behind him.

‘Oho!’ he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself down in a chair with his arms akimbo. ‘Oho! Are you there, my friend? In-deed!’

Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself for the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by twisting it into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp, rocking himself to and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at the same time, fell into certain meditations, of which it may be necessary to relate the substance.

First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing to that spot, which were briefly these. Dropping in at Mr Sampson Brass’s office on the previous evening, in the absence of that gentleman and his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller, who chanced at the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and water on the dust of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the phrase goes, rather copiously. But as clay in the abstract, when too much moistened, becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency, breaking down in unexpected places, retaining impressions but faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of character, so Mr Swiveller’s clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture, was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the various ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinctive character, and running into each other. It is not uncommon for human clay in this condition to value itself above all things upon its great prudence and sagacity; and Mr Swiveller, especially prizing himself upon these qualities, took occasion to remark that he had made strange discoveries in connection with the single gentleman who lodged above, which he had determined to keep within his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor cajolery should ever induce him to reveal. Of this determination Mr Quilp expressed his high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to goad Mr Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this was the secret which was never to be disclosed.

Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who had waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries that this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit was the recovery of his old client and the child. Burning with curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce upon Kit’s mother as the person least able to resist his arts, and consequently the most likely to be entrapped into such revelations as he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her house. The good woman being from home, he made inquiries of a neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and being directed to the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay her, at the conclusion of the service.

He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over the joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared. Watchful as a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business. Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he withdrew with his family, shot out after him. In fine, he traced them to the notary’s house; learnt the destination of the carriage from one of the postilions; and knowing that a fast night-coach started for the same place, at the very hour which was on the point of striking, from a street hard by, darted round to the coach-office without more ado, and took his seat upon the roof. After passing and repassing the carriage on the road, and being passed and repassed by it sundry times in the course of the night, according as their stoppages were longer or shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they reached the town almost together. Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the crowd, learnt the single gentleman’s errand, and its failure, and having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried off, reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed, and shut himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all these occurrences.

‘Non importa’, disse il signore solo con rabbia. ‘Se n’era andato.’

«Sì, se n’era andato», disse Quilp, con la stessa esasperante calma. «Nessun dubbio che se n’era andato. La sola questione era, dove. E lo è ancora.»

«Ora, che cosa devo pensare», disse il signore scapolo, guardandolo severamente, «di voi, che, chiaramente indisposto a darmi informazioni allora - anzi, ovviamente trattenendovi, e nascondendovi dietro ogni sorta di astuzia, trucchi ed evasività - state seguendo i miei passi ora?»

«Io sto abbaiando!» gridò Quilp.

«E perché, non lo siete?» replicò il suo interlocutore, esasperato al massimo grado. «Non eravate forse, poche ore fa, a sessanta miglia di distanza, nella cappella dove questa buona donna va a recitare le sue preghiere?»

«Era anche lei lì, credo?» disse Quilp, sempre perfettamente impassibile. «Potrei dire, se fossi incline a essere scortese, come faccio a sapere che non state spiando ME. Sì, ero in chiesa. E allora? Ho letto nei libri che i pellegrini erano soliti andare in chiesa prima di partire per i viaggi, per presentare petizioni per il loro sicuro ritorno. Saggi uomini! I viaggi sono molto pericolosi, specialmente fuori dalla carrozza. Le ruote si staccano, i cavalli prendono paura, i cocchieri guidano troppo veloce, le carrozze capovolgonsi. Io vado sempre in chiesa prima di partire per i viaggi. È l’ultima cosa che faccio in tali occasioni, davvero.»

Che Quilp mentisse con grande convinzione in questo discorso, non occorreva grande perspicacia per scoprirlo, anche se, per quanto appariva in volto, nella voce o nei modi, avrebbe potuto sembrare che si aggrappasse alla verità con la calma costanza di un martire.

«In nome di tutto ciò che può far impazzire un uomo», disse il povero scapolo, «non avete forse, per qualche vostro motivo, preso su di voi la mia commissione? Non sapete con quale scopo sono venuto qui, e se lo sapete, non potete darmi alcuna spiegazione?»

«Pensate che io sia un mago, signore», rispose Quilp, alzando le spalle. «Se lo fossi, mi leggerei la sorte, e la farei.»

«Ah! abbiamo detto tutto ciò che c’era da dire, vedo», rispose l’altro, gettandosi impazientemente su un divano. «La prego, vada via, per favore.»

«Volentieri», rispose Quilp. «Molto volentieri. Addio, madre di Christopher, mia buona anima. Un piacevole viaggio, di ritorno, signore. Ahem!»

Con queste parole di commiato, e con un ghigno sul volto assolutamente indescrivibile, ma che sembrava composto da ogni mostruosa smorfia di cui uomini o scimmie sono capaci, il nanerottolo si ritirò lentamente e chiuse la porta dietro di sé.

«Oho!» disse quando fu di nuovo nella sua stanza e si sedette su una sedia con le braccia in croce. «Oho! Sei qui, amico mio? In-fatti!»

Ridacchiando come se fosse in preda a una grande allegria, e premiandosi per la moderazione che aveva recentemente imposto al suo volto, contorcendolo in tutte le immaginabili varietà di bruttezza, il signor Quilp, dondolandosi avanti e indietro sulla sua sedia e cullando la sua gamba sinistra allo stesso tempo, cadde in certe meditazioni, di cui potrebbe essere necessario raccontare il contenuto.

Innanzitutto, egli rievocò le circostanze che lo avevano condotto in quel luogo, che erano in breve queste. Entrando nell’ufficio del signor Sampson Brass la sera precedente, in assenza di quel gentiluomo e della sua colta sorella, aveva incontrato il signor Swiveller, che in quel momento stava versando un bicchiere di gin caldo e acqua sulla polvere della legge, e stava bagnando la sua argilla, come si suol dire, piuttosto abbondantemente. Ma come l’argilla in astratto, quando troppo bagnata, diventa di una consistenza debole e incerta, cedendo in punti inaspettati, restando impressionata solo debolmente, e non conservando forza o stabilità di carattere, così l’argilla del signor Swiveller, avendo assorbito una notevole quantità di umidità, era in uno stato molto lasso e scivoloso, tanto che le varie idee impresse su di essa stavano rapidamente perdendo il loro carattere distintivo, e si fondevano l’una nell’altra. Non è raro che l’argilla umana in questo stato si prezzi sopra ogni cosa della sua grande prudenza e perspicacia; e il signor Swiveller, apprezzandosi particolarmente per queste qualità, ebbe occasione di osservare che aveva fatto strane scoperte in connessione con il gentiluomo single che alloggiava sopra, che aveva deciso di tenere per sé, e che né torture né blandizie avrebbero mai indotto lui a rivelare. Di questa determinazione il signor Quilp esprimeva la sua alta approvazione, e mettendosi nello stesso respiro a spronare il signor Swiveller a ulteriori accenni, presto fece capire che il gentiluomo single era stato visto in comunicazione con Kit, e che questo era il segreto che non sarebbe mai stato rivelato.

Possedendo questa informazione, il signor Quilp supponeva subito che il signorino al piano di sopra dovesse essere lo stesso individuo che lo aveva atteso, e avendo assicurato se stesso con ulteriori indagini che questo sospetto era corretto, non ebbe difficoltà a giungere alla conclusione che l’intento e l’oggetto della sua corrispondenza con Kit fosse il recupero del suo vecchio cliente e del bambino. Bruciante di curiosità per sapere quali procedimenti fossero in atto, decise di piombare sulla madre di Kit come la persona meno capace di resistere ai suoi artifici, e di conseguenza la più probabile da intrappolare in tali rivelazioni come quelle che cercava; così, prendendo un brusco congedo dal signor Swiveller, si affrettò verso la sua casa. La brava donna essendo fuori casa, fece delle indagini presso un vicino, come fece Kit stesso poco dopo, e essendo stato indirizzato alla cappella, si recò lì, per tenderle un’imboscata, al termine del servizio.

Non era seduto nella cappella da più di un quarto d’ora, con gli occhi devotamente fissi sul soffitto, e stava ridacchiando tra sé per la burla di trovarsi lì, quando apparve Kit in persona. Astuto come un lince, uno sguardo gli bastò per capire che il nano era venuto per affari. Assorto in apparenza, come abbiamo visto, e fingendo una profonda astrazione, notò ogni circostanza del suo comportamento, e quando se ne andò con la sua famiglia, lo seguì. Insomma, li seguì fino alla casa del notaio; seppe la destinazione della carrozza da uno dei postiglioni; e sapendo che un veloce corriere notturno partiva per lo stesso posto, proprio all’ora che stava per suonare, da una strada vicina, si precipitò senza indugio all’ufficio del corriere, e prese posto sul tetto. Dopo aver superato e risuperato la carrozza sulla strada, ed essere stato superato e risuperato da essa diverse volte nel corso della notte, secondo che le loro soste erano più lunghe o più corte, o la loro velocità variava, raggiunsero la città quasi insieme. Quilp tenne la carrozza in vista, si mescolò con la folla, seppe l’errand del gentiluomo e il suo insuccesso, e avendo acquisito tutto ciò che era importante sapere, si affrettò a partire, raggiunse la locanda prima di lui, ebbe l’intervista appena descritta, e si rinchiuse nella piccola stanza in cui passò in rassegna in fretta tutti questi avvenimenti.

‘You are there, are you, my friend?’ he repeated, greedily biting his nails. ‘I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit’s the confidential agent, is he? I shall have to dispose of him, I fear. If we had come up with them this morning,’ he continued, after a thoughtful pause, ‘I was ready to prove a pretty good claim. I could have made my profit. But for these canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get this fiery gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend—our mutual friend, ha! ha!—and chubby, rosy Nell. At the worst, it’s a golden opportunity, not to be lost. Let us find them first, and I’ll find means of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while there are prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or kinsman safely. I hate your virtuous people!’ said the dwarf, throwing off a bumper of brandy, and smacking his lips, ‘ah! I hate ‘em every one!’

This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client:—the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him and elude his vigilance—the child, because she was the object of Mrs Quilp’s commiseration and constant self-reproach—the single gentleman, because of his unconcealed aversion to himself—Kit and his mother, most mortally, for the reasons shown. Above and beyond that general feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from his ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances, Daniel Quilp hated them every one.

In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man and his grandchild. But all was in vain. Not the slightest trace or clue could be obtained. They had left the town by night; no one had seen them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no coach, cart, or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their description; nobody had fallen in with them, or heard of them. Convinced at last that for the present all such attempts were hopeless, he appointed two or three scouts, with promises of large rewards in case of their forwarding him any intelligence, and returned to London by next day’s coach.

It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place upon the roof, that Kit’s mother was alone inside; from which circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another; getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and embody that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little Bethel, and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley’s and oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.

Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother’s intended return, was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise when he saw, leering over the coachman’s shoulder like some familiar demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp.

‘How are you, Christopher?’ croaked the dwarf from the coach-top. ‘All right, Christopher. Mother’s inside.’

‘Why, how did he come here, mother?’ whispered Kit.

‘I don’t know how he came or why, my dear,’ rejoined Mrs Nubbles, dismounting with her son’s assistance, ‘but he has been a terrifying of me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.’

‘He has?’ cried Kit.

‘You wouldn’t believe it, that you wouldn’t,’ replied his mother, ‘but don’t say a word to him, for I really don’t believe he’s human. Hush! Don’t turn round as if I was talking of him, but he’s a squinting at me now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!’

In spite of his mother’s injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look. Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial contemplation.

‘Oh, he’s the artfullest creetur!’ cried Mrs Nubbles. ‘But come away. Don’t speak to him for the world.’

‘Yes I will, mother. What nonsense. I say, sir—’

Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.

‘You let my mother alone, will you?’ said Kit. ‘How dare you tease a poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she hadn’t got enough to make her so, without you. An’t you ashamed of yourself, you little monster?’

‘Monster!’ said Quilp inwardly, with a smile. ‘Ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywhere for a penny—monster—ah!’

‘You show her any of your impudence again,’ resumed Kit, shouldering the bandbox, ‘and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won’t bear with you any more. You have no right to do it; I’m sure we never interfered with you. This isn’t the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her again, you’ll oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on account of your size) to beat you.’

Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him, retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in a phantasmagoria. Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an immediate assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures, snapped his fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as fast as she could, and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob and the baby, looking anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were following.

«Siete qui, dunque, amico mio?» ripeté, mordendosi avidamente le unghie. «Sono sospettato e messo da parte, e Kit è l’agente di fiducia, eh? Dovrò sbarazzarmi di lui, temo. Se li avessimo incontrati questa mattina,» continuò, dopo una pausa pensierosa, «ero pronto a dimostrare un diritto piuttosto valido. Avrei potuto trarne profitto. Ma per questi ipocriti cantanti, il ragazzo e sua madre, avrei potuto catturare questo signore focoso nella mia rete con la stessa facilità con cui ho fatto con il nostro vecchio amico — il nostro amico comune, ah! ah! — e con la paffuta e rosea Nell. Al peggio, è un’occasione d’oro, da non perdere. Troviamoli prima, e troverò il modo di spremervi un po’ del vostro denaro superfluo, signore, mentre ci sono le sbarre della prigione, e i chiavistelli, e le serrature, per tenere al sicuro il vostro amico o parente. Odio la gente virtuosa!» disse il nanerottolo, svuotando un boccale di brandy e leccandosi le labbra, «ah! li odio tutti quanti!»

Questo non era un semplice vanto vano, ma una deliberata dichiarazione dei suoi veri sentimenti; poiché il signor Quilp, che non amava nessuno, era arrivato, poco a poco, a odiare quasi tutti o remotamente connessi al suo cliente rovinato:—lo stesso vecchio, perché era stato capace di ingannarlo ed eludere la sua vigilanza—la bambina, perché era oggetto della compassione della signora Quilp e del suo costante rimorso—il gentiluomo scapolo, a causa della sua avversione non nascosta verso di lui—Kit e sua madre, in modo particolarmente mortale, per le ragioni indicate. Oltre a quel sentimento generale di opposizione nei loro confronti, che sarebbe stato inseparabile dal suo vorace desiderio di arricchirsi grazie a queste mutate circostanze, Daniel Quilp li odiava tutti.

In questo umore amichevole, il signor Quilp si rianimò insieme ai suoi odi con altro brandy, e poi, cambiando quartiere, si ritirò in un oscuro pub, sotto la protezione di quel rifugio istituì tutte le possibili indagini che potessero portare alla scoperta del vecchio e della sua nipote. Ma tutto fu vano. Non si poté ottenere il minimo indizio o traccia. Erano usciti dalla città di notte; nessuno li aveva visti partire; nessuno li aveva incontrati sulla strada; il conducente di nessun carrozza, carro o vagone, aveva visto dei viaggiatori che corrispondevano alla loro descrizione; nessuno li aveva incontrati o sentiti parlare. Convinto infine che per il momento tutti questi tentativi erano disperati, nominò due o tre esploratori, con la promessa di ricche ricompense nel caso avessero fornito informazioni, e tornò a Londra con il primo treno del giorno dopo.

Fu per il signor Quilp una certa consolazione scoprire, mentre prendeva posto sul tetto, che la madre di Kit era sola all’interno; da questa circostanza traeva, nel corso del viaggio, molta allegria d’animo, in quanto la sua condizione di solitudine gli permetteva di terrorizzarla con molti straordinari fastidi; come ad esempio penzolare dal lato del calesse a rischio della sua vita, e fissarla con i suoi grandi occhi sporgenti, che sembravano a lei ancora più orribili dal momento che il suo viso era sottosopra; schivandola in questo modo da una finestra all’altra; scendendo agilmente ogni volta che cambiavano i cavalli e infilando la testa nella finestra con uno sguardo tetto: queste ingegnose torture ebbero un tale effetto su Mrs Nubbles, che per il tempo non fu in grado di resistere alla convinzione che il signor Quilp rappresentasse e incarnasse in persona quella Potenza del Male, che era stato così vigorosamente attaccato a Little Bethel, e che, a causa delle sue cadute rispetto ad Astley e alle ostriche, era ora frivolo e rampante.

Kit, avendo ricevuto notizia per lettera del ritorno della madre, l’aspettava all’ufficio della diligenza; e grande fu la sua sorpresa quando vide, che sbirciava sopra la spalla del cocchiere come un demone familiare, invisibile a tutti gli occhi tranne ai suoi, il volto ben noto di Quilp.

«Come stai, Christopher?» gracchiò il nanerottolo dal tetto della carrozza. «Tutto bene, Christopher. La mamma è dentro.»

«Ma come è arrivato qui, mamma?» sussurrò Kit.

«Non so come sia arrivato o perché, mia cara», rispose la signora Nubbles, smontando con l’aiuto di suo figlio, «ma mi ha terrorizzato al punto da farmi perdere i sette sensi per tutto questo benedetto giorno.»

«L’ha?» esclamò Kit.

«Non ci credereste, davvero no», rispose sua madre, «ma non ne parlate con lui, perché in verità non credo che sia umano. Ssst! Non voltatevi come se stessi parlando di lui, ma ora mi sta fissando con lo sguardo storto, proprio terribile, sotto la luce accecante della lanterna del calesse!»

Nonostante l’ingiunzione di sua madre, Kit si voltò bruscamente per guardare. Il signor Quilp stava fissando serenamente le stelle, completamente assorbito nella contemplazione celeste.

«Oh, è la creatura più astuta!» esclamò la signora Nubbles. «Ma andiamocene. Non parlate con lui per nessun motivo al mondo.»

‘Sì, lo farò, mamma. Che sciocchezza. Dico, signore—’

Il signor Quilp fece finta di sobbalzare e guardò intorno sorridendo.

«Lasci in pace mia madre, vuole?» disse Kit. «Come osa prendere in giro una povera donna sola come lei, facendola sentire infelice e malinconica come se non avesse già abbastanza problemi senza di lei. Non ha vergogna di sé, piccolo mostro?»

«Mostro!», disse Quilp tra sé, con un sorriso. «Il più brutto nanerottolo che si potesse vedere da nessuna parte per un penny — mostro — ah!»

«Se le mostri ancora una volta la sua insolenza», riprese Kit, mettendosi in spalla la scatola di cappelli, «le dico una cosa, signor Quilp: non la tollererò più. Non ha alcun diritto di farlo; sono sicuro che noi non ci siamo mai intromessi nelle sue faccende. Non è la prima volta; e se mai la infastidisce o la spaventa ancora, mi costringerà (anche se mi dispiacerebbe molto farlo, considerando le sue dimensioni) a picchiarla».

Quilp non rispose con una sola parola, ma camminando così vicino a Kit da portare i suoi occhi a due o tre pollici dal suo viso, lo guardò fissamente, si ritirò un po’ senza distogliere lo sguardo, si avvicinò di nuovo, si ritirò di nuovo, e così via per una mezza dozzina di volte, come una testa in una fantasmagoria. Kit rimase al suo posto come se si aspettasse un attacco immediato, ma trovando che nulla derivava da questi gesti, fece schioccare le dita e se ne andò; sua madre lo trascinò via il più velocemente possibile, e, anche nel bel mezzo delle sue notizie su piccolo Giacobbe e il bambino, guardava ansiosamente oltre la sua spalla per vedere se Quilp li stesse seguendo.

CHAPTER 49

Kit’s mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp’s thoughts than any intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with which they had parted. He went his way, whistling from time to time some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed, jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no intelligence of him for three whole days and two nights, and having had no previous notice of his absence, was doubtless by that time in a state of distraction, and constantly fainting away with anxiety and grief.

This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf’s humour, and so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on before him expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.

In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when, gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried more light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing nearer, and listening attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.

‘Ha!’ cried the jealous dwarf, ‘What’s this! Do they entertain visitors while I’m away!’

A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his pockets for his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no resource but to knock at the door.

‘A light in the passage,’ said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole. ‘A very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you unawares. Soho!’

A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within. But after a second application to the knocker, no louder than the first, the door was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom Quilp instantly gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street with the other.

‘You’ll throttle me, master,’ whispered the boy. ‘Let go, will you.’

‘Who’s up stairs, you dog?’ retorted Quilp in the same tone. ‘Tell me. And don’t speak above your breath, or I’ll choke you in good earnest.’

The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution, or at least have made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy’s nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to catch him by the hair of the head, his master was obliged to come to a parley.

‘Will you answer me?’ said Quilp. ‘What’s going on, above?’

‘You won’t let one speak,’ replied the boy. ‘They—ha, ha, ha!—they think you’re—you’re dead. Ha ha ha!’

‘Dead!’ cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. ‘No. Do they? Do they really, you dog?’

‘They think you’re—you’re drowned,’ replied the boy, who in his malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. ‘You was last seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over. Ha ha!’

The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have inspired him with. He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant, and they both stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping and wagging their heads at each other, on either side of the post, like an unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.

‘Not a word,’ said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. ‘Not a sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb. Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp! Drowned!’

So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy of summersets on the pavement.

The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped in, and planted himself behind the door of communication between that chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed enlarged with his pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but to see distinctly, what was passing.

Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum—his own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica—convenient to his hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy. At the same table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; no longer sipping other people’s punch feloniously with teaspoons, but taking deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter—not exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow nevertheless—was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid. There were also present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them certain machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated with a stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish, and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.

CAPITOLO 49

La madre di Kit avrebbe potuto risparmiarsi la fatica di voltarsi così spesso, perché nulla era più lontano dai pensieri di Mr Quilp di avere l’intenzione di inseguirla, lei e suo figlio, o di rinnovare la lite con cui si erano separati. Lui proseguì per la sua strada, fischiettando di tanto in tanto qualche frammento di una melodia; e con un volto del tutto tranquillo e composto, si diresse piacevolmente verso casa; intrattenendosi lungo il cammino con visioni delle paure e dei terrori della signora Quilp, che, non avendo ricevuto alcuna notizia di lui per tre giorni interi e due notti, e non avendo avuto alcun preavviso della sua assenza, era senza dubbio a quell’ora in uno stato di disperazione, e sveniva continuamente per l’ansia e il dolore.

Questa probabilità scherzosa era così congeniale all’nanerottolo’s umore, e così squisitamente divertente per lui, che rise mentre camminava finché le lacrime non gli scorrevano lungo le guance; e più di una volta, quando si trovava in una stradina laterale, sfogò la sua gioia con un acuto urlo, che terrorizzava grandemente qualsiasi passante solitario, che per caso stava camminando davanti a lui aspettandosi qualcosa di così poco, aumentando la sua allegria e rendendolo notevolmente di buon umore e spensierato.

In questo felice stato d’animo, il signor Quilp raggiunse la collina della Torre, quando, guardando in su verso la finestra del suo salotto, gli parve di scorgere più luce del solito in una casa in lutto. Avvicinandosi e ascoltando attentamente, poteva sentire diverse voci impegnate in una conversazione seria, tra le quali poteva distinguere, non solo quelle di sua moglie e suocera, ma anche le voci di uomini.

‘Ah!’ esclamò il geloso nanerottolo, ‘Che cosa è questa! Divertono i visitatori mentre sono lontano!’

Una tosse soffocata dall’alto fu la risposta. Frugò nelle tasche alla ricerca della chiave, ma l’aveva dimenticata. Non c’era altro da fare che bussare alla porta.

«Una luce nel corridoio», disse Quilp, spiando dal buco della serratura. «Un colpetto molto leggero; e, con il suo permesso, signora, potrei ancora coglierla di sorpresa. Soho!»

Un colpetto molto sommesso e gentile non ricevette risposta dall’interno. Ma dopo un secondo colpetto alla maniglia, non più forte del primo, la porta si aprì dolcemente e apparve il ragazzo del molo, che Quilp soffocò immediatamente con una mano e trascinò in strada con l’altra.

«Mi strozzerai, padrone», sussurrò il ragazzo. «Lasciami andare, per favore.»

«Chi c’è di sopra, cane?» ribatté Quilp con lo stesso tono. «Dimmi. E non alzare la voce, o ti strozzo sul serio.»

Il ragazzo non poté fare altro che indicare la finestra e rispondere con una risatina soffocata, che esprimeva un godimento così intenso che Quilp lo afferrò per la gola e avrebbe potuto portare a termine la sua minaccia, o almeno fare grandi progressi in tal senso, se il ragazzo non si fosse liberato agilmente dalla sua presa e non si fosse rifugiato dietro il palo più vicino, dietro il quale, dopo alcuni tentativi infruttuosi di afferrarlo per i capelli, il suo padrone fu costretto a trattare.

‘Mi risponderai?’ disse Quilp. ‘Che succede lassù?’

«Non lasciate che uno parli», rispose il ragazzo. «Loro, ah, ah, ah!, pensano che voi siate, siate morto. Ah, ah, ah!»

«Morta!» esclamò Quilp, scoppiando a sua volta in una risata sinistra. «No. Lo fanno? Lo fanno davvero, cane che sei?»

«Pensano che tu sia—tu sia annegato», rispose il ragazzo, che nella sua natura maligna aveva una forte infusione del suo padrone. «L’ultima volta che ti hanno visto eri sul bordo del molo, e pensano che tu sia caduto. Ha ha!»

La prospettiva di fare lo spia in circostanze così deliziose e di deluderli tutti entrando vivo, diede a Quilp più piacere di quanto avrebbe potuto ispirargli la più grande fortuna. Era altrettanto divertito del suo speranzoso assistente, e rimasero entrambi per alcuni secondi, sogghignando e ansimando e scuotendo le teste l’uno verso l’altro, da entrambi i lati del palo, come una coppia ineguagliabile di idoli cinesi.

«Niente una parola», disse Quilp, dirigendosi verso la porta in punta di piedi. «Niente un suono, niente un cigolio di tavola, o un inciampo contro una ragnatela. Annegata, eh, signora Quilp! Annegata!»

Detto ciò, soffiò sulla candela, si tolse le scarpe a calci e si diresse tastoni verso le scale; lasciando il suo giovane amico, deliziato, in estasi a fare capriole sul marciapiede.

La porta della camera da letto sulle scale essendo aperta, il signor Quilp entrò e si piazzò dietro la porta di comunicazione tra quella camera e il salotto, che era socchiusa per rendere l’ambiente più arioso e aveva una fessura molto comoda (di cui aveva spesso approfittato per spiare, e che aveva addirittura allargato con il suo coltellino tascabile), che gli permetteva non solo di sentire, ma di vedere distintamente, ciò che stava accadendo.

Applicando l’occhio a questo punto comodo, scorse il signor Brass seduto al tavolo con penna, inchiostro e carta, e la bottiglia di rum—la sua bottiglia di rum, e il suo particolare Jamaica—a portata di mano; con acqua calda, limoni profumati, zucchero di canna bianco, e tutte le cose adatte; da questi materiali scelti, Sampson, che non era affatto insensibile alle loro pretese sulla sua attenzione, aveva preparato un grande bicchiere di punch fumante; che in quel preciso momento stava mescolando con un cucchiaino da tè, e contemplava con uno sguardo in cui un debole assunto di rimpianto sentimentale, lottava debolmente con una gioia dolce e confortevole. Allo stesso tavolo, con entrambi i gomiti su di esso, c’era la signora Jiniwin; non più a sorseggiare il punch altrui furtivamente con cucchiaini da tè, ma prendendo lunghi sorsi da un boccale suo; mentre sua figlia—non esattamente con ceneri sulla testa, o sacco di capra sulla schiena, ma conservando comunque un aspetto di dolore molto decente e appropriato—era adagiata in una poltrona, e placava il suo dolore con una minore quantità dello stesso liquido scivoloso. Erano presenti anche un paio di uomini del lato dell’acqua, che portavano tra loro certe macchine chiamate draghe; anche questi tizi erano accomodati con un bicchiere rigido a testa; e poiché bevevano con grande gusto, e avevano naturalmente un aspetto conviviale con il naso rosso e il viso pieno di brufoli, la loro presenza aumentava piuttosto che diminuire quell’aspetto deciso di comfort, che era la grande caratteristica della compagnia.

‘If I could poison that dear old lady’s rum and water,’ murmured Quilp, ‘I’d die happy.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the ceiling with a sigh, ‘Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now! Who knows but he may be surveying of us from—from somewheres or another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh Lor!’

Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed; looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.

‘I can almost fancy,’ said the lawyer shaking his head, ‘that I see his eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we look upon his like again? Never, never!’ One minute we are here’—holding his tumbler before his eyes—‘the next we are there’—gulping down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a little below the chest—‘in the silent tomb. To think that I should be drinking his very rum! It seems like a dream.’

With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners.

‘The search has been quite unsuccessful then?’

‘Quite, master. But I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he’ll come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?’

The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to receive him whenever he arrived.

‘Then we have nothing for it but resignation,’ said Mr Brass; ‘nothing but resignation and expectation. It would be a comfort to have his body; it would be a dreary comfort.’

‘Oh, beyond a doubt,’ assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; ‘if we once had that, we should be quite sure.’

‘With regard to the descriptive advertisement,’ said Sampson Brass, taking up his pen. ‘It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his traits. Respecting his legs now—?’

‘Crooked, certainly,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. ‘Do you think they WERE crooked?’ said Brass, in an insinuating tone. ‘I think I see them now coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen’ pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we say crooked?’

‘I think they were a little so,’ observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.

‘Legs crooked,’ said Brass, writing as he spoke. ‘Large head, short body, legs crooked—’

‘Very crooked,’ suggested Mrs Jiniwin.

‘We’ll not say very crooked, ma’am,’ said Brass piously. ‘Let us not bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone, ma’am, to where his legs will never come in question.—We will content ourselves with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.’

‘I thought you wanted the truth,’ said the old lady. ‘That’s all.’

‘Bless your eyes, how I love you,’ muttered Quilp. ‘There she goes again. Nothing but punch!’

‘This is an occupation,’ said the lawyer, laying down his pen and emptying his glass, ‘which seems to bring him before my eyes like the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, in the very clothes that he wore on work-a-days. His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before me like visions of my youth. His linen!’ said Mr Brass smiling fondly at the wall, ‘his linen which was always of a particular colour, for such was his whim and fancy—how plain I see his linen now!’

‘You had better go on, sir,’ said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.

‘True, ma’am, true,’ cried Mr Brass. ‘Our faculties must not freeze with grief. I’ll trouble you for a little more of that, ma’am. A question now arises, with relation to his nose.’

‘Flat,’ said Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Aquiline!’ cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the feature with his fist. ‘Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you call this flat? Do you? Eh?’

‘Oh capital, capital!’ shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit. ‘Excellent! How very good he is! He’s a most remarkable man—so extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by surprise!’

Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the dubious and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually subsided, nor to the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to the latter’s running from the room, nor to the former’s fainting away. Keeping his eye fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the table, and beginning with his glass, drank off the contents, and went regularly round until he had emptied the other two, when he seized the case-bottle, and hugging it under his arm, surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer.

‘Not yet, Sampson,’ said Quilp. ‘Not just yet!’

‘Oh very good indeed!’ cried Brass, recovering his spirits a little. ‘Ha ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! There’s not another man alive who could carry it off like that. A most difficult position to carry off. But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!’

‘Good night,’ said the dwarf, nodding expressively.

‘Good night, sir, good night,’ cried the lawyer, retreating backwards towards the door. ‘This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful. Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed, remarkably so!’

Waiting until Mr Brass’s ejaculations died away in the distance (for he continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp advanced towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid amazement.

‘Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?’ said the dwarf, holding the door open with great politeness.

‘And yesterday too, master.’

‘Dear me, you’ve had a deal of trouble. Pray consider everything yours that you find upon the—upon the body. Good night!’

The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to argue the point just then, and shuffled out of the room. The speedy clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still embracing the case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded arms, stood looking at his insensible wife like a dismounted nightmare.

«Se potessi avvelenare il rum e acqua di quella cara vecchietta», mormorò Quilp, «morirei felice.»

«Ah!» disse il signor Brass, rompendo il silenzio e alzando gli occhi al soffitto con un sospiro, «chissà se non ci sta guardando proprio ora! Chissà se non ci sta osservando da—da chissà dove, e ci sta contemplando con un occhio vigile! Oh, Signore!»

A questo punto il signor Brass si fermò per bere metà della sua bevanda, e poi riprese; guardando l’altra metà, mentre parlava, con un sorriso abbattuto.

«Posso quasi immaginare», disse l’avvocato scuotendo la testa, «di vedere il suo occhio brillare fino in fondo al mio liquore. Quando lo rivedremo? Mai, mai!» Un minuto siamo qui» - tenendo il bicchiere davanti agli occhi - «il minuto dopo siamo là» - ingoiando il contenuto e dandosi un colpo deciso poco sotto il petto - «nella tomba silenziosa. Pensare che io stia bevendo il suo stesso rum! Sembra un sogno.»

Con l’intento, senza dubbio, di mettere alla prova la realtà della sua posizione, il signor Brass spinse il suo bicchiere mentre parlava verso la signora Jiniwin affinché venisse riempito; e si rivolse ai marinai presenti.

‘Allora la ricerca è stata del tutto infruttuosa?’

«Esatto, padrone. Ma direi che se si presenta da qualche parte, domani, con la bassa marea, sbarcando da qualche parte nei pressi di Greenwich, eh, compagno?»

L’altro signore assentì, osservando che lo aspettavano all’Ospedale e che diversi pensionati sarebbero stati pronti a riceverlo non appena fosse arrivato.

«Allora non ci resta che la rassegnazione», disse il signor Brass; «nulla se non rassegnazione e attesa. Sarebbe un conforto avere il suo corpo; sarebbe un conforto triste.»

«Oh, senza ombra di dubbio,» assentì la signora Jiniwin in tutta fretta; «se una volta l’avessimo, ne saremmo del tutto sicuri.»

«Per quanto riguarda l’annuncio descrittivo», disse Sampson Brass, prendendo in mano la penna, «è un piacere malinconico ricordare i suoi tratti. Per quanto riguarda le sue gambe ora,?»

«Storti, certamente», disse la signora Jiniwin. «Pensate che fossero storti?», disse Brass, con tono insinuante. «Mi pare di vederli ora che salgono per la strada molto distanziati, in pantaloni di nankeen un po’ rimboccati e senza bretelle. Ah! che valle di lacrime in cui viviamo. Diciamo storti?»

«Penso che lo fossero un po’», osservò la signora Quilp con un singhiozzo.

«Gambe storte», disse Brass, scrivendo mentre parlava. «Testa grande, corpo corto, gambe storte—»

«Molto storta», suggerì la signora Jiniwin.

«Non diremo molto storto, signora», disse Brass con pietà. «Non dobbiamo essere troppo severi con le debolezze del defunto. È andato, signora, dove le sue gambe non saranno mai più messe in discussione. — Ci accontenteremo di storto, signora Jiniwin.»

«Pensavo che volessi la verità», disse la vecchia signora. «Questo è tutto.»

«Dio vi benedica, come vi amo», borbottò Quilp. «Ecco che se ne va di nuovo. Niente altro che punch!»

«Questa è un’occupazione», disse l’avvocato, posando la penna e vuotando il bicchiere, «che sembra portarmelo davanti agli occhi come lo spettro del padre di Amleto, con gli stessi vestiti che indossava nei giorni lavorativi. Il suo cappotto, il suo panciotto, le sue scarpe e calze, i suoi pantaloni, il suo cappello, il suo ingegno e il suo umorismo, il suo pathos e il suo ombrello, tutto mi appare davanti come visioni della mia giovinezza. La sua biancheria!», disse il signor Brass sorridendo con affetto al muro, «la sua biancheria che era sempre di un colore particolare, perché tale era il suo capriccio e la sua fantasia—quanto chiaramente vedo ora la sua biancheria!»

«È meglio che continui, signore», disse la signora Jiniwin con impazienza.

«È vero, signora, è vero», esclamò il signor Brass. «I nostri sensi non devono congelarsi nel dolore. La prego di passarmi un po’ di quello, signora. Ora sorge una questione relativa al suo naso.»

«Appartamento», disse la signora Jiniwin.

«Aquiline!» gridò Quilp, spingendo dentro la testa e colpendo il tratto con il pugno. «Aquiline, vecchia strega. Lo vedi? Chiami questo piatto? Lo chiami? Eh?»

«Oh, capitale, capitale!» gridò Brass, per puro automatismo. «Eccellente! Che brav’uomo! È un uomo straordinario, così estremamente capriccioso! Che incredibile capacità di sorprendere la gente!»

Quilp non prestò la minima attenzione a questi complimenti, né allo sguardo dubbioso e spaventato in cui l’avvocato gradualmente si abbandonò, né ai gridi di sua moglie e suocera, né alla fuga di quest’ultima dalla stanza, né al malore di quest’ultima. Tenendo lo sguardo fisso su Sampson Brass, si avvicinò al tavolo e, iniziando col suo bicchiere, bevve il contenuto e proseguì regolarmente fino a svuotare gli altri due, quando afferrò la bottiglia da viaggio e, abbracciandola sotto il braccio, lo osservò con un ghigno straordinariamente strano.

‘Non ancora, Sampson’, disse Quilp. ‘Non proprio ora!’

«Oh, davvero molto buono!» esclamò Brass, riprendendo un po’ di spirito. «Ah ah ah! Oh, estremamente buono! Non c’è un altro uomo al mondo che potrebbe portarlo a termine così. Una posizione davvero difficile da portare a termine. Ma lui ha un tale flusso di buon-umore, un flusso incredibile!»

«Buona notte,» disse il nano, annuendo in modo espressivo.

«Buona notte, signore, buona notte», gridò l’avvocato, ritirandosi all’indietro verso la porta. «Questa è davvero un’occasione gioiosa, estremamente gioiosa. Ha ha ha! Oh, molto ricca, molto ricca davvero, in modo notevole!»

Aspettò che le esclamazioni di Mr Brass si spegnessero in lontananza (perché continuò a riversarle fuori, lungo tutta la scala), poi Quilp si avvicinò ai due uomini, che ancora indugiavano in una specie di stupido stupore.

«Avete trascorso tutta la giornata a dragare il fiume, signori?», disse il nanerottolo, tenendo la porta aperta con grande cortesia.

‘E anche ieri, padrone.’

«Dio mio, avete avuto un sacco di guai. Pregovi di considerare tutto vostro quanto trovate sul—sul corpo. Buona notte!»

Gli uomini si guardarono l’un l’altro, ma non avevano evidentemente alcuna intenzione di discutere la questione in quel momento, e uscirono dalla stanza a piccoli passi. Il rapido sgombero effettuato, Quilp chiuse le porte; e ancora abbracciando la bottiglia con le spalle alzate e le braccia incrociate, rimase a guardare sua moglie insensibile come un incubo smontato.

CHAPTER 50

Matrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties concerned in the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least her full half share. Those of Mr and Mrs Quilp, however, were an exception to the general rule; the remarks which they occasioned being limited to a long soliloquy on the part of the gentleman, with perhaps a few deprecatory observations from the lady, not extending beyond a trembling monosyllable uttered at long intervals, and in a very submissive and humble tone. On the present occasion, Mrs Quilp did not for a long time venture even on this gentle defence, but when she had recovered from her fainting-fit, sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to the reproaches of her lord and master.

Of these Mr Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that even his wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his proficiency in these respects, was well-nigh beside herself with alarm. But the Jamaica rum, and the joy of having occasioned a heavy disappointment, by degrees cooled Mr Quilp’s wrath; which from being at savage heat, dropped slowly to the bantering or chuckling point, at which it steadily remained.

‘So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?’ said Quilp. ‘You thought you were a widow, eh? Ha, ha, ha, you jade.’

‘Indeed, Quilp,’ returned his wife. ‘I’m very sorry—’

‘Who doubts it!’ cried the dwarf. ‘You very sorry! to be sure you are. Who doubts that you’re VERY sorry!’

‘I don’t mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,’ said his wife, ‘but sorry that I should have been led into such a belief. I am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.’

In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her lord than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of interest in his safety which, all things considered, was rather unaccountable. Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance made no impression, farther than as it moved him to snap his fingers close to his wife’s eyes, with divers grins of triumph and derision.

‘How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or letting me hear of you or know anything about you?’ asked the poor little woman, sobbing. ‘How could you be so cruel, Quilp?’

‘How could I be so cruel! cruel!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Because I was in the humour. I’m in the humour now. I shall be cruel when I like. I’m going away again.’

‘Not again!’

‘Yes, again. I’m going away now. I’m off directly. I mean to go and live wherever the fancy seizes me—at the wharf—at the counting-house—and be a jolly bachelor. You were a widow in anticipation. Damme,’ screamed the dwarf, ‘I’ll be a bachelor in earnest.’

‘You can’t be serious, Quilp,’ sobbed his wife.

‘I tell you,’ said the dwarf, exulting in his project, ‘that I’ll be a bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I’ll have my bachelor’s hall at the counting-house, and at such times come near it if you dare. And mind too that I don’t pounce in upon you at unseasonable hours again, for I’ll be a spy upon you, and come and go like a mole or a weazel. Tom Scott—where’s Tom Scott?’

‘Here I am, master,’ cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up the window.

‘Wait there, you dog,’ returned the dwarf, ‘to carry a bachelor’s portmanteau. Pack it up, Mrs Quilp. Knock up the dear old lady to help; knock her up. Halloa there! Halloa!’

With these exclamations, Mr Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying to the door of the good lady’s sleeping-closet, beat upon it therewith until she awoke in inexpressible terror, thinking that her amiable son-in-law surely intended to murder her in justification of the legs she had slandered. Impressed with this idea, she was no sooner fairly awake than she screamed violently, and would have quickly precipitated herself out of the window and through a neighbouring skylight, if her daughter had not hastened in to undeceive her, and implore her assistance. Somewhat reassured by her account of the service she was required to render, Mrs Jiniwin made her appearance in a flannel dressing-gown; and both mother and daughter, trembling with terror and cold—for the night was now far advanced—obeyed Mr Quilp’s directions in submissive silence. Prolonging his preparations as much as possible, for their greater comfort, that eccentric gentleman superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and having added to it with his own hands, a plate, knife and fork, spoon, teacup and saucer, and other small household matters of that nature, strapped up the portmanteau, took it on his shoulders, and actually marched off without another word, and with the case-bottle (which he had never once put down) still tightly clasped under his arm. Consigning his heavier burden to the care of Tom Scott when he reached the street, taking a dram from the bottle for his own encouragement, and giving the boy a rap on the head with it as a small taste for himself, Quilp very deliberately led the way to the wharf, and reached it at between three and four o’clock in the morning.

‘Snug!’ said Quilp, when he had groped his way to the wooden counting-house, and opened the door with a key he carried about with him. ‘Beautifully snug! Call me at eight, you dog.’

With no more formal leave-taking or explanation, he clutched the portmanteau, shut the door on his attendant, and climbing on the desk, and rolling himself up as round as a hedgehog, in an old boat-cloak, fell fast asleep.

Being roused in the morning at the appointed time, and roused with difficulty, after his late fatigues, Quilp instructed Tom Scott to make a fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and to prepare some coffee for breakfast; for the better furnishing of which repast he entrusted him with certain small moneys, to be expended in the purchase of hot rolls, butter, sugar, Yarmouth bloaters, and other articles of housekeeping; so that in a few minutes a savoury meal was smoking on the board. With this substantial comfort, the dwarf regaled himself to his heart’s content; and being highly satisfied with this free and gipsy mode of life (which he had often meditated, as offering, whenever he chose to avail himself of it, an agreeable freedom from the restraints of matrimony, and a choice means of keeping Mrs Quilp and her mother in a state of incessant agitation and suspense), bestirred himself to improve his retreat, and render it more commodious and comfortable.

CAPITOLO 50

Le divergenze coniugali sono solitamente discusse dalle parti interessate sotto forma di dialogo, nel quale la signora sostiene almeno la sua metà del discorso. Quelle del signor e della signora Quilp, tuttavia, erano un’eccezione alla regola generale; le osservazioni che ne derivavano si limitavano a un lungo monologo da parte del gentiluomo, con forse qualche osservazione deprecatoria da parte della signora, che non andava oltre un monosillabo tremante pronunciato a lunghi intervalli e in un tono molto sottomesso e umile. In questa occasione, la signora Quilp non si azzardò nemmeno a questa delicata difesa per un lungo periodo, ma quando si fu ripresa dal suo svenimento, sedette in un silenzio lacrimoso, ascoltando mansueta le rimproverazioni del suo signore e padrone.

Mr Quilp pronunciò queste parole con la massima vivacità e rapidità, e con tante distorsioni di membra e lineamenti, che persino sua moglie, benché abbastanza abituata alla sua abilità in questo senso, fu quasi fuori di sé dall’allarme. Ma il rum di Giamaica e la gioia di aver causato un grave dispiacere, pian piano raffreddarono l’ira di Mr Quilp; che da un calore selvaggio, scese lentamente al punto di scherno o di risatina, a cui rimase costantemente.

«Pensavate che fossi morto e sepolto, eh?» disse Quilp. «Pensavate di essere una vedova, eh? Ah, ah, ah, vecchia strega.»

‘Infatti, Quilp,’ rispose sua moglie. ‘Mi dispiace molto—’

«Chi lo dubita!» gridò il nanerottolo. «Siete molto dispiaciuto! Certo che lo siete. Chi dubita che siate MOLTO dispiaciuto!»

«Non intendo dire che mi dispiace che tu sia tornato a casa di nuovo vivo e sano», disse sua moglie, «ma mi dispiace che io sia stata indotta a credere una cosa del genere. Mi fa piacere vederti, Quilp; davvero.»

In verità la signora Quilp sembrava molto più contenta di rivedere il suo signore di quanto ci si sarebbe potuto aspettare, e mostrava un interesse per la sua incolumità che, considerando tutto, era piuttosto inspiegabile. Su Quilp, tuttavia, questa circostanza non fece alcuna impressione, se non per spingerlo a schioccare le dita vicino agli occhi di sua moglie, con diverse smorfie di trionfo e derisione.

«Come hai potuto andartene per tanto tempo senza dirmi una parola, senza farmi sapere nulla di te?» chiese la povera piccola donna, singhiozzando. «Come hai potuto essere così crudele, Quilp?»

«Come ho potuto essere così crudele! crudele!» gridò il nanerottolo. «Perché ero di umore. Sono di umore adesso. Sarò crudele quando mi pare. Me ne vado di nuovo.»

‘Non di nuovo!’

«Sì, di nuovo. Me ne vado ora. Parto subito. Intendo andare a vivere dove mi prende la fantasia, al molo, al ufficio contabile, e fare il celibe allegra. Tu eri una vedova in anticipo. Dammi», urlò il nanerottolo, «io sarò un celibe in pieno.»

«Non potete essere serio, Quilp», singhiozzò sua moglie.

«Vi dico», disse il nanerottolo, esultante per il suo progetto, «che sarò un scapolo, un scapolo spensierato; e avrò la mia sala da scapolo nella ditta, e a quei tempi avvicinatevi se osate. E badate anche che non mi piomberò su di voi a ore inopportune di nuovo, perché vi terrò d’occhio, e andrò e verrò come una talpa o una donnola. Tom Scott, dov’è Tom Scott?»

«Eccomi, padrone», gridò la voce del ragazzo, mentre Quilp alzava la finestra.

«Aspetta lì, cane», rispose il nanerottolo, «per portare la valigia di un celibe. Faccia i bagagli, signora Quilp. Svegli la cara vecchietta per aiutarti; svegliala. Ehi là! Ehi!»

Con queste esclamazioni, il signor Quilp afferrò il pugnale e, precipitandosi alla porta del guardaroba da notte della buona signora, vi batté sopra con tale strumento finché lei non si svegliò in un terrore inesprimibile, pensando che il suo amabile genero intendesse senz’altro ucciderla per giustificare le calunnie che aveva sparso sulle sue gambe. Con questa idea in testa, appena si svegliò gridò violentemente e si sarebbe precipitata fuori dalla finestra e attraverso un lucernario vicino, se la figlia non fosse accorsa a disingannarla e a implorare il suo aiuto. Rassicurata in parte dal racconto del servizio che le veniva richiesto, la signora Jiniwin fece la sua comparsa in un accappatoio di flanella; e sia la madre che la figlia, tremanti di terrore e di freddo — poiché la notte era ormai molto avanzata — obbedirono alle istruzioni del signor Quilp in un sottomesso silenzio. Prolungando i suoi preparativi il più possibile, per il loro maggiore conforto, quel signore eccentrico sovrintendeva all’imballaggio della sua valigia, e vi aggiunse con le sue stesse mani un piatto, un coltello e una forchetta, un cucchiaio, una tazza da tè e un piattino, e altri piccoli oggetti domestici di quella natura, chiuse la valigia e se la mise in spalla, e se ne andò senza dire un’altra parola, con la bottiglia (che non aveva mai messo giù) ancora stretta sotto il braccio. Affidando il suo carico più pesante alle cure di Tom Scott quando raggiunse la strada, prese un sorso dalla bottiglia per incoraggiarsi, e diede al ragazzo una pacca in testa con essa come piccolo assaggio per lui, Quilp condusse molto deliberatamente il gruppo al molo, e lo raggiunse tra le tre e le quattro del m attina.

«Comodo!» disse Quilp, quando si fu tastato la strada fino alla cassa di legno e aprì la porta con una chiave che portava con sé. «Bellissimo comodo! Svegliami alle otto, cane.»

Senza altri convenevoli o spiegazioni, afferrò la valigia, chiuse la porta sul suo assistente, e arrampicandosi sulla scrivania, e arrotolandosi come un riccio in un vecchio mantello da barca, si addormentò profondamente.

Essendo stato svegliato al mattino all’ora stabilita, e svegliato a malincuore, dopo le sue recenti fatiche, Quilp ordinò a Tom Scott di accendere un fuoco nel cortile con vari pezzi di vecchio legname, e di preparare del caffè per la colazione; per il miglior fornimento di questo pasto gli affidò alcuni piccoli soldi, da spendere nell’acquisto di panini caldi, burro, zucchero, sardine affumicate di Yarmouth e altri articoli di casa; così che in pochi minuti un pasto saporito fumava sul tavolo. Con questo sostanzioso conforto, il nanerottolo si deliziò a sazietà; e essendo molto soddisfatto di questo libero e zingaresco modo di vivere (che aveva spesso meditato, come offrendo, quando avesse scelto di approfittarsene, una piacevole libertà dai vincoli del matrimonio, e un mezzo scelto per tenere la signora Quilp e sua madre in uno stato di incessante agitazione e sospensione), si diede da fare per migliorare il suo rifugio, e renderlo più comodo e confortevole.

With this view, he issued forth to a place hard by, where sea-stores were sold, purchased a second-hand hammock, and had it slung in seamanlike fashion from the ceiling of the counting-house. He also caused to be erected, in the same mouldy cabin, an old ship’s stove with a rusty funnel to carry the smoke through the roof; and these arrangements completed, surveyed them with ineffable delight.

‘I’ve got a country-house like Robinson Crusoe,’ said the dwarf, ogling the accommodations; ‘a solitary, sequestered, desolate-island sort of spot, where I can be quite alone when I have business on hand, and be secure from all spies and listeners. Nobody near me here, but rats, and they are fine stealthy secret fellows. I shall be as merry as a grig among these gentry. I’ll look out for one like Christopher, and poison him—ha, ha, ha! Business though—business—we must be mindful of business in the midst of pleasure, and the time has flown this morning, I declare.’

Enjoining Tom Scott to await his return, and not to stand upon his head, or throw a summerset, or so much as walk upon his hands meanwhile, on pain of lingering torments, the dwarf threw himself into a boat, and crossing to the other side of the river, and then speeding away on foot, reached Mr Swiveller’s usual house of entertainment in Bevis Marks, just as that gentleman sat down alone to dinner in its dusky parlour.

‘Dick,’ said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, ‘my pet, my pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!’

‘Oh you’re there, are you?’ returned Mr Swiveller; ‘how are you?’

‘How’s Dick?’ retorted Quilp. ‘How’s the cream of clerkship, eh?’

‘Why, rather sour, sir,’ replied Mr Swiveller. ‘Beginning to border upon cheesiness, in fact.’

‘What’s the matter?’ said the dwarf, advancing. ‘Has Sally proved unkind. “Of all the girls that are so smart, there’s none like—” eh, Dick!’

‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr Swiveller, eating his dinner with great gravity, ‘none like her. She’s the sphynx of private life, is Sally B.’

‘You’re out of spirits,’ said Quilp, drawing up a chair. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The law don’t agree with me,’ returned Dick. ‘It isn’t moist enough, and there’s too much confinement. I have been thinking of running away.’

‘Bah!’ said the dwarf. ‘Where would you run to, Dick?’

‘I don’t know’ returned Mr Swiveller. ‘Towards Highgate, I suppose. Perhaps the bells might strike up “Turn again Swiveller, Lord Mayor of London.” Whittington’s name was Dick. I wish cats were scarcer.’

Quilp looked at his companion with his eyes screwed up into a comical expression of curiosity, and patiently awaited his further explanation; upon which, however, Mr Swiveller appeared in no hurry to enter, as he ate a very long dinner in profound silence, finally pushed away his plate, threw himself back into his chair, folded his arms, and stared ruefully at the fire, in which some ends of cigars were smoking on their own account, and sending up a fragrant odour.

‘Perhaps you’d like a bit of cake’—said Dick, at last turning to the dwarf. ‘You’re quite welcome to it. You ought to be, for it’s of your making.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Quilp.

Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very greasy parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of plum-cake extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with a paste of white sugar an inch and a half deep.

‘What should you say this was?’ demanded Mr Swiveller.

‘It looks like bride-cake,’ replied the dwarf, grinning.

‘And whose should you say it was?’ inquired Mr Swiveller, rubbing the pastry against his nose with a dreadful calmness. ‘Whose?’

‘Not—’

‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘the same. You needn’t mention her name. There’s no such name now. Her name is Cheggs now, Sophy Cheggs. Yet loved I as man never loved that hadn’t wooden legs, and my heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Sophy Cheggs.’

With this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the distressing circumstances of his own case, Mr Swiveller folded up the parcel again, beat it very flat between the palms of his hands, thrust it into his breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded his arms upon the whole.

‘Now, I hope you’re satisfied, sir,’ said Dick; ‘and I hope Fred’s satisfied. You went partners in the mischief, and I hope you like it. This is the triumph I was to have, is it? It’s like the old country-dance of that name, where there are two gentlemen to one lady, and one has her, and the other hasn’t, but comes limping up behind to make out the figure. But it’s Destiny, and mine’s a crusher.’

Disguising his secret joy in Mr Swiveller’s defeat, Daniel Quilp adopted the surest means of soothing him, by ringing the bell, and ordering in a supply of rosy wine (that is to say, of its usual representative), which he put about with great alacrity, calling upon Mr Swiveller to pledge him in various toasts derisive of Cheggs, and eulogistic of the happiness of single men. Such was their impression on Mr Swiveller, coupled with the reflection that no man could oppose his destiny, that in a very short space of time his spirits rose surprisingly, and he was enabled to give the dwarf an account of the receipt of the cake, which, it appeared, had been brought to Bevis Marks by the two surviving Miss Wackleses in person, and delivered at the office door with much giggling and joyfulness.

‘Ha!’ said Quilp. ‘It will be our turn to giggle soon. And that reminds me—you spoke of young Trent—where is he?’

Mr Swiveller explained that his respectable friend had recently accepted a responsible situation in a locomotive gaming-house, and was at that time absent on a professional tour among the adventurous spirits of Great Britain.

Con questo proposito, si recò in un luogo vicino dove si vendevano articoli marinareschi, acquistò una branda usata e la fece appendere in modo marinaresco al soffitto del ufficio. Fece inoltre installare, nella stessa muffosa cabina, una vecchia cucina da nave con un tubo fumario arrugginito per far uscire il fumo dal tetto; e completati questi preparativi, li osservò con ineffabile piacere.

«Ho una villa di campagna come Robinson Crusoe», disse il nanerottolo, scrutando gli alloggi; «un posto solitario, appartato, deserto come un’isola, dove posso stare del tutto solo quando ho da sbrigare affari, e essere al sicuro da spie e curiosi. Qui vicino a me non c’è nessuno, se non i topi, e sono dei bravi tipi discreti e segreti. Sarò allegra come una grillo in mezzo a questa gente. Mi guarderò intorno per trovarne uno come Cristoforo, e lo avvelenerò—ha, ha, ha! Ma affari—affari—dobbiamo pensare agli affari anche in mezzo ai piaceri, e il tempo è volato questa mattina, lo dichiaro.»

Dopo aver raccomandato a Tom Scott di aspettare il suo ritorno, e di non mettersi a testa in giù, né fare capriole, né tanto meno camminare sulle mani nel frattempo, a pena di tormenti prolungati, il nanerottolo si gettò in una barca, e attraversando l’altro lato del fiume, e poi proseguendo a piedi, raggiunse la solita abitazione di intrattenimento di Mr Swiveller a Bevis Marks, proprio mentre quel gentiluomo si sedeva solo a cena nel suo salotto buio.

«Dick», disse il nanerottolo, spingendo la testa dentro dalla porta, «il mio tesoro, il mio allievo, la pupilla dei miei occhi, eh, eh!»

“Ah, sei qui, allora?” rispose Mr Swiveller; “come stai?”

‘Come sta Dick?’ ribatté Quilp. ‘E la crema dell’impiegatismo, eh?’

«Beh, piuttosto acido, signore», rispose il signor Swiveller. «Inizia a confinare con la cagionevolezza, in effetti.»

«Che succede?» disse il nanerottolo, avvicinandosi. «Sally si è dimostrata scortese. “Di tutte le ragazze così intelligenti, non ce n’è nessuna come—” eh, Dick!»

«Certamente no», rispose il signor Swiveller, mangiando il suo pranzo con grande serietà, «nessuna come lei. È la sfinge della vita privata, Sally B.»

“Sei giù di corda”, disse Quilp, avvicinando una sedia. “Che succede?”

«La legge non è d’accordo con me», rispose Dick. «Non è abbastanza umida, e c’è troppa reclusione. Ho pensato di scappare.»

«Bah!» disse il nanerottolo. «Dove vorresti correre, Dick?»

«Non lo so» rispose Mr Swiveller. «Verso Highgate, immagino. Forse le campane potrebbero intonare “Ritorna Swiveller, Lord Mayor di Londra.” Il nome di Whittington era Dick. Vorrei che i gatti fossero più rari.»

Quilp guardò il suo compagno con gli occhi strizzati in un’espressione comica di curiosità e attese pazientemente una spiegazione più dettagliata; tuttavia, il signor Swiveller non sembrava avere fretta di fornirla, poiché consumò una cena molto lunga in profondo silenzio, alla fine allontanò il piatto, si abbandonò all’indietro sulla sedia, si incrociò le braccia e fissò con malinconia il fuoco, in cui alcuni mozziconi di sigaro bruciavano da soli, emanando un profumo fragrante.

«Forse vorresti un po’ di torta» — disse Dick, rivolgendosi finalmente al nanerottolo. «Sei il benvenuto. Dovresti esserlo, perché è opera tua.»

«Che cosa intendete dire?» disse Quilp.

Il signor Swiveller rispose tirando fuori di tasca un pacchetto piccolo e molto unto, lo svolse lentamente e mostrò un pezzetto di torta di prugne dall’aspetto estremamente indigesto, bordato da una pasta di zucchero bianco spessa un pollice e mezzo.

«Che cosa direste che fosse questo?» chiese il signor Swiveller.

«Sembra una torta nuziale», rispose il nanerottolo, ghignando.

«E di chi direste che fosse?» chiese il signor Swiveller, strofinando il dolce contro il naso con una calma terribile. «Di chi?»

‘Non—’

«Sì», disse Dick, «la stessa. Non c’è bisogno di menzionare il suo nome. Non esiste più un nome del genere. Ora si chiama Cheggs, Sophy Cheggs. Eppure l’ho amata come nessun uomo con le gambe di legno avrebbe mai potuto amare, e il mio cuore, il mio cuore si spezza per amore di Sophy Cheggs.»

Con questa improvvisata adattazione di una ballata popolare alle angustianti circostanze del suo caso, il signor Swiveller richiuse di nuovo il pacco, lo schiacciò molto piatto tra le palme delle mani, lo infilò nel petto, si abbottonò il cappotto sopra e incrociò le braccia sul tutto.

«Ora, spero che siate soddisfatto, signore», disse Dick, «e spero che Fred sia soddisfatto. Avete condiviso il dispetto, e spero che vi piaccia. Questo è il trionfo che dovevo avere, vero? È come la vecchia danza campestre di quel nome, dove ci sono due gentiluomini per una signora, e uno l’ha, e l’altro no, ma zoppica dietro per completare la figura. Ma è il Destino, e il mio è un disastro».

Nascondendo la sua gioia segreta per la sconfitta di Mr Swiveller, Daniel Quilp adottò il mezzo più sicuro per consolarlo, suonando il campanello e ordinando una scorta di vino rosato (cioè del suo solito surrogato), che distribuì con grande alacrità, invitando Mr Swiveller a brindare con lui in vari toasts derisivi nei confronti di Cheggs e elogiativi della felicità degli uomini single. Tali furono le loro impressioni su Mr Swiveller, unite alla riflessione che nessuno può opporsi al proprio destino, che in un brevissimo time il suo umore rose in modo sorprendente, e fu in grado di fornire al dwarf un resoconto della consegna della torta, che, come apparve, era stata portata a Bevis Marks dalle due sopravvissute Miss Wackles in persona, e consegnata alla porta dell’ufficio con molte risatine e allegria.

«Ah!» disse Quilp. «Presto sarà il nostro turno di ridere. E questo mi ricorda, hai parlato del giovane Trent, dove è?»

Il signor Swiveller spiegò che il suo rispettabile amico aveva recentemente accettato un incarico di responsabilità in un casinò ferroviario e che in quel momento era assente per un viaggio di lavoro tra gli spiriti avventurosi della Gran Bretagna.

‘That’s unfortunate,’ said the dwarf, ‘for I came, in fact, to ask you about him. A thought has occurred to me, Dick; your friend over the way—’

‘Which friend?’

‘In the first floor.’

‘Yes?’

‘Your friend in the first floor, Dick, may know him.’

‘No, he don’t,’ said Mr Swiveller, shaking his head.

‘Don’t! No, because he has never seen him,’ rejoined Quilp; ‘but if we were to bring them together, who knows, Dick, but Fred, properly introduced, would serve his turn almost as well as little Nell or her grandfather—who knows but it might make the young fellow’s fortune, and, through him, yours, eh?’

‘Why, the fact is, you see,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘that they HAVE been brought together.’

‘Have been!’ cried the dwarf, looking suspiciously at his companion. ‘Through whose means?’

‘Through mine,’ said Dick, slightly confused. ‘Didn’t I mention it to you the last time you called over yonder?’

‘You know you didn’t,’ returned the dwarf.

‘I believe you’re right,’ said Dick. ‘No. I didn’t, I recollect. Oh yes, I brought ‘em together that very day. It was Fred’s suggestion.’

‘And what came of it?’

‘Why, instead of my friend’s bursting into tears when he knew who Fred was, embracing him kindly, and telling him that he was his grandfather, or his grandmother in disguise (which we fully expected), he flew into a tremendous passion; called him all manner of names; said it was in a great measure his fault that little Nell and the old gentleman had ever been brought to poverty; didn’t hint at our taking anything to drink; and—and in short rather turned us out of the room than otherwise.’

‘That’s strange,’ said the dwarf, musing.

‘So we remarked to each other at the time,’ returned Dick coolly, ‘but quite true.’

Quilp was plainly staggered by this intelligence, over which he brooded for some time in moody silence, often raising his eyes to Mr Swiveller’s face, and sharply scanning its expression. As he could read in it, however, no additional information or anything to lead him to believe he had spoken falsely; and as Mr Swiveller, left to his own meditations, sighed deeply, and was evidently growing maudlin on the subject of Mrs Cheggs; the dwarf soon broke up the conference and took his departure, leaving the bereaved one to his melancholy ruminations.

‘Have been brought together, eh?’ said the dwarf as he walked the streets alone. ‘My friend has stolen a march upon me. It led him to nothing, and therefore is no great matter, save in the intention. I’m glad he has lost his mistress. Ha ha! The blockhead mustn’t leave the law at present. I’m sure of him where he is, whenever I want him for my own purposes, and, besides, he’s a good unconscious spy on Brass, and tells, in his cups, all that he sees and hears. You’re useful to me, Dick, and cost nothing but a little treating now and then. I am not sure that it may not be worth while, before long, to take credit with the stranger, Dick, by discovering your designs upon the child; but for the present we’ll remain the best friends in the world, with your good leave.’

Pursuing these thoughts, and gasping as he went along, after his own peculiar fashion, Mr Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and shut himself up in his Bachelor’s Hall, which, by reason of its newly-erected chimney depositing the smoke inside the room and carrying none of it off, was not quite so agreeable as more fastidious people might have desired. Such inconveniences, however, instead of disgusting the dwarf with his new abode, rather suited his humour; so, after dining luxuriously from the public-house, he lighted his pipe, and smoked against the chimney until nothing of him was visible through the mist but a pair of red and highly inflamed eyes, with sometimes a dim vision of his head and face, as, in a violent fit of coughing, he slightly stirred the smoke and scattered the heavy wreaths by which they were obscured. In the midst of this atmosphere, which must infallibly have smothered any other man, Mr Quilp passed the evening with great cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time with the pipe and the case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself with a melodious howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever invented by man. Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight, when he turned into his hammock with the utmost satisfaction.

The first sound that met his ears in the morning—as he half opened his eyes, and, finding himself so unusually near the ceiling, entertained a drowsy idea that he must have been transformed into a fly or blue-bottle in the course of the night,—was that of a stifled sobbing and weeping in the room. Peeping cautiously over the side of his hammock, he descried Mrs Quilp, to whom, after contemplating her for some time in silence, he communicated a violent start by suddenly yelling out—‘Halloa!’

‘Oh, Quilp!’ cried his poor little wife, looking up. ‘How you frightened me!’

‘I meant to, you jade,’ returned the dwarf. ‘What do you want here? I’m dead, an’t I?’

‘Oh, please come home, do come home,’ said Mrs Quilp, sobbing; ‘we’ll never do so any more, Quilp, and after all it was only a mistake that grew out of our anxiety.’

‘Out of your anxiety,’ grinned the dwarf. ‘Yes, I know that—out of your anxiety for my death. I shall come home when I please, I tell you. I shall come home when I please, and go when I please. I’ll be a Will o’ the Wisp, now here, now there, dancing about you always, starting up when you least expect me, and keeping you in a constant state of restlessness and irritation. Will you begone?’

Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty.

‘I tell you no,’ cried the dwarf. ‘No. If you dare to come here again unless you’re sent for, I’ll keep watch-dogs in the yard that’ll growl and bite—I’ll have man-traps, cunningly altered and improved for catching women—I’ll have spring guns, that shall explode when you tread upon the wires, and blow you into little pieces. Will you begone?’

‘Do forgive me. Do come back,’ said his wife, earnestly.

‘No-o-o-o-o!’ roared Quilp. ‘Not till my own good time, and then I’ll return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to nobody for my goings or comings. You see the door there. Will you go?’

Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic voice, and moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture, indicative of an intention to spring out of his hammock, and, night-capped as he was, bear his wife home again through the public streets, that she sped away like an arrow. Her worthy lord stretched his neck and eyes until she had crossed the yard, and then, not at all sorry to have had this opportunity of carrying his point, and asserting the sanctity of his castle, fell into an immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down to sleep again.

‘È un peccato,’ disse il nanerottolo, ‘perché sono venuto, in effetti, a chiederti di lui. Mi è venuto in mente un pensiero, Dick; il tuo amico di là—’

‘Quale amico?’

‘Al primo piano.’

“Sì, davvero?”

‘Il tuo amico al primo piano, Dick, potrebbe conoscerlo.’

«No, non lo fa», disse il signor Swiveller, scuotendo la testa.

«No! No, perché non l’ha mai visto», ribatté Quilp; «ma se li mettessimo insieme, chissà, Dick, se Fred, presentato come si deve, non potrebbe fare al caso suo quasi bene quanto la piccola Nell o suo nonno, chissà se non potrebbe fare la fortuna del giovane, e, attraverso di lui, anche la tua, eh?»

«Il fatto è, vede», disse il signor Swiveller, «che sono stati messi insieme.»

«Sono stato!» gridò il nanerottolo, guardando con sospetto il suo compagno. «Per mezzo di chi?»

«Attraverso la mia», disse Dick, leggermente confuso. «Non te ne ho parlato l’ultima volta che sei venuto a trovarmi laggiù?»

«Sai che non l’hai fatto», rispose il nanerottolo.

«Credo che tu abbia ragione», disse Dick. «No. Non l’avevo fatto, mi ricordo. Oh, sì, li ho messi insieme proprio quel giorno. È stata l’idea di Fred.»

‘Quali furono le conseguenze?’

«Perché, invece di scoppiare in lacrime quando il mio amico seppe chi fosse Fred, abbracciarlo con affetto e dirgli che era suo nonno, o sua nonna in maschera (come ci aspettavamo pienamente), si è infuriato in modo tremendo; lo ha chiamato con tutti i nomi; ha detto che in gran parte era colpa sua se la piccola Nell e il vecchio signore erano caduti nella povertà; non ha accennato a offrirci qualcosa da bere; e, insomma, più che altro ci ha cacciato dalla stanza.»

‘Questo è strano,’ disse il nanerottolo, pensieroso.

«Così ci dicemmo a vicenda in quel periodo,» rispose Dick con calma, «ma è del tutto vero.»

Quilp era chiaramente sconvolto da questa notizia, sulla quale rimuginò per qualche tempo in cupo silenzio, alzando spesso gli occhi verso il viso di Mr Swiveller e scrutandone attentamente l’espressione. Tuttavia, non riuscendo a leggervi alcuna informazione aggiuntiva o nulla che lo inducesse a credere che avesse mentito; e dato che Mr Swiveller, lasciato ai suoi pensieri, sospirava profondamente e si mostrava evidentemente commosso all’idea di Mrs Cheggs; il nanerottolo pose presto fine alla conferenza e se ne andò, lasciando il poveretto alle sue malinconiche riflessioni.

«Siamo stati messi insieme, eh?» disse il nanerottolo mentre camminava per le strade da solo. «Il mio amico mi ha battuto sul tempo. Non gli ha portato a nulla, e quindi non è una gran faccenda, salvo per l’intenzione. Sono contento che abbia perso la sua amante. Ha ha! Al momento, il testone non deve lasciare la legge. Sono sicuro di lui dove si trova, ogni volta che ho bisogno di lui per i miei scopi, e, inoltre, è uno spia inconsapevole di Brass, e racconta, quando è ubriaco, tutto ciò che vede e sente. Mi sei utile, Dick, e non costi nulla se non un po’ di trattamento di tanto in tanto. Non sono sicuro che non valga la pena, prima o poi, di prendere credito con lo straniero, Dick, scoprendo i tuoi piani sulla bambina; ma per il momento rimarremo i migliori amici del mondo, con il tuo buon permesso.»

Mentre seguiva questi pensieri, ansimando a modo suo, Mr Quilp attraversò di nuovo il Tamigi e si rinchiuse nel suo Bachelor’s Hall, che, a causa del camino appena costruito che depositava il fumo nella stanza senza disperderne nulla, non era proprio così piacevole come avrebbero desiderato persone più schizzinose. Tuttavia, tali inconvenienti, anziché disgustare il nanerottolo della sua nuova dimora, si addicevano piuttosto al suo umore; così, dopo aver cenato lussuosamente alla locanda, accese la pipa e fumò contro il camino finché non si vedeva più nulla di lui nella nebbia se non un paio di occhi rossi e molto infiammati, con a volte una visione confusa della sua testa e del suo viso, mentre, in un violento accesso di tosse, muoveva leggermente il fumo e disperdeva le pesanti volute che lo oscuravano. In mezzo a questa atmosfera, che avrebbe senz’altro soffocato qualsiasi altro uomo, Mr Quilp trascorse la serata con grande allegria; consolandosi tutto il tempo con la pipa e la bottiglia; e intrattenendosi occasionalmente con un ululato melodioso, inteso come una canzone, ma che non aveva la più pallida somiglianza con alcun frammento di alcun pezzo musicale, vocale o strumentale, mai inventato dall’uomo. Così si divertì fino a quasi mezzanotte, quando si ritirò nella sua amaca con la massima soddisfazione.

Il primo suono che giunse alle sue orecchie al mattino, mentre si svegliava a metà e, trovandosi così insolitamente vicino al soffitto, si convinceva in modo confuso che doveva essersi trasformato in una mosca o in una mosca blu nel corso della notte, fu quello di un pianto soffocato nella stanza. Guardando cautamente oltre il bordo della sua amaca, scorse la signora Quilp, alla quale, dopo averla contemplata per qualche tempo in silenzio, comunicò un violento sussulto gridando improvvisamente: «Halloa!».

“Oh, Quilp!” gridò la sua povera mogliettina, alzando lo sguardo. “Come mi hai spaventata!”

«Intendevo farlo, tu, giada», rispose il nanerottolo. «Cosa vuoi qui? Sono morto, no?»

«Oh, per favore, torna a casa, torna a casa», disse la signora Quilp, singhiozzando; «non lo faremo mai più, Quilp, e dopotutto è stato solo un errore nato dalla nostra ansia.»

«Fuori dalla tua ansia», ghignò il nanerottolo. «Sì, lo so, fuori dalla tua ansia per la mia morte. Ti dico che tornerò a casa quando mi pare. Tornerò a casa quando mi pare, e me ne andrò quando mi pare. Sarò un Folletto, ora qui, ora là, danzando sempre intorno a te, spuntando quando meno te lo aspetti e tenendoti in uno stato costante di inquietudine e irritazione. Ti deciderai ad andartene?»

La signora Quilp non osò fare altro che un gesto di supplica.

«Vi dico di no», gridò il nanerottolo. «No. Se avrete il coraggio di tornare qui se non siete stati chiamati, terrò dei cani da guardia nel cortile che abbai e mordono, avrò trappole per uomini, astutamente modificate e migliorate per catturare donne, avrò fucili a scatto che esploderanno quando calpesterete i fili e vi faranno a pezzi. Ve ne andrete?»

«Perdonami. Torna indietro», disse sua moglie, con fervore.

«No-o-o-o-o!» ruggì Quilp. «Non prima del mio buon momento, e poi tornerò tutte le volte che vorrò, senza dover rendere conto a nessuno dei miei andirivieni. Vedi quella porta? Vuoi andartene?»

Il signor Quilp impartì quest’ultimo ordine con una voce così energica, e inoltre lo accompagnò con un gesto così improvviso, che indicava l’intenzione di balzare fuori dalla sua amaca e, con il cappello da notte che aveva, riportare sua moglie a casa attraverso le strade pubbliche, che lei fuggì come una freccia. Il suo degno signore allungò il collo e gli occhi finché non l’ebbe vista attraversare il cortile, e poi, non affatto dispiaciuto di aver avuto questa opportunità di ottenere il suo scopo e affermare la sacralità del suo castello, scoppiò in una risata smodata e si sdraiò per dormire di nuovo.

CHAPTER 51

The bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor’s Hall slept on amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog, and rats, until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom Scott to assist him to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted his couch, and made his toilet. This duty performed, and his repast ended, he again betook himself to Bevis Marks.

This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend and employer Mr Sampson Brass. Both gentlemen however were from home, nor was the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post either. The fact of their joint desertion of the office was made known to all comers by a scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr Swiveller, which was attached to the bell-handle, and which, giving the reader no clue to the time of day when it was first posted, furnished him with the rather vague and unsatisfactory information that that gentleman would ‘return in an hour.’

‘There’s a servant, I suppose,’ said the dwarf, knocking at the house-door. ‘She’ll do.’

After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a small voice immediately accosted him with, ‘Oh please will you leave a card or message?’

‘Eh?’ said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to him) upon the small servant.

To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the occasion of her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied, ‘Oh please will you leave a card or message?’

‘I’ll write a note,’ said the dwarf, pushing past her into the office; ‘and mind your master has it directly he comes home.’ So Mr Quilp climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note, and the small servant, carefully tutored for such emergencies, looked on with her eyes wide open, ready, if he so much as abstracted a wafer, to rush into the street and give the alarm to the police.

As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very short one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant. He looked at her, long and earnestly.

‘How are you?’ said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible grimaces.

The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no audible reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she was inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the note or message.

‘Do they use you ill here? is your mistress a Tartar?’ said Quilp with a chuckle.

In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look of infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very tight and round, and nodded violently. Whether there was anything in the peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or anything in the expression of her features at the moment which attracted his attention for some other reason; or whether it merely occurred to him as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out of countenance; certain it is, that he planted his elbows square and firmly on the desk, and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands, looked at her fixedly.

‘Where do you come from?’ he said after a long pause, stroking his chin.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nonsense!’ retorted Quilp. ‘What does your mistress call you when she wants you?’

‘A little devil,’ said the child.

She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further questioning, ‘But please will you leave a card or message?’

These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more inquiries. Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew his eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully than before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it with scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly but very narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows. The result of this secret survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and laughed slyly and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen almost to bursting. Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his mirth and its effects, he tossed the letter to the child, and hastily withdrew.

Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and held his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the dusty area railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child, until he was quite tired out. At last, he travelled back to the Wilderness, which was within rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat, and ordered tea in the wooden summer-house that afternoon for three persons; an invitation to Miss Sally Brass and her brother to partake of that entertainment at that place, having been the object both of his journey and his note.

It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually take tea in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced state of decay, and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at low water. Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr Quilp ordered a cold collation to be prepared, and it was beneath its cracked and leaky roof that he, in due course of time, received Mr Sampson and his sister Sally.

‘You’re fond of the beauties of nature,’ said Quilp with a grin. ‘Is this charming, Brass? Is it unusual, unsophisticated, primitive?’

‘It’s delightful indeed, sir,’ replied the lawyer.

‘Cool?’ said Quilp.

‘N-not particularly so, I think, sir,’ rejoined Brass, with his teeth chattering in his head.

‘Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?’ said Quilp.

‘Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,’ rejoined Brass. ‘Nothing more, sir, nothing more.’

‘And Sally?’ said the delighted dwarf. ‘Does she like it?’

‘She’ll like it better,’ returned that strong-minded lady, ‘when she has tea; so let us have it, and don’t bother.’

‘Sweet Sally!’ cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to embrace her. ‘Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.’

CAPITOLO 51

Il proprietario placido e di cuore aperto di Bachelor’s Hall dormiva tra i piacevoli accompagnamenti di pioggia, fango, sporco, umidità, nebbia e ratti, fino a tarda giornata; quando, chiamando il suo valletto Tom Scott per aiutarlo ad alzarsi e preparare la colazione, si alzò dal letto e si fece la toilette. Compito svolto e pasto terminato, tornò a Bevis Marks.

Questa visita non era destinata a Mr Swiveller, ma al suo amico e datore di lavoro Mr Sampson Brass. Entrambi i signori erano però fuori casa, e nemmeno la vita e la luce della legge, Miss Sally, era al suo posto. Il fatto che avessero abbandonato insieme l’ufficio era noto a tutti i visitatori grazie a un pezzo di carta scritto di pugno da Mr Swiveller, che era attaccato al manico della campanella, e che, senza fornire al lettore alcun indizio sull’ora del giorno in cui era stato apposto, gli dava l’informazione piuttosto vaga e insoddisfacente che quel signore sarebbe ‘tornato tra un’ora’.

«C’è una serva, immagino», disse il nanerottolo, bussando alla porta di casa. «Va bene così.»

Dopo un intervallo sufficientemente lungo, la porta si aprì e una vocina gli si rivolse subito dicendo: «Oh, per favore, vuole lasciare un biglietto da visita o un messaggio?»

«Eh?», disse il nanerottolo, guardando in basso, (era qualcosa di del tutto nuovo per lui) verso il piccolo servitore.

A questo, il bambino, conducendo la conversazione come se fosse stata la prima volta che incontrava il signor Swiveller, rispose di nuovo: «Oh, per favore, vuole lasciare un biglietto o un messaggio?»

‘Scriverò un biglietto’, disse il nanerottolo, spingendola da parte e entrando nell’ufficio; ‘e bada che il tuo padrone lo riceva non appena tornerà a casa.’ Così il signor Quilp si arrampicò sulla cima di uno sgabello alto per scrivere il biglietto, e la piccola serva, attentamente istruita per tali emergenze, osservava con gli occhi spalancati, pronta, se lui avesse anche solo sottratto una pastiglia di ceralacca, a correre in strada e dare l’allarme alla polizia.

Mentre il signor Quilp ripiegava il suo biglietto (che fu scritto in un attimo, essendo molto breve), incrociò lo sguardo della piccola domestica. La guardò a lungo e con attenzione.

«Come state?», disse il nanerottolo, bagnando una ostia con orribili smorfie.

La piccola serva, forse spaventata dal suo aspetto, non rispose in modo udibile; ma si capiva dal movimento delle sue labbra che stava ripetendo tra sé la stessa formula di espressione riguardo al biglietto o al messaggio.

«Vi trattano male qui? La vostra padrona è una Tartara?» disse Quilp con una risatina.

In risposta all’ultima domanda, la piccola serva, con uno sguardo di astuzia infinita mescolata a paura, strinse la bocca molto stretta e rotonda e annuì violentemente. Che ci fosse qualcosa nella particolare astuzia della sua azione che affascinava il signor Quilp, o qualcosa nell’espressione dei suoi tratti in quel momento che attirava la sua attenzione per qualche altro motivo; o se gli fosse semplicemente venuto in mente come un capriccio piacevole quello di fissare la piccola serva fino a farla arrossire; certo è che piantò i gomiti quadrati e saldamente sulla scrivania, e stringendo le guance con le mani, la guardò fissamente.

«Da dove vieni?» disse dopo una lunga pausa, accarezzandosi il mento.

‘Non lo so.’

‘Come ti chiami?’

“Niente.”

‘Nonsense!’ replicò Quilp. ‘Come vi chiama la vostra padrona quando vi vuole?’

«Un piccolo diavolo», disse il bambino.

Aggiunse nello stesso respiro, come se temesse ulteriori domande: «Ma per favore, vorrebbe lasciare un biglietto da visita o un messaggio?»

Queste risposte insolite avrebbero potuto naturalmente provocare qualche altra domanda. Quilp, tuttavia, senza pronunciare un’altra parola, ritirò lo sguardo dal piccolo servitore, si accarezzò il mento più pensieroso che mai, e poi, chinandosi sulla nota come se volesse indirizzarla con una meticolosità e una precisione capillare, la guardò, di nascosto ma molto attentamente, da sotto le sue sopracciglia folte. Il risultato di questo esame segreto fu che si coprì il viso con le mani e rise furtivamente e senza far rumore, fino a quando ogni vena del suo viso non fu gonfia quasi a scoppiare. Tirandosi il cappello sugli occhi per nascondere la sua ilarità e i suoi effetti, lanciò la lettera al bambino e si ritirò in fretta.

Una volta in strada, mosso da qualche impulso segreto, rise, e si tenne i fianchi, e rise di nuovo, e cercò di scrutare attraverso le polverose ringhiere del cortile come se volesse cogliere un altro sguardo del bambino, finché non fu completamente esausto. Alla fine, tornò al Deserto, che era a tiro di fucile dal suo ritiro da scapolo, e ordinò il tè nella casetta-estiva di legno quel pomeriggio per tre persone; un invito alla signorina Sally Brass e a suo fratello a partecipare a quel intrattenimento in quel luogo, era stato l’obiettivo sia del suo viaggio che della sua nota.

Non era esattamente il tipo di tempo in cui la gente di solito prende il tè nelle altane, e tanto meno in altane in uno stato avanzato di decadimento, e che si affacciano sulle fangose rive di un grande fiume a bassa marea. Tuttavia, fu in questo rifugio scelto che il signor Quilp ordinò di preparare un rinfresco freddo, e fu sotto il suo tetto crepato e perduto che, nel corso del tempo, ricevette il signor Sampson e sua sorella Sally.

«Lei è affezionato alle bellezze della natura», disse Quilp con una smorfia. «È questo incantevole, Brass? È insolito, semplice, primitivo?»

«È davvero delizioso, signore», rispose l’avvocato.

«Freddo?» disse Quilp.

«N-no, non particolarmente, credo, signore», rispose Brass, con i denti che gli battevano in testa.

«Forse un po’ umido e malsano?» disse Quilp.

«Appena abbastanza umido per essere allegro, signore», rispose Brass. «Nulla di più, signore, nulla di più.»

«E Sally?» disse il nanetto deliziato. «Le piace?»

«Le piacerà di più», rispose quella signora di forte carattere, «quando avrà preso il tè; quindi portiamoglielo e non facciamola preoccupare.»

«Dolce Sally!» esclamò Quilp, aprendo le braccia come se volesse abbracciarla. «Mite, affascinante, travolgente Sally.»

‘He’s a very remarkable man indeed!’ soliloquised Mr Brass. ‘He’s quite a Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!’

These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent and distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having a bad cold in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have willingly borne some pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted his present raw quarters to a warm room, and dried himself at a fire. Quilp, however—who, beyond the gratification of his demon whims, owed Sampson some acknowledgment of the part he had played in the mourning scene of which he had been a hidden witness, marked these symptoms of uneasiness with a delight past all expression, and derived from them a secret joy which the costliest banquet could never have afforded him.

It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in the character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own account she would have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with a very ill grace, and would probably, indeed, have walked off before the tea appeared, she no sooner beheld the latent uneasiness and misery of her brother than she developed a grim satisfaction, and began to enjoy herself after her own manner. Though the wet came stealing through the roof and trickling down upon their heads, Miss Brass uttered no complaint, but presided over the tea equipage with imperturbable composure. While Mr Quilp, in his uproarious hospitality, seated himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted the place as the most beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms, and elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that jovial spot; and Mr Brass, with the rain plashing down into his tea-cup, made a dismal attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear at his ease; and Tom Scott, who was in waiting at the door under an old umbrella, exulted in his agonies, and bade fair to split his sides with laughing; while all this was passing, Miss Sally Brass, unmindful of the wet which dripped down upon her own feminine person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind the tea-board, erect and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her brother with a mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of self, to sit there all night, witnessing the torments which his avaricious and grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade him to resent. And this, it must be observed, or the illustration would be incomplete, although in a business point of view she had the strongest sympathy with Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond measure indignant if he had thwarted their client in any one respect.

In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his usual manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his hand upon the lawyer’s sleeve.

‘A word,’ said the dwarf, ‘before we go farther. Sally, hark’ee for a minute.’

Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences with their host which were the better for not having air.

‘Business,’ said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister. ‘Very private business. Lay your heads together when you’re by yourselves.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and pencil. ‘I’ll take down the heads if you please, sir. Remarkable documents,’ added the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling, ‘most remarkable documents. He states his points so clearly that it’s a treat to have ‘em! I don’t know any act of parliament that’s equal to him in clearness.’

‘I shall deprive you of a treat,’ said Quilp. ‘Put up your book. We don’t want any documents. So. There’s a lad named Kit—’

Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.

‘Kit!’ said Mr Sampson.—‘Kit! Ha! I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t exactly call to mind—I don’t exactly—’

‘You’re as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a rhinoceros,’ returned his obliging client with an impatient gesture.

‘He’s extremely pleasant!’ cried the obsequious Sampson. ‘His acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising. Quite a Buffoon, quite!’

There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other; and it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said Buffon, but made use of a superfluous vowel. Be this as it may, Quilp gave him no time for correction, as he performed that office himself by more than tapping him on the head with the handle of his umbrella.

‘Don’t let’s have any wrangling,’ said Miss Sally, staying his hand. ‘I’ve showed you that I know him, and that’s enough.’

‘She’s always foremost!’ said the dwarf, patting her on the back and looking contemptuously at Sampson. ‘I don’t like Kit, Sally.’

‘Nor I,’ rejoined Miss Brass.

‘Nor I,’ said Sampson.

‘Why, that’s right!’ cried Quilp. ‘Half our work is done already. This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters; a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, white-livered, sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a barking yelping dog to all besides.’

‘Fearfully eloquent!’ cried Brass with a sneeze. ‘Quite appalling!’

‘Come to the point,’ said Miss Sally, ‘and don’t talk so much.’

‘Right again!’ exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at Sampson, ‘always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog to all besides, and most of all, to me. In short, I owe him a grudge.’ ‘That’s enough, sir,’ said Sampson.

‘No, it’s not enough, sir,’ sneered Quilp; ‘will you hear me out? Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at this minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise prove a golden one to us all. Apart from that, I repeat that he crosses my humour, and I hate him. Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest. Devise your own means of putting him out of my way, and execute them. Shall it be done?’

‘It shall, sir,’ said Sampson.

‘Then give me your hand,’ retorted Quilp. ‘Sally, girl, yours. I rely as much, or more, on you than him. Tom Scott comes back. Lantern, pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!’

No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting. The trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to each other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing more was needed. Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease with which he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same uproarious, reckless little savage he had been a few seconds before. It was ten o’clock at night before the amiable Sally supported her beloved and loving brother from the Wilderness, by which time he needed the utmost support her tender frame could render; his walk being from some unknown reason anything but steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in unexpected places.

Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping to his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock. Leaving him to visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in the old church porch were not without their share, be it our task to rejoin them as they sat and watched.

«È un uomo davvero straordinario!» si disse Mr Brass. «È un vero trovatore, sapete; un vero trovatore!»

Queste espressioni di cortesia furono pronunciate in modo un po’ distratto e assente; poiché l’avvocato, oltre a soffrire di un forte raffreddore, si era bagnato durante il tragitto e avrebbe volentieri sopportato un certo sacrificio finanziario pur di poter trasferirsi in una stanza calda e asciugarsi davanti a un fuoco. Quilp, tuttavia, che oltre al piacere di soddisfare i suoi capricci demoniaci, aveva un certo debito di riconoscenza verso Sampson per il ruolo che aveva svolto nella scena di lutto di cui era stato testimone nascosto, osservò questi segni di disagio con un piacere inesprimibile e ne trasse una gioia segreta che nessun banchetto costoso avrebbe mai potuto dargli.

Vale la pena di notare, inoltre, come questo episodio illustri un piccolo tratto del carattere della signorina Sally Brass: sebbene per conto suo avrebbe sopportato le incomodità della Wilderness con molta riluttanza, e probabilmente se ne sarebbe andata prima ancora che il tè fosse servito, non appena vide l’angoscia e la miseria latenti in suo fratello, sviluppò una soddisfazione cupa e iniziò a divertirsi a modo suo. Anche se l’acqua penetrava dal tetto e gocciolava sulle loro teste, la signorina Brass non si lamentò, ma presiedette all’attrezzatura per il tè con imperturbabile compostezza. Mentre il signor Quilp, nella sua ospitalità rumorosa, si sedette su un barile di birra vuoto, vantava il posto come il più bello e confortevole dei tre regni, e alzando il bicchiere, brindò al loro prossimo incontro gioioso in quel luogo allegrissimo; e il signor Brass, con la pioggia che cadeva nella sua tazza di tè, faceva un tentativo misero di rincuorarsi e apparire a suo agio; e Tom Scott, che aspettava alla porta sotto un vecchio ombrello, esultava nelle sue agonie, e rischiava di farsi scoppiare dal ridere; mentre tutto questo accadeva, la signorina Sally Brass, incurante dell’acqua che gocciolava sulla sua persona femminile e sui suoi bei vestiti, sedeva placidamente dietro il tavolo del tè, eretta e grigiastra, contemplando l’infelicità di suo fratello con la mente serena, e contenta, nel suo amabile disinteresse per il sé, di stare lì tutta la notte, assistendo ai tormenti che la sua avara e meschina natura lo costringeva a sopportare e gli vietava di risentire. E questo, va osservato, altrimenti l’illustrazione sarebbe incompleta, sebbene dal punto di vista commerciale avesse la più forte simpatia per il signor Sampson, e sarebbe stata oltre ogni misura indignata se lui avesse ostacolato il loro cliente in qualsiasi aspetto.

Nel pieno della sua fragorosa allegria, il signor Quilp, avendo con qualche pretesto congedato per il momento il suo servitore, riprese di colpo il suo solito modo di fare, smontò dal suo barile e mise la mano sulla manica dell’avvocato.

«Una parola», disse il nanerottolo, «prima di andare oltre. Sally, ascoltami per un minuto.»

Miss Sally si avvicinò, come se fosse abituata a conferenze d’affari con il loro ospite che andavano meglio senza aria.

«Affari», disse il nanerottolo, guardando da un fratello all’altra. «Affari molto privati. Mettete le vostre teste insieme quando siete da soli.»

«Certamente, signore», rispose Brass, tirando fuori il taccuino e la matita. «Prenderò nota dei punti principali, se non le dispiace, signore. Documenti notevoli», aggiunse l’avvocato, alzando gli occhi al soffitto, «documenti davvero notevoli. Espone i suoi punti così chiaramente che è un piacere averli! Non conosco nessun atto parlamentare che gli sia pari in chiarezza».

«Vi privo di un piacere», disse Quilp. «Riponete il libro. Non abbiamo bisogno di documenti. Ecco. C’è un ragazzo di nome Kit, »

La signorina Sally annuì, dando a intendere che lo conosceva.

«Kit!» disse il signor Sampson. «Kit! Ah! Ho già sentito questo nome, ma non mi ricordo esattamente, non mi ricordo esattamente, »

«Sei lento come una tartaruga e più testardo di un rinoceronte», rispose il suo servizievole cliente con un gesto impaziente.

«È estremamente piacevole!» esclamò l’ossequioso Sampson. «La sua conoscenza della storia naturale è sorprendente. Un vero buffone, davvero!»

Non c’è dubbio che il signor Brass avesse inteso fare un complimento o qualcosa del genere; e si è sostenuto con ragionevolezza che avrebbe voluto dire Buffon, ma ha usato una vocale superflua. Comunque sia, Quilp non gli diede tempo per correggersi, poiché svolse lui stesso quel compito battendolo più volte sulla testa con il manico del suo ombrello.

«Non facciamo scenate», disse Miss Sally, trattenendogli la mano. «Le ho dimostrato che lo conosco, e questo è sufficiente.»

«È sempre la prima!» disse il nanerottolo, dandole una pacca sulla schiena e guardando Sampson con disprezzo. «Non mi piace Kit, Sally.»

«Nemmeno io», rispose Miss Brass.

«Nemmeno io», disse Sampson.

«Ecco, è proprio così!» esclamò Quilp. «Metà del nostro lavoro è già fatto. Questo Kit è uno dei vostri onesti cittadini; uno dei vostri personaggi irreprensibili; un bastardo ficcanaso; un ipocrita; un spione doppiogola, codardo, insinuante; un cane rannicchiato per chi lo nutre e lo accarezza, e un cane abbaiante e guaiente per tutti gli altri.»

“Terribilmente eloquente!” esclamò Brass con uno starnuto. “Proprio spaventoso!”

“Arrivi al dunque”, disse Miss Sally, “e non parli tanto.”

«Giusto di nuovo!» esclamò Quilp, con un altro sguardo sprezzante a Sampson, «sempre in prima linea! Dico, Sally, è un cane che abbaia, insolente con tutti, e soprattutto con me. In breve, gli devo un rancore.» «Questo è sufficiente, signore», disse Sampson.

«No, non è sufficiente, signore», sogghignò Quilp, «mi lascerà finire? Oltre al fatto che gli serbo rancore per questo motivo, mi ostacola in questo momento e si frappone tra me e un obiettivo che altrimenti potrebbe rivelarsi dorato per tutti noi. A parte questo, ripeto che mi guasta il umore e lo odio. Ora, lei conosce il ragazzo e può immaginare il resto. Trovi lei il modo di toglierlo di mezzo e lo metta in atto. Lo farà?»

«Lo farà, signore», disse Sampson.

«Allora dammi la mano», ribatté Quilp. «Sally, ragazza, la tua. Mi affido a te tanto quanto, o più, che a lui. Tom Scott tornerà. Lanterna, pipe, più grog, e una notte allegra!»

Non furono pronunciate altre parole, non furono scambiati altri sguardi che avessero il minimo riferimento a questo, il vero motivo del loro incontro. Il trio era ben abituato a lavorare insieme ed era legato da vincoli di reciproco interesse e vantaggio, e non era necessario altro. Riprendendo il suo comportamento turbolento con la stessa facilità con cui lo aveva abbandonato, Quilp fu in un istante lo stesso piccolo selvaggio chiassoso e sconsiderato che era stato pochi secondi prima. Erano le dieci di sera quando la gentile Sally sostenne il suo amato e affettuoso fratello dal Deserto, e a quell’ora aveva bisogno del massimo sostegno che il suo tenero corpo poteva offrire; la sua andatura, per qualche ragione sconosciuta, era tutt’altro che stabile, e le sue gambe si piegavano costantemente in punti inaspettati.

Sopraffatto, nonostante i suoi prolungati sonni recenti, dalle fatiche degli ultimi giorni, il nanerottolo non perse tempo nel strisciare verso la sua graziosa casetta, e presto sognava nella sua amaca. Lasciandolo alle sue visioni, in cui forse le tranquille figure che abbiamo lasciato sotto il portico della vecchia chiesa non erano prive della loro parte, sia nostro compito di riunirci a loro mentre sedevano e vegliavano.

CHAPTER 52

After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of the churchyard, and hurried towards them, tingling in his hand, as he came along, a bundle of rusty keys. He was quite breathless with pleasure and haste when he reached the porch, and at first could only point towards the old building which the child had been contemplating so earnestly.

‘You see those two old houses,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, surely,’ replied Nell. ‘I have been looking at them nearly all the time you have been away.’

‘And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could have guessed what I have to tell you,’ said her friend. ‘One of those houses is mine.’

Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke.

They stopped before its low arched door. After trying several of the keys in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock, which turned back, creaking, and admitted them into the house.

The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its beautiful groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of its ancient splendour. Foliage carved in the stone, and emulating the mastery of Nature’s hand, yet remained to tell how many times the leaves outside had come and gone, while it lived on unchanged. The broken figures supporting the burden of the chimney-piece, though mutilated, were still distinguishable for what they had been—far different from the dust without—and showed sadly by the empty hearth, like creatures who had outlived their kind, and mourned their own too slow decay.

In some old time—for even change was old in that old place—a wooden partition had been constructed in one part of the chamber to form a sleeping-closet, into which the light was admitted at the same period by a rude window, or rather niche, cut in the solid wall. This screen, together with two seats in the broad chimney, had at some forgotten date been part of the church or convent; for the oak, hastily appropriated to its present purpose, had been little altered from its former shape, and presented to the eye a pile of fragments of rich carving from old monkish stalls.

An open door leading to a small room or cell, dim with the light that came through leaves of ivy, completed the interior of this portion of the ruin. It was not quite destitute of furniture. A few strange chairs, whose arms and legs looked as though they had dwindled away with age; a table, the very spectre of its race: a great old chest that had once held records in the church, with other quaintly-fashioned domestic necessaries, and store of fire-wood for the winter, were scattered around, and gave evident tokens of its occupation as a dwelling-place at no very distant time.

The child looked around her, with that solemn feeling with which we contemplate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in the great ocean of eternity. The old man had followed them, but they were all three hushed for a space, and drew their breath softly, as if they feared to break the silence even by so slight a sound.

‘It is a very beautiful place!’ said the child, in a low voice.

‘I almost feared you thought otherwise,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘You shivered when we first came in, as if you felt it cold or gloomy.’

‘It was not that,’ said Nell, glancing round with a slight shudder. ‘Indeed I cannot tell you what it was, but when I saw the outside, from the church porch, the same feeling came over me. It is its being so old and grey perhaps.’

‘A peaceful place to live in, don’t you think so?’ said her friend.

‘Oh yes,’ rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly. ‘A quiet, happy place—a place to live and learn to die in!’ She would have said more, but that the energy of her thoughts caused her voice to falter, and come in trembling whispers from her lips.

‘A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and body in,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘for this old house is yours.’

‘Ours!’ cried the child.

‘Ay,’ returned the schoolmaster gaily, ‘for many a merry year to come, I hope. I shall be a close neighbour—only next door—but this house is yours.’

Having now disburdened himself of his great surprise, the schoolmaster sat down, and drawing Nell to his side, told her how he had learnt that ancient tenement had been occupied for a very long time by an old person, nearly a hundred years of age, who kept the keys of the church, opened and closed it for the services, and showed it to strangers; how she had died not many weeks ago, and nobody had yet been found to fill the office; how, learning all this in an interview with the sexton, who was confined to his bed by rheumatism, he had been bold to make mention of his fellow-traveller, which had been so favourably received by that high authority, that he had taken courage, acting on his advice, to propound the matter to the clergyman. In a word, the result of his exertions was, that Nell and her grandfather were to be carried before the last-named gentleman next day; and, his approval of their conduct and appearance reserved as a matter of form, that they were already appointed to the vacant post.

‘There’s a small allowance of money,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘It is not much, but still enough to live upon in this retired spot. By clubbing our funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of that.’

‘Heaven bless and prosper you!’ sobbed the child.

‘Amen, my dear,’ returned her friend cheerfully; ‘and all of us, as it will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble to this tranquil life. But we must look at MY house now. Come!’

CAPITOLO 52

Dopo un lungo periodo, il maestro apparve al cancello del cimitero e si affrettò verso di loro, facendo tintinnare in mano, mentre si avvicinava, un mazzo di chiavi arrugginite. Era completamente senza fiato per il piacere e la fretta quando raggiunse il portico, e all’inizio poté solo indicare l’antico edificio che il bambino aveva contemplato con tanta intensità.

«Vedete quelle due vecchie case», disse alla fine.

«Sì, certo», rispose Nell. «Li ho guardati quasi tutto il tempo che sei stata via.»

«E li avreste guardati ancora più curiosamente, se aveste potuto indovinare ciò che ho da dirvi», disse la sua amica. «Una di quelle case è mia.»

Senza dire altro, o dare alla bambina tempo di rispondere, il maestro le prese la mano e, con il suo onesto volto raggiante di esultanza, la condusse al luogo di cui parlava.

Si fermarono davanti alla sua bassa porta ad arco. Dopo aver provato invano diverse chiavi, il maestro di scuola ne trovò una che si adattava alla grande serratura, che si aprì cigolando e li fece entrare nella casa.

La stanza in cui entrarono era una sala a volta, un tempo nobilmente addobbata da abili architetti, e che conservava ancora, nel suo bellissimo soffitto a crociera e nei ricchi intrecci di pietra, preziosi resti del suo antico splendore. Fogliame scolpito nella pietra, che emulava la maestria della Natura, rimaneva ancora a raccontare quante volte le foglie all’esterno erano venute e andate, mentre esso rimaneva immutato. Le figure rotte che sostenevano il peso del camino, sebbene mutilate, erano ancora distinguibili per quello che erano state — ben diverso dalla polvere all’esterno — e mostravano tristemente il focolare vuoto, come creature che avevano superato la loro specie e piangevano la propria lenta decadenza.

In qualche vecchio tempo — poiché anche il cambiamento era vecchio in quel vecchio luogo — era stata costruita una partizione di legno in una parte della camera per formare un armadio per dormire, in cui la luce era ammessa nello stesso periodo da una rozza finestra, o piuttosto nicchia, tagliata nella parete solida. Questo schermo, insieme a due sedili nel grande camino, era stato a qualche data dimenticata parte della chiesa o del convento; poiché il legno di quercia, rapidamente adattato al suo attuale scopo, era stato poco modificato dalla sua forma precedente, e presentava all’occhio un cumulo di frammenti di ricchi intagli provenienti da vecchi banchi monastici.

Una porta aperta che conduceva a una piccola stanza o cella, fioca per la luce che entrava tra le foglie dell’edera, completava l’interno di questa parte della rovina. Non era del tutto priva di mobili. Qualche strana sedia, le cui braccia e gambe sembravano essersi ridotte con l’età; un tavolo, il vero spettro della sua razza; un grande vecchio baule che aveva un tempo contenuto documenti nella chiesa, con altri strani oggetti domestici e una scorta di legna per l’inverno, erano sparsi intorno, e davano evidenti segni della sua occupazione come abitazione in un tempo non molto lontano.

La bambina guardò intorno a sé, con quella sensazione solenne con cui contempliamo l’opera di ere che sono diventate solo gocce di acqua nel grande oceano dell’eternità. L’anziano li aveva seguiti, ma tutti e tre rimasero in silenzio per un po’, e respiravano dolcemente, come se avessero paura di rompere il silenzio anche con un suono così lieve.

«È un posto molto bello!» disse il bambino, a bassa voce.

«Pensavo che lei la pensasse diversamente», rispose il maestro. «Ha rabbrividito quando siamo entrati, come se trovasse la stanza fredda o tetra.»

«Non era questo», disse Nell, guardandosi intorno con un leggero brivido. «In verità non saprei dirvi che cosa fosse, ma quando ho visto l’esterno, dal portico della chiesa, la stessa sensazione mi ha pervasa. Forse è perché è così antico e grigio.»

«Un luogo tranquillo dove vivere, non vi pare?» disse la sua amica.

‘Oh sì,’ rispose la bambina, stringendo le mani con fervore. ‘Un luogo tranquillo, felice, un luogo in cui vivere e imparare a morire!’ Avrebbe voluto dire di più, ma l’intensità dei suoi pensieri le fece vacillare la voce, che uscì dalle sue labbra in tremanti sussurri.

«Un luogo dove vivere, imparare a vivere e raccogliere salute di mente e corpo», disse il maestro di scuola; «perché questa vecchia casa è vostra.»

«Nostro!» gridò il bambino.

«Sì», rispose il maestro di scuola allegramente, «per molti anni felici a venire, lo spero. Sarò un vicino stretto, solo di casa in casa, ma questa casa è vostra.»

Ora che si era liberato della sua grande sorpresa, il maestro si sedette, e attirando Nell al suo fianco, le raccontò come aveva appreso che quel vecchio edificio era stato occupato per un tempo molto lungo da una vecchia persona, quasi centenaria, che custodiva le chiavi della chiesa, la apriva e la chiudeva per i servizi, e la mostrava agli stranieri; come fosse morta non molte settimane prima, e nessuno fosse stato ancora trovato per occupare l’incarico; come, apprendendo tutto ciò in un colloquio con il becchino, che era costretto a letto da un reumatismo, avesse avuto l’ardire di menzionare la sua compagna di viaggio, il che era stato così favorevolmente accolto da quell’alta autorità, che aveva preso coraggio, agendo su suo consiglio, di proporre la questione al clero. In breve, il risultato dei suoi sforzi era che Nell e suo nonno sarebbero stati portati davanti al suddetto gentiluomo il giorno successivo; e, riservata la sua approvazione del loro comportamento e aspetto come questione di forma, che erano già stati nominati per il posto vacante.

«C’è una piccola somma di denaro», disse il maestro di scuola. «Non è molto, ma comunque sufficiente per vivere in questo luogo appartato. Unendo i nostri fondi, ce la caveremo benissimo; non c’è paura di questo.»

«Che il cielo vi benedica e vi faccia prosperare!» singhiozzò il bambino.

«Amen, mia cara», rispose la sua amica allegra; «e tutti noi, come vuole il destino, e come ha fatto, conducendoci attraverso il dolore e le difficoltà a questa vita tranquilla. Ma ora dobbiamo guardare la MIA casa. Vieni!»

They repaired to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as before; at length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten door. It led into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which they had come, but not so spacious, and having only one other little room attached. It was not difficult to divine that the other house was of right the schoolmaster’s, and that he had chosen for himself the least commodious, in his care and regard for them. Like the adjoining habitation, it held such old articles of furniture as were absolutely necessary, and had its stack of fire-wood.

To make these dwellings as habitable and full of comfort as they could, was now their pleasant care. In a short time, each had its cheerful fire glowing and crackling on the hearth, and reddening the pale old wall with a hale and healthy blush. Nell, busily plying her needle, repaired the tattered window-hangings, drew together the rents that time had worn in the threadbare scraps of carpet, and made them whole and decent. The schoolmaster swept and smoothed the ground before the door, trimmed the long grass, trained the ivy and creeping plants which hung their drooping heads in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer walls a cheery air of home. The old man, sometimes by his side and sometimes with the child, lent his aid to both, went here and there on little patient services, and was happy. Neighbours, too, as they came from work, proffered their help; or sent their children with such small presents or loans as the strangers needed most. It was a busy day; and night came on, and found them wondering that there was yet so much to do, and that it should be dark so soon.

They took their supper together, in the house which may be henceforth called the child’s; and, when they had finished their meal, drew round the fire, and almost in whispers—their hearts were too quiet and glad for loud expression—discussed their future plans. Before they separated, the schoolmaster read some prayers aloud; and then, full of gratitude and happiness, they parted for the night.

At that silent hour, when her grandfather was sleeping peacefully in his bed, and every sound was hushed, the child lingered before the dying embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had been a dream And she only now awoke. The glare of the sinking flame, reflected in the oaken panels whose carved tops were dimly seen in the dusky roof—the aged walls, where strange shadows came and went with every flickering of the fire—the solemn presence, within, of that decay which falls on senseless things the most enduring in their nature: and, without, and round about on every side, of Death—filled her with deep and thoughtful feelings, but with none of terror or alarm. A change had been gradually stealing over her, in the time of her loneliness and sorrow. With failing strength and heightening resolution, there had sprung up a purified and altered mind; there had grown in her bosom blessed thoughts and hopes, which are the portion of few but the weak and drooping. There were none to see the frail, perishable figure, as it glided from the fire and leaned pensively at the open casement; none but the stars, to look into the upturned face and read its history. The old church bell rang out the hour with a mournful sound, as if it had grown sad from so much communing with the dead and unheeded warning to the living; the fallen leaves rustled; the grass stirred upon the graves; all else was still and sleeping.

Some of those dreamless sleepers lay close within the shadow of the church—touching the wall, as if they clung to it for comfort and protection. Others had chosen to lie beneath the changing shade of trees; others by the path, that footsteps might come near them; others, among the graves of little children. Some had desired to rest beneath the very ground they had trodden in their daily walks; some, where the setting sun might shine upon their beds; some, where its light would fall upon them when it rose. Perhaps not one of the imprisoned souls had been able quite to separate itself in living thought from its old companion. If any had, it had still felt for it a love like that which captives have been known to bear towards the cell in which they have been long confined, and, even at parting, hung upon its narrow bounds affectionately.

It was long before the child closed the window, and approached her bed. Again something of the same sensation as before—an involuntary chill—a momentary feeling akin to fear—but vanishing directly, and leaving no alarm behind. Again, too, dreams of the little scholar; of the roof opening, and a column of bright faces, rising far away into the sky, as she had seen in some old scriptural picture once, and looking down on her, asleep. It was a sweet and happy dream. The quiet spot, outside, seemed to remain the same, saving that there was music in the air, and a sound of angels’ wings. After a time the sisters came there, hand in hand, and stood among the graves. And then the dream grew dim, and faded.

With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of yesterday’s labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the restoration of its energies, cheerfulness, and hope. They worked gaily in ordering and arranging their houses until noon, and then went to visit the clergyman.

He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued spirit, accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with the world, which he had left many years before to come and settle in that place. His wife had died in the house in which he still lived, and he had long since lost sight of any earthly cares or hopes beyond it.

Si trasferirono nell’altro alloggio; provarono le chiavi arrugginite come prima; alla fine trovarono quella giusta; e aprirono la porta mangiata dai tarli. Conduceva in una camera, a volta e vecchia, come quella da cui erano venuti, ma non così spaziosa, e con solo un’altra piccola stanza attaccata. Non era difficile indovinare che l’altro casa era di diritto del maestro di scuola, e che lui aveva scelto per sé il meno comodo, nella sua cura e riguardo per loro. Come l’abitazione adiacente, conteneva articoli di mobili vecchi come quelli assolutamente necessari, e aveva il suo mucchio di fuoco-legna.

Per rendere queste abitazioni il più confortevoli e abitabili possibile, era ora la loro piacevole cura. In breve tempo, ognuna aveva il suo allegro fuoco che ardeva e crepitava nel focolare, arrossando il pallido vecchio muro con un sano e vigoroso rossore. Nell, lavorando diligentemente con l’ago, riparava le tende strappate delle finestre, riuniva le lacere strisce di tappeto che il tempo aveva consumato, e le rendeva intere e presentabili. Il maestro di scuola spazzava e livellava il terreno davanti alla porta, potava l’erba alta, curava l’edera e le piante rampicanti che pendevano con tristi teste abbassate in malinconico abbandono; e dava alle mura esterne un’aria allegra di casa. Il vecchio, a volte al suo fianco e a volte con la bambina, dava il suo aiuto a entrambi, si muoveva qua e là per piccoli servizi pazienti, ed era felice. Anche i vicini, mentre tornavano dal lavoro, offrivano il loro aiuto; o mandavano i loro bambini con piccoli doni o prestiti di cui gli stranieri avevano più bisogno. Era una giornata impegnativa; e la notte calò, trovandoli stupiti che ci fosse ancora tanto da fare, e che fosse buio così presto.

Fecero insieme la loro cena nella casa che d’ora in poi si potrebbe chiamare la bambina’; e, quando ebbero finito di mangiare, si riunirono intorno al fuoco, e quasi sussurrando – i loro cuori erano troppo tranquilli e felici per esprimersi ad alta voce – discussero i loro piani futuri. Prima di separarsi, il maestro di scuola lesse ad alta voce alcune preghiere; e poi, pieni di gratitudine e felicità, si separarono per la notte.

A quell’ora silenziosa, mentre il nonno dormiva tranquillo nel suo letto e ogni suono era soffocato, la bambina rimase a lungo davanti alle braci morenti, ripensando alle sue passate fortune come se fossero state un sogno e lei si fosse appena svegliata. La luce della fiamma che si spegneva, riflessa nei pannelli di quercia i cui intagli erano appena visibili nel tetto scuro, le pareti antiche dove strane ombre apparivano e scomparivano con ogni guizzo del fuoco, la solenne presenza, all’interno, di quel decadimento che colpisce le cose insensate, le più durevoli nella loro natura: e, all’esterno, tutto intorno su ogni lato, la presenza della morte — la riempivano di sentimenti profondi e riflessivi, ma non di terrore o allarme. Un cambiamento si era insinuato in lei gradualmente, nel tempo della sua solitudine e del suo dolore. Con forza che diminuiva e risoluzione che aumentava, era nata una mente purificata e trasformata; erano cresciuti nel suo petto pensieri e speranze benedette, che sono la parte di pochi, ma dei deboli e degli abbattuti. Non c’era nessuno a vedere la fragile, effimera figura mentre si allontanava dal fuoco e si appoggiava pensierosa alla finestra aperta; nessuno se non le stelle, a guardare il volto rivolto verso l’alto e leggere la sua storia. La vecchia campana della chiesa suonò l’ora con un suono malinconico, come se fosse diventata triste per aver comunicato così a lungo con i morti e per essere un monito inascoltato per i vivi; le foglie cadute frusciavano; l’erba si muoveva sulle tombe; tutto il resto era immobile e addormentato.

Alcuni di quei dormienti senza sogni giacevano vicini all’ombra della chiesa, toccando il muro, come se vi si aggrappassero per conforto e protezione. Altri avevano scelto di riposare sotto l’ombra mutevole degli alberi; altri lungo il sentiero, perché i passi potessero avvicinarsi a loro; altri, tra le tombe dei piccoli bambini. Alcuni avevano desiderato riposare proprio sotto il terreno che avevano calpestato nelle loro passeggiate quotidiane; altri, dove il sole al tramonto potesse illuminare i loro letti; altri, dove la sua luce sarebbe caduta su di loro quando sorgeva. Forse nessuna delle anime imprigionate era riuscita a separarsi completamente nel pensiero vivente dal suo vecchio compagno. Se qualcuna lo aveva fatto, aveva comunque provato per esso un amore simile a quello che i prigionieri hanno dimostrato di provare per la cella in cui sono stati a lungo rinchiusi, e, anche al momento della separazione, si sono aggrappati affettuosamente ai suoi limiti ristretti.

Passò molto tempo prima che la bambina chiudesse la finestra e si avvicinasse al suo letto. Ancora una volta provò la stessa sensazione di prima: un brivido involontario, una momentanea impressione simile alla paura, che però svanì subito, senza lasciare alcuna inquietudine. Ancora una volta, sognò il piccolo studioso; del tetto che si apriva e di una colonna di volti luminosi che si alzavano lontano nel cielo, come aveva visto una volta in un’antica immagine biblica, e che la guardavano mentre dormiva. Era un sogno dolce e felice. Il luogo tranquillo all’esterno sembrava rimanere immutato, se non per la musica nell’aria e il suono delle ali degli angeli. Dopo un po’ di tempo, le sorelle arrivarono lì, mano nella mano, e si fermarono tra le tombe. E poi il sogno si fece confuso e svanì.

Con la luminosità e la gioia del mattino, tornarono i lavori del giorno precedente, il risveglio dei suoi pensieri piacevoli, il rinnovamento delle sue energie, della sua allegria e della speranza. Lavorarono allegramente per riordinare e sistemare le loro case fino a mezzogiorno, e poi andarono a trovare il parroco.

Era un vecchio signore dal cuore semplice, di uno spirito timido e riservato, abituato alla vita ritirata e poco conosciuto nel mondo, che aveva lasciato molti anni prima per venire a stabilirsi in quel luogo. Sua moglie era morta nella casa in cui ancora viveva, e da tempo aveva perso di vista qualsiasi preoccupazione o speranza terrena al di là di essa.

He received them very kindly, and at once showed an interest in Nell; asking her name, and age, her birthplace, the circumstances which had led her there, and so forth. The schoolmaster had already told her story. They had no other friends or home to leave, he said, and had come to share his fortunes. He loved the child as though she were his own.

‘Well, well,’ said the clergyman. ‘Let it be as you desire. She is very young.’

‘Old in adversity and trial, sir,’ replied the schoolmaster.

‘God help her. Let her rest, and forget them,’ said the old gentleman. ‘But an old church is a dull and gloomy place for one so young as you, my child.’

‘Oh no, sir,’ returned Nell. ‘I have no such thoughts, indeed.’

‘I would rather see her dancing on the green at nights,’ said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, and smiling sadly, ‘than have her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches. You must look to this, and see that her heart does not grow heavy among these solemn ruins. Your request is granted, friend.’

After more kind words, they withdrew, and repaired to the child’s house; where they were yet in conversation on their happy fortune, when another friend appeared.

This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house, and had resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since the death of the clergyman’s wife, which had happened fifteen years before. He had been his college friend and always his close companion; in the first shock of his grief he had come to console and comfort him; and from that time they had never parted company. The little old gentleman was the active spirit of the place, the adjuster of all differences, the promoter of all merry-makings, the dispenser of his friend’s bounty, and of no small charity of his own besides; the universal mediator, comforter, and friend. None of the simple villagers had cared to ask his name, or, when they knew it, to store it in their memory. Perhaps from some vague rumour of his college honours which had been whispered abroad on his first arrival, perhaps because he was an unmarried, unencumbered gentleman, he had been called the bachelor. The name pleased him, or suited him as well as any other, and the Bachelor he had ever since remained. And the bachelor it was, it may be added, who with his own hands had laid in the stock of fuel which the wanderers had found in their new habitation.

The bachelor, then—to call him by his usual appellation—lifted the latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the door, and stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it.

‘You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?’ he said, greeting Nell’s kind friend.

‘I am, sir.’

‘You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you. I should have been in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across the country to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter in service some miles off, and have but just now returned. This is our young church-keeper? You are not the less welcome, friend, for her sake, or for this old man’s; nor the worse teacher for having learnt humanity.’ ‘She has been ill, sir, very lately,’ said the schoolmaster, in answer to the look with which their visitor regarded Nell when he had kissed her cheek.

‘Yes, yes. I know she has,’ he rejoined. ‘There have been suffering and heartache here.’

‘Indeed there have, sir.’

The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again at the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held.

‘You will be happier here,’ he said; ‘we will try, at least, to make you so. You have made great improvements here already. Are they the work of your hands?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We may make some others—not better in themselves, but with better means perhaps,’ said the bachelor. ‘Let us see now, let us see.’

Nell accompanied him into the other little rooms, and over both the houses, in which he found various small comforts wanting, which he engaged to supply from a certain collection of odds and ends he had at home, and which must have been a very miscellaneous and extensive one, as it comprehended the most opposite articles imaginable. They all came, however, and came without loss of time; for the little old gentleman, disappearing for some five or ten minutes, presently returned, laden with old shelves, rugs, blankets, and other household gear, and followed by a boy bearing a similar load. These being cast on the floor in a promiscuous heap, yielded a quantity of occupation in arranging, erecting, and putting away; the superintendence of which task evidently afforded the old gentleman extreme delight, and engaged him for some time with great briskness and activity. When nothing more was left to be done, he charged the boy to run off and bring his schoolmates to be marshalled before their new master, and solemnly reviewed.

‘As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you’d wish to see,’ he said, turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; ‘but I don’t let ‘em know I think so. That wouldn’t do, at all.’

The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins, great and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house door, fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their hats and caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible dimensions, and making all manner of bows and scrapes, which the little old gentleman contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and expressed his approval of by a great many nods and smiles. Indeed, his approbation of the boys was by no means so scrupulously disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which were perfectly audible to them every one.

‘This first boy, schoolmaster,’ said the bachelor, ‘is John Owen; a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far. That boy, my good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his parents of their chief comfort—and between ourselves, when you come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the finger-post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry, you’ll never forget it. It’s beautiful!’

Li accolse con grande gentilezza e mostrò subito interesse per Nell; le chiese il nome, l’età, il luogo di nascita, le circostanze che l’avevano portata lì e così via. Il maestro di scuola aveva già raccontato la sua storia. Non avevano altri amici o una casa da lasciare, disse, e erano venuti a condividere le sue sorti. Amava la bambina come se fosse stata sua.

«Bene, bene,» disse il prete. «Sia come desideri. È molto giovane.»

«Vecchio nell’avversità e nella prova, signore», rispose il maestro di scuola.

«Dio la aiuti. Lasciatela riposare e dimenticare», disse il vecchio signore. «Ma una vecchia chiesa è un luogo triste e cupo per una così giovane come voi, mia figlia.»

“Oh no, signore,” rispose Nell. “Non ho pensieri del genere, davvero.”

«Preferirei vederla danzare sul prato di notte», disse il vecchio gentiluomo, posando la mano sulla sua testa e sorridendo tristemente, «piuttosto che vederla seduta nell’ombra delle nostre arcate in rovina. Dovete badare a questo, e assicurarvi che il suo cuore non si appesantisca tra queste solenni rovine. La vostra richiesta è esaudita, amico mio.»

Dopo altre gentili parole, si ritirarono e si recarono alla bambina’s casa; dove erano ancora in conversazione sulla loro felice fortuna, quando apparve un altro amico.

Questo era un vecchietto che viveva nella casa del parroco e vi risiedeva (come appresero poco dopo) fin dalla morte della moglie del parroco, avvenuta quindici anni prima. Era stato il suo compagno di college e sempre il suo intimo amico; nel primo impeto del suo dolore era venuto a consolarlo e confortarlo; e da quel tempo non si erano più separati. Il vecchietto era lo spirito attivo del luogo, il risolutore di tutte le controversie, il promotore di tutte le allegre feste, il dispensatore della generosità del suo amico e di una non piccola carità anche sua; il mediatore, il conforto e l’amico di tutti. Nessuno dei semplici contadini si era preoccupato di chiedere il suo nome, o, quando lo conoscevano, di conservarlo nella loro memoria. Forse per qualche vaga voce dei suoi onori universitari che era stata sussurrata all’arrivo, forse perché era un gentiluomo scapolo e senza vincoli, era stato chiamato il celibe. Il nome gli piaceva, o gli si addiceva bene quanto un altro, e da allora era rimasto il Celibe. E fu il Celibe, si può aggiungere, che con le sue stesse mani aveva accumulato la scorta di combustibile che i viandanti avevano trovato nella loro nuova dimora.

Il celibe, dunque — chiamiamolo col suo solito appellativo — alzò il chiavistello, mostrò per un momento la sua piccola faccia rotonda e dolce sulla porta, e entrò nella stanza come se non fosse un estraneo.

«Siete il signor Marton, il nuovo maestro?» disse, salutando il buon amico di Nell.

‘Sono io, signore.’

«Siete ben raccomandato, e sono lieto di vedervi. Ieri sarei stato di intralcio, aspettandovi, ma ho attraversato il paese a cavallo per portare un messaggio da una madre malata alla figlia al servizio a qualche miglio di distanza, e sono appena tornato. Questa è la nostra giovane custode della chiesa? Non siete meno gradito, amico mio, per il suo bene, o per quello di questo vecchio; né siete un insegnante peggiore per aver imparato l’umanità.» «È stata malata, signore, molto di recente», disse il maestro di scuola, in risposta allo sguardo con cui il loro visitatore aveva guardato Nell dopo averle baciato la guancia.

«Sì, sì. So che c’è stata», replicò. «Ci sono stati dolori e pene qui.»

‘Infatti sì, signore.’

Il piccolo vecchietto diede un’occhiata al nonno e poi di nuovo al bambino, la cui mano prese teneramente nella sua e tenne stretta.

«Sarà più felice qui», disse; «almeno, cercheremo di renderla tale. Ha già apportato grandi miglioramenti. Sono opera delle sue mani?»

“Sì, signore.”

«Potremmo fare altri figli — non migliori in sé, ma forse con migliori mezzi», disse il celibe. «Vediamo un po’, vediamo un po’».

Nell lo accompagnò nelle altre piccole stanze e in entrambe le case, dove trovò vari piccoli comfort mancanti, che si impegnò a fornire da una certa collezione di oggetti disparati che aveva a casa, e che doveva essere molto varia e ampia, poiché comprendeva gli articoli più opposti immaginabili. Tuttavia, arrivarono tutti, e arrivarono senza perdita di tempo; poiché il piccolo vecchio signore, scomparendo per cinque o dieci minuti, tornò presto, carico di vecchi scaffali, tappeti, coperte e altri arredi domestici, seguito da un ragazzo che portava un carico simile. Questi, gettati sul pavimento in un mucchio promiscuo, fornirono una quantità di occupazione nell’organizzare, erigere e riporre; la supervisione di questo compito evidentemente procurò al vecchio signore un’estrema gioia, e lo impegnò per qualche tempo con grande vivacità e attività. Quando non rimase più nulla da fare, incaricò il ragazzo di correre a prendere i suoi compagni di scuola per essere schierati davanti al loro nuovo maestro e sottoposti a una solenne revisione.

«Un gruppo di ragazzi in gamba, Marton, come non ne avete mai visti», disse, rivolgendosi al maestro quando il ragazzo se ne fu andato; «ma non gli faccio capire che la penso così. Non sarebbe giusto, per niente.»

Il messaggero tornò presto alla testa di una lunga fila di monelli, grandi e piccoli, che, trovandosi di fronte al celibe sulla porta della casa, caddero in varie convulsioni di cortesia; afferrando i loro cappelli e berretti, li strizzavano nelle dimensioni più piccole possibili e facevano ogni sorta di inchini e riverenze, che il vecchietto osservava con eccessiva soddisfazione, esprimendo la sua approvazione con molti cenni del capo e sorrisi. In effetti, la sua approvazione dei ragazzi non era affatto così scrupolosamente nascosta come aveva fatto credere al maestro di scuola, in quanto si manifestava in vari sussurri forti e osservazioni confidenziali che erano perfettamente udibili a ciascuno di loro.

«Questo primo ragazzo, maestro di scuola», disse il celibe, «è John Owen; un ragazzo di buone qualità, signore, e di temperamento franco e onesto; ma troppo sconsiderato, troppo giocoso, troppo leggero di testa. Quel ragazzo, mio caro signore, si romperebbe il collo con piacere, e priverebbe i suoi genitori del loro principale conforto—e tra noi, quando lo vedrete al coniglio e levrieri, prendere il recinto e il fosso dal pannello indicatore, e scivolare lungo la facciata della piccola cava, non lo dimenticherete mai. È bellissimo!»

John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.

‘Now, look at that lad, sir,’ said the bachelor. ‘You see that fellow? Richard Evans his name is, sir. An amazing boy to learn, blessed with a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover with a good voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the best among us. Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he’ll never die in his bed; he’s always falling asleep in sermon-time—and to tell you the truth, Mr Marton, I always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain that it was natural to my constitution and I couldn’t help it.’

This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor turned to another.

‘But if we talk of examples to be shunned,’ said he, ‘if we come to boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here’s the one, and I hope you won’t spare him. This is the lad, sir; this one with the blue eyes and light hair. This is a swimmer, sir, this fellow—a diver, Lord save us! This is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for plunging into eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man’s dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of his guide and friend. I sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir,’ added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, ‘directly I heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he hasn’t the least idea that it came from me.’

Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart and were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example. Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he could have obeyed when he was a boy, had his life depended on it.

Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor’s disposition as so many assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the schoolmaster parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits, and deemed himself one of the happiest men on earth. The windows of the two old houses were ruddy again, that night, with the reflection of the cheerful fires that burnt within; and the bachelor and his friend, pausing to look upon them as they returned from their evening walk, spoke softly together of the beautiful child, and looked round upon the churchyard with a sigh.

John Owen, dopo essere stato così rimproverato e trovandosi in perfetta posizione per il discorso a parte, il celibe ne scelse un altro.

«Ora, guardi quel ragazzo, signore», disse il celibe. «Vede quel ragazzo? Si chiama Richard Evans, signore. Un ragazzo straordinario per l’apprendimento, dotato di una buona memoria, e di una pronta comprensione, e inoltre di una buona voce e orecchio per il canto dei salmi, in cui è il migliore tra noi. Eppure, signore, quel ragazzo avrà una brutta fine; non morirà mai nel suo letto; si addormenta sempre durante il sermone-tempo—e per dirle la verità, signor Marton, facevo sempre lo stesso alla sua età, e sono sicuro che era naturale alla mia costituzione e non potevo farci nulla.»

Questo promettente allievo, edificato dal terribile rimprovero sopra riportato, fece sì che il celibe si rivolgesse a un altro.

«Ma se parliamo di esempi da evitare», disse, «se arriviamo a ragazzi che dovrebbero essere un monito e un faro per tutti i loro compagni, ecco questo, e spero che non gli risparmierete. Questo è il ragazzo, signore; questo con gli occhi azzurri e i capelli chiari. Questo è un nuotatore, signore, questo tizio—un tuffatore, Signore ci salvi! Questo è un ragazzo, signore, che aveva la passione per tuffarsi in diciotto piedi di acqua, vestito, e portare in superficie il cane di un cieco, che stava annegando a causa del peso della sua catena e del collare, mentre il suo padrone stava strizzando le mani sulla riva, piangendo la perdita della sua guida e del suo amico. Ho mandato al ragazzo due ghinee anonimamente, signore», aggiunse il celibe, nel suo sussurro peculiare, «non appena ho saputo della cosa; ma non ne parlate mai per nessun motivo, perché non ha la minima idea che siano venute da me.»

Dopo aver sistemato questo colpevole, il celibe si rivolse a un altro, e da lui a un altro ancora, e così via attraverso tutta la fila, imponendo, per la loro salutare restrizione entro i limiti dovuti, lo stesso accento tagliente su quelle loro propensioni che erano più care al suo cuore e che erano indubbiamente riconducibili al suo stesso precetto ed esempio. Alla fine, convinto di averli resi infelici con la sua severità, li congedò con un piccolo regalo e un ammonimento a tornare a casa tranquillamente, senza salti, scontri o deviazioni; quest’ordine, informò il maestro di scuola con la stessa confidenza udibile, non pensava di poterlo aver obbedito quando era ragazzo, anche se la sua vita ne fosse dipesa.

Salutando questi piccoli segni della disposizione del celibe come tante assicurazioni del suo benvenuto da quel tempo, il maestro di scuola si separò da lui con un cuore leggero e uno spirito gioioso, e si considerò uno degli uomini più felici sulla terra. Le finestre delle due vecchie case erano di nuovo rosee, quella sera, per la riflessione dei fuochi allegri che ardevano al loro interno; e il celibe e il suo amico, fermandosi a guardarle mentre tornavano dalla loro passeggiata serale, parlarono dolcemente insieme della bella bambina, e guardarono intorno al cimitero con un sospiro.

CHAPTER 53

Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her household tasks, and put everything in order for the good schoolmaster (though sorely against his will, for he would have spared her the pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a little bundle of keys with which the bachelor had formally invested her on the previous day, and went out alone to visit the old church.

The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the fresh scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense. The neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful sound; the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by Good Spirits over the dead. Some young children sported among the tombs, and hid from each other, with laughing faces. They had an infant with them, and had laid it down asleep upon a child’s grave, in a little bed of leaves. It was a new grave—the resting-place, perhaps, of some little creature, who, meek and patient in its illness, had often sat and watched them, and now seemed, to their minds, scarcely changed.

She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was. The child answered that that was not its name; it was a garden—his brother’s. It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens, and the birds loved it better because he had been used to feed them. When he had done speaking, he looked at her with a smile, and kneeling down and nestling for a moment with his cheek against the turf, bounded merrily away.

She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through the wicket gate, and so into the village. The old sexton, leaning on a crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her good morrow.

‘You are better?’ said the child, stopping to speak with him.

‘Ay surely,’ returned the old man. ‘I’m thankful to say, much better.’

‘You will be quite well soon.’

‘With Heaven’s leave, and a little patience. But come in, come in!’ The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step, which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way into his little cottage.

‘It is but one room you see. There is another up above, but the stair has got harder to climb o’ late years, and I never use it. I’m thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.’

The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him—one of his trade too—could talk of time so easily. He saw her eyes wandering to the tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.

‘I warrant now,’ he said, ‘that you think all those are used in making graves.’

‘Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.’

‘And well you might. I am a gardener. I dig the ground, and plant things that are to live and grow. My works don’t all moulder away, and rot in the earth. You see that spade in the centre?’

‘The very old one—so notched and worn? Yes.’

‘That’s the sexton’s spade, and it’s a well-used one, as you see. We’re healthy people here, but it has done a power of work. If it could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an unexpected job that it and I have done together; but I forget ‘em, for my memory’s a poor one.—That’s nothing new,’ he added hastily. ‘It always was.’

‘There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,’ said the child.

‘Oh yes. And tall trees. But they are not so separate from the sexton’s labours as you think.’

‘No!’

‘Not in my mind, and recollection—such as it is,’ said the old man. ‘Indeed they often help it. For say that I planted such a tree for such a man. There it stands, to remind me that he died. When I look at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his time, it helps me to the age of my other work, and I can tell you pretty nearly when I made his grave.’

‘But it may remind you of one who is still alive,’ said the child.

‘Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives, then,’ rejoined the old man; ‘wife, husband, parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends—a score at least. So it happens that the sexton’s spade gets worn and battered. I shall need a new one—next summer.’

The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with his age and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in earnest.

‘Ah!’ he said, after a brief silence. ‘People never learn. They never learn. It’s only we who turn up the ground, where nothing grows and everything decays, who think of such things as these—who think of them properly, I mean. You have been into the church?’

‘I am going there now,’ the child replied.

‘There’s an old well there,’ said the sexton, ‘right underneath the belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well. Forty year ago, you had only to let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of the windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water. By little and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after that, a second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or the bucket swung tight and empty at the end. In ten years’ time, the water fell again, and a third knot was made. In ten years more, the well dried up; and now, if you lower the bucket till your arms are tired, and let out nearly all the cord, you’ll hear it, of a sudden, clanking and rattling on the ground below; with a sound of being so deep and so far down, that your heart leaps into your mouth, and you start away as if you were falling in.’

‘A dreadful place to come on in the dark!’ exclaimed the child, who had followed the old man’s looks and words until she seemed to stand upon its brink.

‘What is it but a grave!’ said the sexton. ‘What else! And which of our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring subsided, of their own failing strength, and lessening life? Not one!’

CAPITOLO 53

Nell si svegliò presto al mattino, e dopo aver svolto i suoi compiti domestici e messo tutto in ordine per il buon maestro di scuola (sebbene contro la sua volontà, perché lui avrebbe voluto risparmiarle la fatica), prese giù, dal chiodo accanto al caminetto, un piccolo mazzo di chiavi con cui il celibe l’aveva formalmente investita il giorno precedente, e uscì da sola per visitare la vecchia chiesa.

Il cielo era sereno e luminoso, l’aria limpida, profumata dal fresco aroma delle foglie appena cadute, e grata a ogni senso. Il ruscello vicino scintillava e scorreva avanti con un suono melodioso; la rugiada brillava sui verdi tumuli, come lacrime versate da buoni spiriti sui morti. Alcuni bambini giocavano tra le tombe, nascondendosi l’uno all’altro con volti sorridenti. Avevano con sé un neonato, che avevano adagiato addormentato su una bambino’s tomba, in un piccolo letto di foglie. Era una tomba nuova, forse il luogo di riposo di qualche piccola creatura, che, mite e paziente nella sua malattia, spesso si era seduta a guardarli, e ora sembrava, ai loro occhi, appena cambiata.

Si avvicinò e chiese a uno di loro di chi fosse la tomba. Il bambino rispose che quello non era il suo nome; era un giardino - di suo fratello. Era più verde, disse, di tutti gli altri giardini, e gli uccelli lo preferivano perché lui era solito nutrirli. Quando ebbe finito di parlare, la guardò con un sorriso, si inginocchiò e si accoccolò per un momento con la guancia contro il terreno, poi saltellò via allegramente.

Passò davanti alla chiesa, guardando in su verso il vecchio campanile, attraversò il cancelletto e così entrò nel villaggio. Il vecchio sagrestano, appoggiato a un bastone, stava prendendo aria sulla porta della sua casetta e le augurò il buongiorno.

«Stai meglio?» disse il bambino, fermandosi per parlargli.

“Certamente”, rispose il vecchio. “Grazie a Dio, molto meglio.”

«Voi sarete del tutto bene presto.»

«Con l’aiuto del cielo e un po’ di pazienza. Ma entri, entri!» Il vecchio zoppicò avanti, e avvertendola del gradino in discesa, che lui stesso superò non senza difficoltà, la condusse nella sua piccola casetta.

«È solo una stanza che vedete. Ce n’è un’altra sopra, ma le scale sono diventate più difficili da salire negli ultimi anni, e non le uso più. Sto pensando di riprenderle l’anno prossimo, però, al prossimo estate.»

Il bambino si chiedeva come un uomo con i capelli grigi come lui, e pure del suo mestiere, potesse parlare del tempo con tanta facilità. Vide i suoi occhi vagare verso gli attrezzi appesi al muro e sorrise.

‘Ora scommetto’, disse, ‘che pensi che tutti questi vengano usati per fare le tombe.’

‘Infatti, mi chiedevo perché ne voleste così tanti.’

«E bene che lo facciate. Sono un giardiniere. Scavo la terra e pianto cose che devono vivere e crescere. Le mie opere non marciscono tutte e non marciscono nella terra. Vedete quella vanga al centro?»

“Quella molto vecchia, così segnata e consumata? Sì.”

«Questa è la pala del sagrestano, e come vedi è una pala ben usata. Siamo gente sana qui, ma ha lavorato parecchio. Se potesse parlare, quella pala, vi racconterebbe di molti lavori inaspettati che abbiamo fatto insieme io e lei; ma io li dimentico, perché la mia memoria è poco affidabile. — Ma questo non è niente di nuovo», aggiunse in fretta, «è sempre stata così.»

«Ci sono fiori e arbusti per parlare del tuo altro lavoro», disse il bambino.

«Oh sì. E alberi alti. Ma non sono così separati dai lavori del sagrestano come pensi.»

‘No!’

«Non nella mia mente e nella mia memoria — per quel che vale», disse il vecchio. «In effetti spesso mi aiutano. Per esempio, se ho piantato un albero per un uomo. Ecco che sta lì, a ricordarmi che è morto. Quando guardo la sua larga ombra, e ricordo com’era ai suoi tempi, mi aiuta a ricordare l’epoca del mio altro lavoro, e posso dirti quasi esattamente quando ho fatto la sua tomba.»

«Ma potrebbe ricordarvi qualcuno che è ancora vivo», disse il bambino.

«Di venti che sono morti, in connessione con quello che vive, allora», riprese il vecchio; «moglie, marito, genitori, fratelli, sorelle, figli, amici — almeno venti. Così succede che la pala del becchino si consuma e si ammaccia. Ne avrò bisogno di una nuova — la prossima estate».

Il bambino lo guardò rapidamente, pensando che scherzasse sulla sua età e sulla sua infermità: ma il becchino inconsapevole era del tutto serio.

«Ah!» disse, dopo un breve silenzio. «La gente non impara mai. Mai. Sono solo noi che ariamo la terra, dove nulla cresce e tutto marcisce, a pensare a cose come queste, a pensarci seriamente, voglio dire. Siete stato in chiesa?»

«Ci sto andando adesso», rispose il bambino.

‘C’è un vecchio pozzo lì’, disse il becchino, ‘proprio sotto il campanile; un pozzo profondo, oscuro, risonante. Quarant’anni fa, bastava lasciar scendere il secchio finché il primo nodo della corda si staccava dalla carrucola, e si sentiva l’acqua schizzare nella fredda, opaca acqua. Poco a poco l’acqua diminuì, così che dieci anni dopo, si fece un secondo nodo, e bisognava srotolare tanta corda, altrimenti il secchio rimaneva sospeso vuoto alla fine. Dieci anni dopo, l’acqua diminuì ancora, e si fece un terzo nodo. Dieci anni più tardi, il pozzo si prosciugò; e ora, se si abbassa il secchio finché le braccia sono stanche, e si lascia scorrere quasi tutta la corda, si sentirà, di colpo, tintinnare e rimbalzare sul fondo; con un suono così profondo e così lontano, che il cuore salta in gola, e si scappa via come se si stesse cadendo dentro.’

«Un posto terribile da raggiungere al buio!» esclamò la bambina, che aveva seguito lo sguardo e le parole del vecchio fino a quando le sembrò di trovarsi sul suo bordo.

«Che cos’è se non una tomba!» disse il becchino. «Null’altro! E quale dei nostri anziani, conoscendo tutto questo, pensò, mentre la primavera declinava, alla propria forza che veniva meno e alla vita che si accorciava? Nessuno!»

‘Are you very old yourself?’ asked the child, involuntarily.

‘I shall be seventy-nine—next summer.’

‘You still work when you are well?’

‘Work! To be sure. You shall see my gardens hereabout. Look at the window there. I made, and have kept, that plot of ground entirely with my own hands. By this time next year I shall hardly see the sky, the boughs will have grown so thick. I have my winter work at night besides.’

He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and produced some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made of old wood.

‘Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to them,’ he said, ‘like to buy these keepsakes from our church and ruins. Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here and there; sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long preserved. See here—this is a little chest of the last kind, clasped at the edges with fragments of brass plates that had writing on ‘em once, though it would be hard to read it now. I haven’t many by me at this time of year, but these shelves will be full—next summer.’

The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old man, drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one stern moral, never contemplated its application to himself; and, while he dwelt upon the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and deed to deem himself immortal. But her musings did not stop here, for she was wise enough to think that by a good and merciful adjustment this must be human nature, and that the old sexton, with his plans for next summer, was but a type of all mankind.

Full of these meditations, she reached the church. It was easy to find the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on a scrap of yellow parchment. Its very turning in the lock awoke a hollow sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the echoes that it raised in closing, made her start.

If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly, because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep impression of finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the very light, coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and the air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone! Here was the broken pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing on the pilgrims’ steps, had trodden out their track, and left but crumbling stones. Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately tomb on which no epitaph remained—all—marble, stone, iron, wood, and dust—one common monument of ruin. The best work and the worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least imposing—both of Heaven’s work and Man’s—all found one common level here, and told one common tale.

Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded hands—cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars—girded with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived. Some of these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty hooks. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet retained their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect. Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.

The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the stark figures on the tombs—they made it more quiet there, than elsewhere, to her fancy—and gazing round with a feeling of awe, tempered with a calm delight, felt that now she was happy, and at rest. She took a Bible from the shelf, and read; then, laying it down, thought of the summer days and the bright springtime that would come—of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant, upon the sleeping forms—of the leaves that would flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the pavement—of the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors—of the sweet air, that would steal in, and gently wave the tattered banners overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of death! Die who would, it would still remain the same; these sights and sounds would still go on, as happily as ever. It would be no pain to sleep amidst them.

She left the chapel—very slowly and often turning back to gaze again—and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower, opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where she looked down, through narrow loopholes, on the place she had left, or caught a glimmering vision of the dusty bells. At length she gained the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top.

Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the bright blue sky; the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke, that, coming from among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the green earth; the children yet at their gambols down below—all, everything, so beautiful and happy! It was like passing from death to life; it was drawing nearer Heaven.

The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked the door. As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy hum of voices. Her friend had begun his labours only on that day. The noise grew louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come trooping out and disperse themselves with merry shouts and play. ‘It’s a good thing,’ thought the child, ‘I am very glad they pass the church.’ And then she stopped, to fancy how the noise would sound inside, and how gently it would seem to die away upon the ear.

Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel, and in her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the same quiet train of thought. Even when it had grown dusk, and the shadows of coming night made it more solemn still, the child remained, like one rooted to the spot, and had no fear or thought of stirring.

They found her there, at last, and took her home. She looked pale but very happy, until they separated for the night; and then, as the poor schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he felt a tear upon his face.

‘Sei molto vecchio anche tu?’ chiese il bambino, involontariamente.

«Avrò settantanove anni — la prossima estate.»

«Continui a lavorare quando sei bene?»

«Lavoro! Certo. Vedrete i miei giardini qui intorno. Guardate la finestra là. Ho fatto e ho curato quel pezzo di terreno interamente con le mie mani. A quest’ora l’anno prossimo a malapena vedrò il cielo, i rami saranno cresciuti così folti. Ho anche il mio lavoro invernale di notte.»

Mentre parlava, aprì un armadietto vicino al posto dove sedeva e tirò fuori alcune scatoline in miniatura, intagliate in modo rustico e fatte di legno vecchio.

«Alcuni gentiluomini che amano i tempi antichi e tutto ciò che vi appartiene», disse, «amano comprare questi ricordi dalla nostra chiesa e dalle rovine. A volte, li faccio con pezzi di quercia che si trovano qua e là; a volte con frammenti di bare che le volte hanno conservato a lungo. Guardate qui: questa è una piccola cassa dell’ultimo tipo, chiusa ai bordi con frammenti di lastre di ottone che una volta avevano delle scritte, anche se ora sarebbe difficile leggerle. Non ne ho molti con me in questo periodo dell’anno, ma queste mensole saranno piene il prossimo estate.»

Il bambino ammirò e lodò il suo lavoro, e poco dopo se ne andò; pensando, mentre camminava, quanto fosse strano che quell’uomo anziano, traiendo dalle sue occupazioni e da tutto ciò che lo circondava una morale severa, non contemplasse mai la sua applicazione a se stesso; e, mentre si soffermava sull’incertezza della vita umana, sembrava, sia a parole che nei fatti, considerarsi immortale. Ma i suoi pensieri non si fermarono qui, perché era abbastanza saggia da pensare che, con un buon e misericordioso aggiustamento, questo doveva essere la natura umana, e che il vecchio becchino, con i suoi piani per la prossima estate, era solo un tipo di tutta l’umanità.

Piena di queste riflessioni, raggiunse la chiesa. Era facile trovare la chiave della porta esterna, perché ciascuna era contrassegnata da un pezzetto di pergamena gialla. Già il suo giro nella serratura suscitò un suono cupo, e quando entrò con passo esitante, gli echi che si levarono alla chiusura la fecero sobbalzare.

Se la pace del semplice villaggio aveva commosso la bambina più profondamente, a causa dei sentieri oscuri e tormentati che si estendevano oltre, e attraverso i quali aveva viaggiato con passi così incerti, quale era la profonda impressione di trovarsi sola in quell’edificio solenne, dove la luce stessa, che entrava attraverso le finestre affondate, sembrava vecchia e grigia, e l’ aria, impregnata di terra e muffa, sembrava carica di decadenza, purificata dal tempo di tutte le sue particelle più grossolane, e sospirava attraverso archi e navate, e pilastri a grappolo, come il respiro di epoche passate! Ecco il pavimento rotto, consumato, tanto tempo fa, da piedi pii, che il Tempo, insinuandosi nei passi dei pellegrini, aveva cancellato la loro traccia, lasciando solo pietre in rovina. Ecco la trave marcia, l’arco che sprofonda, il muro eroso e in decomposizione, la bassa fossa di terra, la maestosa tomba sulla quale non rimaneva alcun epitaffio—tutto—marmo, pietra, ferro, legno, e polvere—un comune monumento di rovina. Il lavoro migliore e il peggiore, il più semplice e il più ricco, il più maestoso e il meno imponente—sia dell’opera del Cielo che dell’Uomo—tutti trovavano qui un livello comune e raccontavano una storia comune.

Parte dell’edificio era stata una cappella baronale, e qui si trovavano le effigi di guerrieri distesi sui loro letti di pietra con le mani giunte—con le gambe incrociate, quelli che avevano combattuto nelle Crociate—cinti delle loro spade e rivestiti dell’armatura con cui avevano vissuto. Alcuni di questi cavalieri avevano le loro armi, elmi, cotta di maglia appesi alle pareti vicine, e pendevano da ganci arrugginiti. Anche se rotti e in rovina, conservavano ancora la loro antica forma e qualcosa del loro aspetto originario. Così le azioni violente sopravvivono agli uomini sulla terra, e le tracce di guerra e di sangue sopravvivono in forme tristi molto tempo dopo che coloro che hanno causato la desolazione sono diventati semplici atomi di terra.

Il bambino si sedette in quel vecchio, silenzioso luogo, tra le figure austere sulle tombe — che lo rendevano ancora più tranquillo, secondo lei, che altrove — e guardandosi intorno con un senso di timore, temperato da una calma gioia, sentì che ora era felice e in pace. Prese una Bibbia dallo scaffale, e lesse; poi, posandola, pensò ai giorni d’estate e al luminoso tempo di primavera che sarebbe venuto — ai raggi di sole che sarebbero caduti obliqui, sulle forme addormentate — alle foglie che sarebbero frusciate alla finestra, e avrebbero giocato in scintillanti ombre sul pavimento — ai canti degli uccelli, e alla crescita di gemme e fiori fuori delle porte — all’aria dolce, che sarebbe entrata furtiva, e avrebbe dolcemente mosso le bandiere strappate sopra di lei. Che importava se il luogo risvegliava pensieri di morte! Chiunque morisse, esso sarebbe rimasto lo stesso; queste immagini e suoni sarebbero continuati, come sempre, felicemente. Non sarebbe stato un dolore dormire in mezzo a loro.

Uscì dalla cappella - molto lentamente e spesso voltandosi a guardare di nuovo - e giunta a una bassa porta, che evidentemente conduceva alla torre, la aprì e salì la scala a chiocciola al buio; salvo quando guardava giù, attraverso strette feritoie, sul luogo che aveva lasciato, o coglieva un barlume delle polverose campane. Alla fine raggiunse la fine della salita e si fermò sulla sommità del torrione.

Oh! la gloria dell’improvviso scoppio di luce; la freschezza dei campi e dei boschi, che si estendevano dappertutto, e si incontravano con il cupo azzurro; il bestiame che pascolava nei pascoli; il fumo, che, provenendo tra gli alberi, sembrava salire verso l’alto dalla terra verde; i bambini ancora alle loro corse giù in basso—tutto, ogni cosa, così bella e felice! Era come passare dalla morte alla vita; era avvicinarsi al Cielo.

I bambini erano andati via quando lei uscì sul portico e chiuse la porta. Mentre passava davanti alla scuola poteva sentire il ronzio attivo delle voci. Il suo amico aveva iniziato il suo lavoro solo quel giorno. Il rumore si fece più forte e, voltandosi, vide i ragazzi uscire in fila e disperdersi con allegri gridi e giochi. «È una buona cosa», pensò la ragazza, «sono molto contenta che passino davanti alla chiesa». E poi si fermò, immaginando come sarebbe suonato il rumore all’interno e quanto dolcemente sarebbe sembrato morire all’orecchio.

Anche quel giorno, sì, due volte ancora, tornò di nascosto nella vecchia cappella, e nella sua vecchia postazione lesse dallo stesso libro, o si abbandonò alla stessa tranquilla catena di pensieri. Anche quando era calata la penombra, e le ombre della notte imminente la rendevano ancora più solenne, la bambina rimaneva lì, come radicata al posto, e non aveva paura né pensiero di muoversi.

Alla fine la trovarono lì e la portarono a casa. Sembrava pallida ma molto felice, fino a quando si separarono per la notte; e poi, mentre il povero maestro si chinava per baciarle la guancia, sentì una lacrima scorrere sul suo viso.

CHAPTER 54

The bachelor, among his various occupations, found in the old church a constant source of interest and amusement. Taking that pride in it which men conceive for the wonders of their own little world, he had made its history his study; and many a summer day within its walls, and many a winter’s night beside the parsonage fire, had found the bachelor still poring over, and adding to, his goodly store of tale and legend.

As he was not one of those rough spirits who would strip fair Truth of every little shadowy vestment in which time and teeming fancies love to array her—and some of which become her pleasantly enough, serving, like the waters of her well, to add new graces to the charms they half conceal and half suggest, and to awaken interest and pursuit rather than languor and indifference—as, unlike this stern and obdurate class, he loved to see the goddess crowned with those garlands of wild flowers which tradition wreathes for her gentle wearing, and which are often freshest in their homeliest shapes—he trod with a light step and bore with a light hand upon the dust of centuries, unwilling to demolish any of the airy shrines that had been raised above it, if any good feeling or affection of the human heart were hiding thereabouts. Thus, in the case of an ancient coffin of rough stone, supposed, for many generations, to contain the bones of a certain baron, who, after ravaging, with cut, and thrust, and plunder, in foreign lands, came back with a penitent and sorrowing heart to die at home, but which had been lately shown by learned antiquaries to be no such thing, as the baron in question (so they contended) had died hard in battle, gnashing his teeth and cursing with his latest breath—the bachelor stoutly maintained that the old tale was the true one; that the baron, repenting him of the evil, had done great charities and meekly given up the ghost; and that, if ever baron went to heaven, that baron was then at peace. In like manner, when the aforesaid antiquaries did argue and contend that a certain secret vault was not the tomb of a grey-haired lady who had been hanged and drawn and quartered by glorious Queen Bess for succouring a wretched priest who fainted of thirst and hunger at her door, the bachelor did solemnly maintain, against all comers, that the church was hallowed by the said poor lady’s ashes; that her remains had been collected in the night from four of the city’s gates, and thither in secret brought, and there deposited; and the bachelor did further (being highly excited at such times) deny the glory of Queen Bess, and assert the immeasurably greater glory of the meanest woman in her realm, who had a merciful and tender heart. As to the assertion that the flat stone near the door was not the grave of the miser who had disowned his only child and left a sum of money to the church to buy a peal of bells, the bachelor did readily admit the same, and that the place had given birth to no such man. In a word, he would have had every stone, and plate of brass, the monument only of deeds whose memory should survive. All others he was willing to forget. They might be buried in consecrated ground, but he would have had them buried deep, and never brought to light again.

It was from the lips of such a tutor, that the child learnt her easy task. Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent building and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood—majestic age surrounded by perpetual youth—it seemed to her, when she heard these things, sacred to all goodness and virtue. It was another world, where sin and sorrow never came; a tranquil place of rest, where nothing evil entered.

When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every tomb and flat grave-stone some history of its own, he took her down into the old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it had been lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps depending from the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented odours, and habits glittering with gold and silver, and pictures, and precious stuffs, and jewels all flashing and glistening through the low arches, the chaunt of aged voices had been many a time heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt and prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads. Thence, he took her above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along—dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off—or to pause like gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers. He showed her too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those rotting scraps of armour up above—how this had been a helmet, and that a shield, and that a gauntlet—and how they had wielded the great two-handed swords, and beaten men down, with yonder iron mace. All that he told the child she treasured in her mind; and sometimes, when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times, and rising from her bed looked out at the dark church, she almost hoped to see the windows lighted up, and hear the organ’s swell, and sound of voices, on the rushing wind.

The old sexton soon got better, and was about again. From him the child learnt many other things, though of a different kind. He was not able to work, but one day there was a grave to be made, and he came to overlook the man who dug it. He was in a talkative mood; and the child, at first standing by his side, and afterwards sitting on the grass at his feet, with her thoughtful face raised towards his, began to converse with him.

Now, the man who did the sexton’s duty was a little older than he, though much more active. But he was deaf; and when the sexton (who peradventure, on a pinch, might have walked a mile with great difficulty in half-a-dozen hours) exchanged a remark with him about his work, the child could not help noticing that he did so with an impatient kind of pity for his infirmity, as if he were himself the strongest and heartiest man alive.

CAPITOLO 54

Il celibe, tra le sue varie occupazioni, trovava nella vecchia chiesa una costante fonte di interesse e divertimento. Nutrendo per essa quella fierezza che gli uomini provano per le meraviglie del loro piccolo mondo, ne aveva fatto la sua storia un oggetto di studio; e molti giorni d’estate tra le sue mura, e molte notti d’inverno accanto al fuoco del parroco, avevano trovato il celibe ancora intento a esaminare e ad arricchire la sua notevole raccolta di racconti e leggende.

Non essendo uno di quegli spiriti rozzi che spoglierebbero la Verità di ogni ombroso abito in cui il tempo e le fantasie feconde l’amano a vestire — e alcuni dei quali le donano piacevolmente, servendo, come le acque del suo pozzo, ad aggiungere nuove grazie ai fascini che a metà celano e a metà suggeriscono, e a suscitare interesse e ricerca anziché languore e indifferenza — non essendo, a differenza di questa classe severa e ostinata, uno di coloro che amano vedere la dea incoronata con quei ghirlande di fiori selvatici che la tradizione le intreccia per dolce abbellimento, e che sono spesso più fresche nelle loro forme più semplici — egli calpestava con passo leggero e toccava con mano leggera la polvere dei secoli, riluttante a demolire uno qualsiasi di quei templi aerei che erano stati innalzati al di sopra di essa, se in essi si nascondesse qualche buon sentimento o affetto del cuore umano. Così, nel caso di un antico sarcofago di pietra grezza, che si supponeva, per molte generazioni, contenesse le ossa di un certo barone, il quale, dopo aver devastato, con tagli, pugnalate e saccheggi, terre straniere, era tornato con un cuore pentito e addolorato a morire a casa, ma che era stato recentemente dimostrato da dotti antiquari non essere affatto tale, poiché il barone in questione (così sostenevano) era morto in battaglia, digrignando i denti e imprecando con il suo ultimo respiro — il celibe sosteneva con fermezza che la vecchia storia era la vera; che il barone, pentito del male, aveva compiuto grandi opere di carità e aveva abbandonato mansuetamente il soffio vitale; e che, se mai un barone fosse andato in paradiso, quel barone era allora in pace. Allo stesso modo, quando gli suddetti antiquari sostenevano e contendevano che una certa cripta segreta non fosse la tomba di una signora dai capelli grigi che era stata impiccata, squartata e decapitata dalla gloriosa Regina Bess per aver soccorso un povero prete che sveniva di sete e fame alla sua porta, il celibe sosteneva solennemente, contro tutti, che la chiesa era stata consacrata con le ceneri della suddetta povera signora; che i suoi resti erano stati raccolti nella notte da quattro delle porte della città, e portati di nascosto lì, e lì depositati; e il celibe andava oltre (essendo molto eccitato in tali occasioni) negando la gloria della Regina Bess, e affermando la gloria immensamente maggiore della più umile donna del suo regno, che aveva un cuore misericordioso e tenero. Per quanto riguarda l’affermazione che la lastra piatta vicino alla porta non fosse la tomba dell’avaraccio che aveva disconosciuto il suo unico figlio e lasciato una somma di denaro alla chiesa per comprare una campana, il celibe ammetteva prontamente la stessa, e che il luogo non aveva dato i natali a un tale uomo. In una parola, egli avrebbe voluto che ogni pietra e ogni targa di bronzo fosse il monumento solo di azioni la cui memoria sarebbe sopravvissuta. Tutte le altre era disposto a dimenticare. Potevano essere sepolte in terra consacrata, ma egli le avrebbe sepolte in profondità, e mai riportate alla luce.

Fu dalle labbra di un tale precettore che la bambina apprese il suo facile compito. Già colpita, oltre ogni dire, dall’edificio silenzioso e dalla pacifica bellezza del luogo in cui si trovava - un’età maestosa circondata da un’eterna giovinezza - le sembrò, quando sentì queste cose, sacro a ogni bontà e virtù. Era un altro mondo, dove il peccato e il dolore non arrivavano mai; un luogo tranquillo di riposo, dove nulla di male entrava.

Quando il celibe le ebbe raccontato, in relazione a quasi ogni tomba e a ogni lapide piatta, una storia a parte, la condusse nella vecchia cripta, ora una semplice cupola scura, e le mostrò come fosse stata illuminata ai tempi dei monaci, e come, tra lampade appese al soffitto, turiboli oscillanti che esalavano profumi, abiti che luccicavano d’oro e d’argento, quadri, stoffe preziose e gioielli che brillavano e scintillavano tra le arcate basse, il canto delle voci anziane fosse stato udito molte volte lì, a mezzanotte, nei vecchi tempi, mentre figure incappucciate si inginocchiavano e pregavano intorno, recitando il loro rosario di perline. Da lì, la condusse di nuovo sopra terra e le mostrò, in alto sulle vecchie mura, piccole gallerie dove le monache erano solite scivolare lungo — appena visibili nei loro abiti scuri a quella distanza — o fermarsi come ombre cupe, ascoltando le preghiere. Le mostrò anche come i guerrieri, le cui figure riposavano sulle tombe, avessero indossato quei frammenti di armatura in decomposizione lassù — come questo fosse stato un elmo, e quello uno scudo, e quell’altro un guanto — e come avessero maneggiato le grandi spade a due mani, e abbattuto gli uomini con quella mazza di ferro. Tutto ciò che raccontò al bambino lei lo custodì nella sua mente; e a volte, quando si svegliava di notte da sogni di quei vecchi tempi, e alzandosi dal letto guardava fuori verso la chiesa oscura, sperava quasi di vedere le finestre illuminate, e di sentire il suono dell’organo e delle voci, sul vento impetuoso.

Il vecchio sagrestano presto guarì e fu di nuovo in giro. Da lui la bambina apprese molte altre cose, sebbene di natura diversa. Non era in grado di lavorare, ma un giorno c’era una tomba da scavare, e lui venne a sorvegliare l’uomo che la scavava. Era di umore loquace; e la bambina, dapprima in piedi al suo fianco, e poi seduta sull’erba ai suoi piedi, con il suo viso pensieroso rivolto verso di lui, iniziò a conversare con lui.

Ora, l’uomo che svolgeva il compito del sagrestano era un po’ più anziano di lui, sebbene molto più attivo. Ma era sordo; e quando il sagrestano (che forse, in caso di necessità, avrebbe potuto camminare un miglio con grande difficoltà in un paio d’ore) scambiava una frase con lui riguardo al suo lavoro, il bambino non poteva fare a meno di notare che lo faceva con una specie di impaziente pietà per la sua infermità, come se lui stesso fosse l’uomo più forte e robusto in vita.

‘I’m sorry to see there is this to do,’ said the child when she approached. ‘I heard of no one having died.’

‘She lived in another hamlet, my dear,’ returned the sexton. ‘Three mile away.’

‘Was she young?’

‘Ye-yes’ said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think. David, was she more than sixty-four?’

David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question. The sexton, as he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was too infirm to rise without assistance, called his attention by throwing a little mould upon his red nightcap.

‘What’s the matter now?’ said David, looking up.

‘How old was Becky Morgan?’ asked the sexton.

‘Becky Morgan?’ repeated David.

‘Yes,’ replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half irritable tone, which the old man couldn’t hear, ‘you’re getting very deaf, Davy, very deaf to be sure!’

The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a piece of slate he had by him for the purpose—and scraping off, in the process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans—set himself to consider the subject.

‘Let me think’ quoth he. ‘I saw last night what they had put upon the coffin—was it seventy-nine?’

‘No, no,’ said the sexton.

‘Ah yes, it was though,’ returned the old man with a sigh. ‘For I remember thinking she was very near our age. Yes, it was seventy-nine.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t mistake a figure, Davy?’ asked the sexton, with signs of some emotion.

‘What?’ said the old man. ‘Say that again.’

‘He’s very deaf. He’s very deaf indeed,’ cried the sexton petulantly; ‘are you sure you’re right about the figures?’

‘Oh quite,’ replied the old man. ‘Why not?’

‘He’s exceedingly deaf,’ muttered the sexton to himself. ‘I think he’s getting foolish.’

The child rather wondered what had led him to this belief, as, to say the truth, the old man seemed quite as sharp as he, and was infinitely more robust. As the sexton said nothing more just then, however, she forgot it for the time, and spoke again.

‘You were telling me,’ she said, ‘about your gardening. Do you ever plant things here?’

‘In the churchyard?’ returned the sexton, ‘Not I.’

‘I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,’ the child rejoined; ‘there are some over there, you see. I thought they were of your rearing, though indeed they grow but poorly.’

‘They grow as Heaven wills,’ said the old man; ‘and it kindly ordains that they shall never flourish here.’

‘I do not understand you.’

‘Why, this it is,’ said the sexton. ‘They mark the graves of those who had very tender, loving friends.’

‘I was sure they did!’ the child exclaimed. ‘I am very glad to know they do!’

‘Aye,’ returned the old man, ‘but stay. Look at them. See how they hang their heads, and droop, and wither. Do you guess the reason?’

‘No,’ the child replied.

‘Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon. At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once a week to once a month; then, at long and uncertain intervals; then, not at all. Such tokens seldom flourish long. I have known the briefest summer flowers outlive them.’

‘I grieve to hear it,’ said the child.

‘Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,’ returned the old man, shaking his head, ‘but I say otherwise. “It’s a pretty custom you have in this part of the country,” they say to me sometimes, “to plant the graves, but it’s melancholy to see these things all withering or dead.” I crave their pardon and tell them that, as I take it, ‘tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And so it is. It’s nature.’

‘Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves,’ said the child in an earnest voice.

‘Perhaps so,’ replied the old man doubtfully. ‘It may be.’

‘Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,’ thought the child within herself, ‘I’ll make this place my garden. It will be no harm at least to work here day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of it, I am sure.’

Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton, who turned towards old David, and called him by his name. It was plain that Becky Morgan’s age still troubled him; though why, the child could scarcely understand.

The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man’s attention. Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put his hand to his dull ear.

‘Did you call?’ he said.

‘I have been thinking, Davy,’ replied the sexton, ‘that she,’ he pointed to the grave, ‘must have been a deal older than you or me.’

‘Seventy-nine,’ answered the old man with a shake of the head, ‘I tell you that I saw it.’

‘Saw it?’ replied the sexton; ‘aye, but, Davy, women don’t always tell the truth about their age.’

‘That’s true indeed,’ said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle in his eye. ‘She might have been older.’

‘I’m sure she must have been. Why, only think how old she looked. You and I seemed but boys to her.’

‘She did look old,’ rejoined David. ‘You’re right. She did look old.’

‘Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and say if she could be but seventy-nine at last—only our age,’ said the sexton.

‘Five year older at the very least!’ cried the other.

‘Five!’ retorted the sexton. ‘Ten. Good eighty-nine. I call to mind the time her daughter died. She was eighty-nine if she was a day, and tries to pass upon us now, for ten year younger. Oh! human vanity!’

The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such weight as to render it doubtful—not whether the deceased was of the age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal term of a hundred. When they had settled this question to their mutual satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend’s assistance, rose to go.

«Mi dispiace vedere che c’è questo da fare», disse la bambina quando si avvicinò. «Non ho sentito dire che qualcuno fosse morto.»

«Viveva in un altro villaggio, mia cara», rispose il sagrestano. «A tre miglia di distanza.»

‘Era giovane?’

«Sì-sì», disse il sagrestano, «non più di sessantaquattro, credo. David, aveva più di sessantaquattro anni?»

David, che scavava con impegno, non udì nulla della domanda. Il becchino, non potendo raggiungerlo per toccarlo con il suo bastone e troppo debole per alzarsi senza aiuto, attirò la sua attenzione gettandogli addosso un po’ di terra sulla sua berretta rossa da notte.

«Che succede adesso?» disse David, alzando lo sguardo.

«Quanti anni aveva Becky Morgan?» chiese il sagrestano.

«Becky Morgan?» ripeté David.

«Sì», rispose il becchino, aggiungendo con un tono a metà tra la compassione e l’irritazione, che il vecchio non poteva sentire, «stai diventando molto sordo, Davy, molto sordo davvero!»

Il vecchio si fermò nel suo lavoro, e pulì la sua vanga con un pezzo di ardesia che aveva a portata di mano per questo scopo — e, nel processo, raschiò via l’essenza di Dio sa quanti Becky Morgan — e si mise a considerare l’argomento.

«Lasciatemi pensare» disse. «Ho visto ieri notte cosa avevano messo sulla bara: erano settantanove?»

«No, no», disse il sagrestano.

«Ah, sì, lo era, invece», rispose il vecchio con un sospiro. «Perché mi ricordo di aver pensato che era molto vicina alla nostra età. Sì, erano settantanove.»

«Sei sicuro di non aver confuso una figura, Davy?» chiese il sagrestano, mostrando segni di una certa emozione.

“Che cosa?” disse il vecchio. “Ripeti.”

«È molto sordo. È davvero molto sordo», gridò il sagrestano con petulanza; «siete sicuro di avere ragione riguardo ai numeri?»

“Perché no?”, rispose il vecchio.

“È sordissimo”, mormorò il becchino tra sé. “Credo che stia diventando matto.”

La bambina si chiedeva piuttosto cosa l’avesse portata a questa convinzione, dato che, per dire la verità, il vecchio sembrava altrettanto acuto quanto lei, ed era infinitamente più robusto. Poiché il becchino non disse altro in quel momento, tuttavia, lei lo dimenticò per il tempo e riprese a parlare.

«Mi stava dicendo», disse, «del suo giardinaggio. Pianta mai qualcosa qui?»

‘Nel cimitero?’ rispose il becchino, ‘Non io.’

«Ho visto alcuni fiori e piccoli arbusti intorno», riprese il bambino; «ce ne sono alcuni laggiù, vedi. Pensavo fossero tuoi, anche se in effetti crescono male».

«Crescono come vuole il Cielo», disse il vecchio; «e questo ordina che non fioriranno mai qui».

‘Non ti capisco.’

«Ecco perché», disse il sagrestano. «Indicano le tombe di coloro che avevano amici molto teneri e affettuosi.»

«Ero sicuro che lo facessero!» esclamò il bambino. «Sono molto contento di saperlo!»

«Sì», rispose il vecchio, «ma aspetta. Guardali. Vedi come abbassano la testa, si afflosciano e appassiscono. Immagini il motivo?»

‘No,’ rispose il bambino.

«Perché il ricordo di coloro che giacciono al di sotto svanisce così presto. All’inizio li curano, al mattino, a mezzogiorno e a notte; presto iniziano a venire meno frequentemente; da una volta al giorno, a una volta alla settimana; da una volta alla settimana a una volta al mese; poi, a intervalli lunghi e incerti; poi, più affatto. Tali segni raramente fioriscono a lungo. Ho visto i più brevi fiori estivi sopravviver loro.»

«Mi dispiace sentirlo», disse il bambino.

«Ah! così dicono i gentiluomini che vengono qui a guardarsi intorno», rispose il vecchio, scuotendo la testa, «ma io dico diversamente. “È una bella usanza che avete in questa parte del paese”, mi dicono a volte, “piantare le tombe, ma è malinconico vedere tutte queste cose appassire o morire.” Chiedo loro scusa e dico loro che, a mio avviso, è un buon segno per la felicità dei vivi. E così è. È natura.»

«Forse i dolenti imparano a guardare il cielo azzurro di giorno, e le stelle di notte, e a pensare che i morti siano lì, e non nelle tombe», disse il bambino con voce seria.

“Potrebbe essere così,” rispose il vecchio con dubbio. “Forse sì.”

«Che sia come io credo che sia, o no», pensò la bambina tra sé, «farò di questo posto il mio giardino. Non sarà comunque un male lavorare qui giorno dopo giorno, e ne verranno sicuramente dei pensieri piacevoli.»

Le sue guance arrossate e gli occhi umidi passarono inosservate al becchino, che si voltò verso il vecchio David e lo chiamò per nome. Era evidente che l’età di Becky Morgan lo turbava ancora; anche se perché, la bambina non riusciva a capire.

La seconda o terza ripetizione del suo nome attirò l’attenzione del vecchio. Smettendo di lavorare, si appoggiò alla vanga e si portò la mano all’orecchio sordo.

«Avete chiamato?» disse.

«Stavo pensando, Davy», rispose il sagrestano, «che lei», indicò la tomba, «doveva essere molto più vecchia di te o di me.»

‘Settantanove’, rispose il vecchio scuotendo la testa, ‘vi dico che l’ho visto.’

«L’ha visto?» rispose il sagrestano; «sì, ma, Davy, le donne non sempre dicono la verità sulla loro età.»

«È vero davvero», disse l’altro vecchio, con un improvviso luccichio negli occhi. «Avrebbe potuto essere più vecchia.»

«Sono sicuro che doveva essere così. Pensate a quanto sembrava vecchia. A lei noi sembravamo solo dei ragazzini.»

“Sembrava vecchia,” ribatté David. “Hai ragione. Sembrava vecchia.”

«Ricordatevi di quanto vecchia fosse apparsa per tanti, lunghissimi anni, e ditemi se poteva avere solo settantanove anni alla fine, solo la nostra età», disse il becchino.

«Almeno cinque anni più vecchio!» gridò l’altro.

«Cinque!» ribatté il sagrestano. «Dieci. Ottantanove. Ricordo il tempo in cui morì sua figlia. Aveva ottantanove anni, se era un giorno, e ora cerca di passare per dieci anni più giovane. Oh! vanità umana!»

L’altro vecchio non era da meno con alcune riflessioni morali su questo tema così prolifico, e entrambi addussero una massa di prove, di tale peso da rendere dubbio—non se la defunta avesse l’età suggerita, ma se non avesse quasi raggiunto il termine patriarcale di cento anni. Quando ebbero risolto la questione a loro reciproca soddisfazione, il becchino, con l’aiuto del suo amico, si alzò per andarsene.

‘It’s chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful—till the summer,’ he said, as he prepared to limp away.

‘What?’ asked old David.

‘He’s very deaf, poor fellow!’ cried the sexton. ‘Good-bye!’

‘Ah!’ said old David, looking after him. ‘He’s failing very fast. He ages every day.’

And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in him than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the little fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose decease was no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and would be no business of theirs for half a score of years to come.

The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as he threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to cough and fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind of sober chuckle, that the sexton was wearing fast. At length she turned away, and walking thoughtfully through the churchyard, came unexpectedly upon the schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green grave in the sun, reading.

‘Nell here?’ he said cheerfully, as he closed his book. ‘It does me good to see you in the air and light. I feared you were again in the church, where you so often are.’

‘Feared!’ replied the child, sitting down beside him. ‘Is it not a good place?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘But you must be gay sometimes—nay, don’t shake your head and smile so sadly.’

‘Not sadly, if you knew my heart. Do not look at me as if you thought me sorrowful. There is not a happier creature on earth, than I am now.’

Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it between her own. ‘It’s God’s will!’ she said, when they had been silent for some time.

‘What?’

‘All this,’ she rejoined; ‘all this about us. But which of us is sad now? You see that I am smiling.’

‘And so am I,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘smiling to think how often we shall laugh in this same place. Were you not talking yonder?’

‘Yes,’ the child rejoined.

‘Of something that has made you sorrowful?’

There was a long pause.

‘What was it?’ said the schoolmaster, tenderly. ‘Come. Tell me what it was.’

‘I rather grieve—I do rather grieve to think,’ said the child, bursting into tears, ‘that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.’

‘And do you think,’ said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, ‘that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world, at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves—neglected as they look to us—are the chief instruments.’

‘Tell me no more,’ said the child quickly. ‘Tell me no more. I feel, I know it. How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of you?’

‘There is nothing,’ cried her friend, ‘no, nothing innocent or good, that dies, and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here. Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!’

‘Yes,’ said the child, ‘it is the truth; I know it is. Who should feel its force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives again! Dear, dear, good friend, if you knew the comfort you have given me!’

The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in silence; for his heart was full.

They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather approached. Before they had spoken many words together, the church clock struck the hour of school, and their friend withdrew.

‘A good man,’ said the grandfather, looking after him; ‘a kind man. Surely he will never harm us, Nell. We are safe here, at last, eh? We will never go away from here?’

The child shook her head and smiled.

‘She needs rest,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘too pale—too pale. She is not like what she was.’

‘When?’ asked the child.

‘Ha!’ said the old man, ‘to be sure—when? How many weeks ago? Could I count them on my fingers? Let them rest though; they’re better gone.’

‘Much better, dear,’ replied the child. ‘We will forget them; or, if we ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream that has passed away.’

‘Hush!’ said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand and looking over his shoulder; ‘no more talk of the dream, and all the miseries it brought. There are no dreams here. ‘Tis a quiet place, and they keep away. Let us never think about them, lest they should pursue us again. Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks—wet, cold, and famine—and horrors before them all, that were even worse—we must forget such things if we would be tranquil here.’

‘Thank Heaven!’ inwardly exclaimed the child, ‘for this most happy change!’

‘I will be patient,’ said the old man, ‘humble, very thankful, and obedient, if you will let me stay. But do not hide from me; do not steal away alone; let me keep beside you. Indeed, I will be very true and faithful, Nell.’

‘I steal away alone! why that,’ replied the child, with assumed gaiety, ‘would be a pleasant jest indeed. See here, dear grandfather, we’ll make this place our garden—why not! It is a very good one—and to-morrow we’ll begin, and work together, side by side.’

‘It is a brave thought!’ cried her grandfather. ‘Mind, darling—we begin to-morrow!’

Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their labour! Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the spot, as he! They plucked the long grass and nettles from the tombs, thinned the poor shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and cleared it of the leaves and weeds. They were yet in the ardour of their work, when the child, raising her head from the ground over which she bent, observed that the bachelor was sitting on the stile close by, watching them in silence.

‘A kind office,’ said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she curtseyed to him. ‘Have you done all that, this morning?’

‘It is very little, sir,’ returned the child, with downcast eyes, ‘to what we mean to do.’

‘Good work, good work,’ said the bachelor. ‘But do you only labour at the graves of children, and young people?’

‘We shall come to the others in good time, sir,’ replied Nell, turning her head aside, and speaking softly.

It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident, or the child’s unconscious sympathy with youth. But it seemed to strike upon her grandfather, though he had not noticed it before. He looked in a hurried manner at the graves, then anxiously at the child, then pressed her to his side, and bade her stop to rest. Something he had long forgotten, appeared to struggle faintly in his mind. It did not pass away, as weightier things had done; but came uppermost again, and yet again, and many times that day, and often afterwards. Once, while they were yet at work, the child, seeing that he often turned and looked uneasily at her, as though he were trying to resolve some painful doubts or collect some scattered thoughts, urged him to tell the reason. But he said it was nothing—nothing—and, laying her head upon his arm, patted her fair cheek with his hand, and muttered that she grew stronger every day, and would be a woman, soon.

«Fa freddo, seduto qui, e devo stare attento — fino all’estate,» disse, mentre si preparava a zoppicare via.

«Cosa?» chiese il vecchio David.

‘È sordo, poveretto!’, esclamò il sagrestano. ‘Addio!’

“Ah!” disse il vecchio David, guardandolo andar via. “Sta peggiorando molto in fretta. Invecchia ogni giorno.”

E così si separarono; ciascuno persuaso che l’altro avesse meno vita di lui; e ambedue grandemente consolati e confortati dalla piccola finzione su cui si erano messi d’accordo riguardo a Becky Morgan, la cui morte non era più un precedente di scomoda applicazione, e non sarebbe stata affar loro per una mezza dozzina di anni a venire.

La bambina rimase, per alcuni minuti, a osservare il vecchio sordo mentre gettava la terra con la sua pala, e, spesso fermandosi per tossire e riprendere fiato, continuava a borbottare tra sé, con una specie di sobria risatina, che il becchino stava consumandosi rapidamente. Alla fine si voltò, e camminando pensierosa attraverso il cimitero, si imbatté inaspettatamente nell’insegnante, che era seduto su una tomba verde al sole, leggendo.

«Nell è qui?» disse allegramente, mentre chiudeva il libro. «Mi fa piacere vederti all’aria aperta e alla luce. Temevo fossi di nuovo in chiesa, dove spesso ti trovo.»

«Temuto!» rispose il bambino, sedendosi accanto a lui. «Non è un buon posto?»

«Sì, sì», disse il maestro di scuola. «Ma a volte dovete essere allegro — no, non scuotete la testa e non sorridete così tristemente.»

«Non tristemente, se conosceste il mio cuore. Non guardatemi come se pensaste che io sia addolorato. Non c’è creatura più felice al mondo di quanto io sia ora.»

Piena di tenera gratitudine, la bambina prese la sua mano e la strinse tra le sue. «È la volontà di Dio!» disse, dopo che erano rimasti in silenzio per qualche tempo.

“Cosa?”

«Tutto questo», replicò, «tutto questo riguardo a noi. Ma chi di noi è triste ora? Vedete che sto sorridendo».

«E così sono io», disse il maestro di scuola; «sorrido pensando a quante volte rideremo in questo stesso posto. Non stavate parlando laggiù?»

‘Sì,’ rispose il bambino.

‘Per qualcosa che ti ha reso triste?’

Ci fu una lunga pausa.

“Che cos’era?” disse il maestro di scuola, con dolcezza. “Vieni. Dimmi che cos’era.”

«Mi dispiace piuttosto, mi dispiace davvero piuttosto pensare», disse il bambino, scoppiando in lacrime, «che coloro che muoiono intorno a noi, siano così presto dimenticati.»

«E pensi forse», disse il maestro, notando lo sguardo che aveva lanciato intorno, «che una tomba abbandonata, un albero secco, uno o due fiori appassiti, siano segni di dimenticanza o di freddo disinteresse? Credi che non ci siano azioni, lontane da qui, nelle quali questi morti possano essere ricordati al meglio? Nell, Nell, potrebbero esserci persone impegnate nel mondo, in questo stesso istante, le cui buone azioni e buoni pensieri hanno queste stesse tombe — trascurate come ci appaiono — come strumenti principali.»

«Non dirmi altro», disse il bambino in fretta. «Non dirmi altro. Lo sento, lo so. Come potrei dimenticarlo, quando penso a te?»

«Non c’è nulla», esclamò la sua amica, «no, nulla di innocente o buono, che muoia e sia dimenticato. Teniamoci a questa fede, o a nessuna. Un bambino, un chiacchierone bambino, morendo nella sua culla, vivrà di nuovo nei pensieri migliori di coloro che lo amavano, e giocherà la sua parte, attraverso loro, nelle azioni redentrici del mondo, anche se il suo corpo sia bruciato in cenere o affogato nel mare più profondo. Non c’è un angelo aggiunto all’Esercito del Cielo che non faccia la sua benedetta opera sulla terra in coloro che lo amarono qui. Dimenticato! oh, se le buone azioni delle creature umane potessero essere rintracciate alla loro fonte, quanto sarebbe bella anche la morte; per quanto carità, misericordia, e affetto purificato, si vedrebbe avere la loro crescita in tombe polverose!»

«Sì», disse il bambino, «è la verità; lo so che lo è. Chi potrebbe sentire la sua forza più di me, in cui il tuo piccolo allievo vive di nuovo! Caro, caro, buon amico, se sapessi il conforto che mi hai dato!»

La povera maestra non le rispose, ma si chinò su di lei in silenzio; perché il suo cuore era pieno.

Erano ancora seduti nello stesso posto quando si avvicinò il nonno. Prima che avessero scambiato molte parole, la campana della chiesa suonò l’ora di scuola, e il loro amico se ne andò.

«Un uomo buono», disse il nonno, guardandolo allontanarsi; «un uomo gentile. Sicuramente non ci farà mai del male, Nell. Siamo al sicuro qui, finalmente, eh? Non ce ne andremo mai da qui?»

La bambina scosse la testa e sorrise.

«Ha bisogno di riposo», disse il vecchio, accarezzandole la guancia; «troppo pallida, troppo pallida. Non è più quella di prima.»

«Quando?» chiese il bambino.

«Ah!» disse il vecchio, «certo, quando? Quante settimane fa? Potrei contarle sulle dita? Lasciamole stare però; è meglio che siano passate.»

«Molto meglio, cara», rispose il bambino. «Li dimenticheremo; o, se mai li ricorderemo, sarà solo come un sogno inquietante che è svanito.»

«Sst!», disse il vecchio, facendo un gesto frettoloso verso di lei con la mano e guardandosi intorno; «non parliamo più del sogno e di tutte le miserie che ha portato. Qui non ci sono sogni. È un luogo tranquillo, e loro se ne tengono lontani. Non pensiamoci mai, per paura che ci inseguano di nuovo. Occhi infossati e guance scavate, freddo, fame e umidità, e orrori ancora peggiori di tutti questi, dobbiamo dimenticare tali cose se vogliamo essere tranquilli qui».

«Grazie al cielo!», esclamò interiormente il bambino, «per questo felicissimo cambiamento!»

«Sarò paziente», disse il vecchio, «umile, molto grato e ubbidiente, se mi permetterete di rimanere. Ma non nascondetevi da me; non andatevene via da solo; lasciatemi stare al vostro fianco. In verità, sarò molto fedele e leale, Nell.»

«Me ne vado da solo! Perché,» rispose il bambino, con una gaiezza simulata, «sarebbe davvero uno scherzo piacevole. Guarda qui, caro nonno, faremo di questo posto il nostro giardino—perché no! È un giardino molto bello—e domani cominceremo a lavorarci insieme, fianco a fianco.»

“È un pensiero coraggioso!” esclamò il nonno. “Ricorda, tesoro, cominciamo domani!”

Chi mai fu così felice come il vecchio, quando il giorno dopo iniziarono il loro lavoro! Chi mai fu così ignaro di tutte le associazioni legate a quel luogo, come lui! Strapparono l’erba alta e le ortiche dalle tombe, diradarono i poveri arbusti e le radici, resero il terreno liscio e lo liberarono dalle foglie e dalle erbacce. Erano ancora nel fervore del loro lavoro, quando la bambina, alzando la testa dal terreno su cui si era chinata, notò che il celibe era seduto sul cancelletto vicino, osservandoli in silenzio.

«Un’azione gentile», disse il piccolo signore, facendo un cenno a Nell che gli faceva una riverenza. «Avete fatto tutto questo questa mattina?»

«È molto poco, signore», rispose il bambino, con gli occhi bassi, «rispetto a quello che intendiamo fare.»

«Buon lavoro, buon lavoro», disse il celibe. «Ma lavora solo sulle tombe di bambini e giovani?»

«Ci occuperemo degli altri a dovuto tempo, signore», rispose Nell, girando la testa di lato e parlando a bassa voce.

Fu un incidente lieve, e poteva essere stato intenzionale o accidentale, o la bambina potrebbe aver simpatizzato inconsciamente con la giovinezza. Ma sembrò colpire il nonno, anche se non l’aveva notato prima. Egli guardò frettolosamente le tombe, poi con ansia la bambina, poi la strinse a sé e le disse di fermarsi a riposare. Qualcosa che aveva dimenticato da tempo sembrò lottare debolmente nella sua mente. Non svanì, come era accaduto per cose più importanti; ma tornò a galla, e ancora, e molte volte quel giorno, e spesso in seguito. Una volta, mentre erano ancora al lavoro, la bambina, vedendo che spesso si voltava e la guardava con aria inquieta, come se stesse cercando di risolvere dubbi dolorosi o di raccogliere pensieri dispersi, lo pregò di dire il motivo. Ma lui disse che non era nulla—nulla—e, appoggiandole la testa sul braccio, le accarezzò la guancia chiara con la mano e mormorò che lei diventava più forte ogni giorno, e presto sarebbe stata una donna.

CHAPTER 55

From that time, there sprung up in the old man’s mind, a solicitude about the child which never slept or left him. There are chords in the human heart—strange, varying strings—which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch. In the most insensible or childish minds, there is some train of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the discoverer has the plainest end in view. From that time, the old man never, for a moment, forgot the weakness and devotion of the child; from the time of that slight incident, he who had seen her toiling by his side through so much difficulty and suffering, and had scarcely thought of her otherwise than as the partner of miseries which he felt severely in his own person, and deplored for his own sake at least as much as hers, awoke to a sense of what he owed her, and what those miseries had made her. Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment from that time to the end, did any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort, any selfish consideration or regard distract his thoughts from the gentle object of his love.

He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire and lean upon his arm—he would sit opposite to her in the chimney-corner, content to watch, and look, until she raised her head and smiled upon him as of old—he would discharge by stealth, those household duties which tasked her powers too heavily—he would rise, in the cold dark nights, to listen to her breathing in her sleep, and sometimes crouch for hours by her bedside only to touch her hand. He who knows all, can only know what hopes, and fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were in that one disordered brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor old man. Sometimes—weeks had crept on, then—the child, exhausted, though with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside the fire. At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and read to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor came in, and took his turn of reading. The old man sat and listened—with little understanding for the words, but with his eyes fixed upon the child—and if she smiled or brightened with the story, he would say it was a good one, and conceive a fondness for the very book. When, in their evening talk, the bachelor told some tale that pleased her (as his tales were sure to do), the old man would painfully try to store it in his mind; nay, when the bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip out after him, and humbly beg that he would tell him such a part again, that he might learn to win a smile from Nell.

But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be out of doors, and walking in her solemn garden. Parties, too, would come to see the church; and those who came, speaking to others of the child, sent more; so even at that season of the year they had visitors almost daily. The old man would follow them at a little distance through the building, listening to the voice he loved so well; and when the strangers left, and parted from Nell, he would mingle with them to catch up fragments of their conversation; or he would stand for the same purpose, with his grey head uncovered, at the gate as they passed through.

They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was proud to hear them! But what was that, so often added, which wrung his heart, and made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner! Alas! even careless strangers—they who had no feeling for her, but the interest of the moment—they who would go away and forget next week that such a being lived—even they saw it—even they pitied her—even they bade him good day compassionately, and whispered as they passed.

The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew to have a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the same feeling; a tenderness towards her—a compassionate regard for her, increasing every day. The very schoolboys, light-hearted and thoughtless as they were, even they cared for her. The roughest among them was sorry if he missed her in the usual place upon his way to school, and would turn out of the path to ask for her at the latticed window. If she were sitting in the church, they perhaps might peep in softly at the open door; but they never spoke to her, unless she rose and went to speak to them. Some feeling was abroad which raised the child above them all.

So, when Sunday came. They were all poor country people in the church, for the castle in which the old family had lived, was an empty ruin, and there were none but humble folks for seven miles around. There, as elsewhere, they had an interest in Nell. They would gather round her in the porch, before and after service; young children would cluster at her skirts; and aged men and women forsake their gossips, to give her kindly greeting. None of them, young or old, thought of passing the child without a friendly word. Many who came from three or four miles distant, brought her little presents; the humblest and rudest had good wishes to bestow.

She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in the churchyard. One of these—he who had spoken of his brother—was her little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in the church, or climbed with her to the tower-top. It was his delight to help her, or to fancy that he did so, and they soon became close companions.

It happened, that, as she was reading in the old spot by herself one day, this child came running in with his eyes full of tears, and after holding her from him, and looking at her eagerly for a moment, clasped his little arms passionately about her neck.

‘What now?’ said Nell, soothing him. ‘What is the matter?’

‘She is not one yet!’ cried the boy, embracing her still more closely. ‘No, no. Not yet.’

She looked at him wonderingly, and putting his hair back from his face, and kissing him, asked what he meant.

‘You must not be one, dear Nell,’ cried the boy. ‘We can’t see them. They never come to play with us, or talk to us. Be what you are. You are better so.’

‘I do not understand you,’ said the child. ‘Tell me what you mean.’

‘Why, they say,’ replied the boy, looking up into her face, that you will be an Angel, before the birds sing again. But you won’t be, will you? Don’t leave us Nell, though the sky is bright. Do not leave us!’

The child dropped her head, and put her hands before her face.

‘She cannot bear the thought!’ cried the boy, exulting through his tears. ‘You will not go. You know how sorry we should be. Dear Nell, tell me that you’ll stay amongst us. Oh! Pray, pray, tell me that you will.’

The little creature folded his hands, and knelt down at her feet.

‘Only look at me, Nell,’ said the boy, ‘and tell me that you’ll stop, and then I shall know that they are wrong, and will cry no more. Won’t you say yes, Nell?’

Still the drooping head and hidden face, and the child quite silent—save for her sobs.

‘After a time,’ pursued the boy, trying to draw away her hand, ‘the kind angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and that you stayed here to be with us. Willy went away, to join them; but if he had known how I should miss him in our little bed at night, he never would have left me, I am sure.’

Yet the child could make him no answer, and sobbed as though her heart were bursting. ‘Why would you go, dear Nell? I know you would not be happy when you heard that we were crying for your loss. They say that Willy is in Heaven now, and that it’s always summer there, and yet I’m sure he grieves when I lie down upon his garden bed, and he cannot turn to kiss me. But if you do go, Nell,’ said the boy, caressing her, and pressing his face to hers, ‘be fond of him for my sake. Tell him how I love him still, and how much I loved you; and when I think that you two are together, and are happy, I’ll try to bear it, and never give you pain by doing wrong—indeed I never will!’

The child suffered him to move her hands, and put them round his neck. There was a tearful silence, but it was not long before she looked upon him with a smile, and promised him, in a very gentle, quiet voice, that she would stay, and be his friend, as long as Heaven would let her. He clapped his hands for joy, and thanked her many times; and being charged to tell no person what had passed between them, gave her an earnest promise that he never would.

Nor did he, so far as the child could learn; but was her quiet companion in all her walks and musings, and never again adverted to the theme, which he felt had given her pain, although he was unconscious of its cause. Something of distrust lingered about him still; for he would often come, even in the dark evenings, and call in a timid voice outside the door to know if she were safe within; and being answered yes, and bade to enter, would take his station on a low stool at her feet, and sit there patiently until they came to seek, and take him home. Sure as the morning came, it found him lingering near the house to ask if she were well; and, morning, noon, or night, go where she would, he would forsake his playmates and his sports to bear her company.

‘And a good little friend he is, too,’ said the old sexton to her once. ‘When his elder brother died—elder seems a strange word, for he was only seven years old—I remember this one took it sorely to heart.’

The child thought of what the schoolmaster had told her, and felt how its truth was shadowed out even in this infant.

‘It has given him something of a quiet way, I think,’ said the old man, ‘though for that he is merry enough at times. I’d wager now that you and he have been listening by the old well.’

‘Indeed we have not,’ the child replied. ‘I have been afraid to go near it; for I am not often down in that part of the church, and do not know the ground.’

‘Come down with me,’ said the old man. ‘I have known it from a boy. Come!’

They descended the narrow steps which led into the crypt, and paused among the gloomy arches, in a dim and murky spot.

‘This is the place,’ said the old man. ‘Give me your hand while you throw back the cover, lest you should stumble and fall in. I am too old—I mean rheumatic—to stoop, myself.’

‘A black and dreadful place!’ exclaimed the child.

‘Look in,’ said the old man, pointing downward with his finger.

The child complied, and gazed down into the pit.

‘It looks like a grave itself,’ said the old man.

‘It does,’ replied the child.

‘I have often had the fancy,’ said the sexton, ‘that it might have been dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old monks more religious. It’s to be closed up, and built over.’

The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault.

‘We shall see,’ said the sexton, ‘on what gay heads other earth will have closed, when the light is shut out from here. God knows! They’ll close it up, next spring.’

‘The birds sing again in spring,’ thought the child, as she leaned at her casement window, and gazed at the declining sun. ‘Spring! a beautiful and happy time!’

CAPITOLO 55

Da quel tempo, nella mente del vecchio uomo nacque una sollecitudine per la bambina che mai dormì né lo abbandonò. Ci sono corde nel cuore umano — strane, mutevoli corde — che vengono suonate solo per caso; che rimarranno mute e insensibili agli appelli più appassionati e seri, e risponderanno infine al più lieve tocco casuale. Nelle menti più insensibili o infantili, c’è qualche filo di pensiero che l’arte raramente può guidare, o la destrezza aiutare, ma che si rivelerà, come hanno fatto le grandi verità, per caso, e quando il scopritore ha il fine più semplice in vista. Da quel tempo, il vecchio uomo non dimenticò mai, neppure per un momento, la debolezza e la devozione della bambina; dal tempo di quell’incidente lieve, egli che l’aveva vista faticare al suo fianco attraverso tante difficoltà e sofferenze, e aveva appena pensato a lei se non come la compagna di miserie che sentiva severamente nella sua stessa persona, e deplorava per il suo stesso bene almeno quanto per il suo, si risvegliò a una consapevolezza di ciò che le doveva, e di ciò che quelle miserie l’avevano fatta diventare. Mai, no, mai una volta, in un momento di disattenzione da quel tempo alla fine, alcuna cura per se stesso, alcun pensiero del proprio comfort, alcuna considerazione o riguardo egoistico distrasse i suoi pensieri dall’oggetto gentile del suo amore.

La seguiva su e giù, aspettando che si stancasse e si appoggiasse al suo braccio; si sarebbe seduto di fronte a lei nell’angolo del caminetto, contento di osservarla e guardarla finché lei non alzava la testa e gli sorrideva come un tempo; avrebbe sbrigato di nascosto quei doveri domestici che la affaticavano troppo; si sarebbe alzato nelle fredde notti buie per ascoltare il suo respiro nel sonno, e a volte si sarebbe accovacciato per ore accanto al suo letto solo per toccarle la mano. Colui che sa tutto, può solo sapere quali speranze, paure e pensieri di profondo affetto fossero in quell’unica mente sconvolta, e quale cambiamento fosse avvenuto nel povero vecchio. A volte, dopo che erano passate settimane, la bambina, esausta, anche se con poca fatica, passava interi pomeriggi su un divano accanto al fuoco. In quei momenti, il maestro di scuola portava libri e le leggeva ad alta voce; e raramente passava una sera senza che il celibe arrivasse e facesse la sua parte di lettura. Il vecchio sedeva e ascoltava, con poca comprensione delle parole, ma con gli occhi fissi sulla bambina; e se lei sorrideva o si illuminava con la storia, lui diceva che era una bella storia e concepiva un’affinità per quel libro. Quando, nelle loro chiacchierate serali, il celibe raccontava qualche storia che le piaceva (come le sue storie erano sicure di fare), il vecchio cercava dolorosamente di memorizzarla; anzi, quando il celibe li lasciava, a volte usciva di nascosto dietro di lui e umilmente chiedeva che gli ripetesse una certa parte, così che potesse imparare a strappare un sorriso a Nell.

Ma queste erano occasioni rare, per fortuna; perché la bambina desiderava trovarsi all’aperto, e passeggiare nel suo solenne giardino. Anche gruppi di persone venivano a vedere la chiesa; e coloro che venivano, parlando ad altri della bambina, ne mandavano altri ancora; così anche in quella stagione dell’anno avevano visitatori quasi ogni giorno. Il vecchio li seguiva a poca distanza attraverso l’edificio, ascoltando la voce che amava così bene; e quando gli stranieri se ne andavano e si separavano da Nell, lui si mescolava a loro per cogliere frammenti della loro conversazione; oppure si fermava allo stesso scopo, con la sua testa grigia scoperta, al cancello mentre passavano.

Lodavano sempre la bambina, la sua intelligenza e la sua bellezza, e lui era orgoglioso di sentirli! Ma che cosa era quella, così spesso aggiunta, che gli stringeva il cuore e lo faceva singhiozzare e piangere da solo, in qualche angolo buio! Ahimè! anche gli estranei incuranti, quelli che non provavano per lei altro che l’interesse del momento, quelli che se ne sarebbero andati e la settimana dopo avrebbero dimenticato che una tale creatura esisteva, anche loro lo vedevano, anche loro la compativano, anche loro lo salutavano con compassione e sussurravano passando.

Anche gli abitanti del villaggio, di cui non c’era uno che non provasse affetto per la povera Nell, condividevano lo stesso sentimento; una tenerezza verso di lei, una compassione che cresceva di giorno in giorno. Anche i ragazzi della scuola, spensierati e insensibili com’erano, si preoccupavano per lei. Il più rude di loro si dispiaceva se non la trovava nel solito posto sulla strada per la scuola, e si sviava dal sentiero per chiedere di lei alla finestra a grata. Se lei era seduta in chiesa, forse potevano sbirciare dolcemente dalla porta aperta; ma non le parlavano mai, a meno che lei non si alzasse e andasse a parlar loro. C’era un sentimento diffuso che elevava la bambina al di sopra di tutti loro.

Così, quando arrivò il domenica. Erano tutti poveri contadini in chiesa, perché il castello in cui aveva vissuto la vecchia famiglia era una rovina vuota, e non c’erano che gente umile per sette miglia intorno. Lì, come altrove, avevano interesse per Nell. Si radunavano intorno a lei sul portico, prima e dopo la funzione; i bambini si accalcavano ai suoi piedi; e vecchi uomini e donne abbandonavano le loro chiacchiere, per darle un caloroso benvenuto. Nessuno di loro, giovane o vecchio, pensava di passare oltre la bambina senza una parola amichevole. Molti che venivano da tre o quattro miglia di distanza, le portavano piccoli regali; i più umili e rozzi avevano buoni auguri da dispensare.

Ella aveva cercato i bambini che aveva visto giocare per primi nel cimitero della chiesa. Uno di questi - colui che aveva parlato di suo fratello - era il suo piccolo preferito e amico, e spesso sedeva al suo fianco in chiesa, o saliva con lei fino alla cima del campanile. Era un piacere per lui aiutarla, o immaginare di farlo, e presto divennero intimi compagni.

Accadde che, mentre lei leggeva da sola nel solito posto un giorno, questo bambino entrò correndo con gli occhi pieni di lacrime, e dopo averla tenuta a distanza da sé e averla guardata con avidità per un momento, le strinse appassionatamente il collo con le sue piccole braccia.

‘Che succede?’ disse Nell, cercando di calmarlo. ‘Che problema c’è?’

“Non è ancora una di noi!” gridò il ragazzo, abbracciandola ancora più stretta. “No, no. Non ancora.”

Lo guardò con stupore, gli scostò i capelli dal viso, lo baciò e gli chiese cosa intendesse.

«Non devi essere come loro, cara Nell», esclamò il ragazzo. «Non li vediamo mai. Non vengono mai a giocare con noi, né a parlare con noi. Resta come sei. Sei migliore così.»

«Non ti capisco», disse il bambino. «Dimmi cosa intendi».

«Perché dicono», rispose il ragazzo, guardandola in faccia, «che diventerai un Angelo, prima che gli uccelli cantino di nuovo. Ma non lo sarai, vero? Non lasciarci, Nell, anche se il cielo è luminoso. Non lasciarci!»

La bambina abbassò la testa e si coprì il viso con le mani.

«Non può sopportare il pensiero!» esclamò il ragazzo, esultando tra le lacrime. «Non andrai via. Sai quanto saremmo dispiaciuti. Cara Nell, dimmi che rimarrai con noi. Oh! Ti prego, ti prego, dimmi che lo farai.»

La piccola creatura si piegò le mani e si inginocchiò ai suoi piedi.

«Guardami, Nell», disse il ragazzo, «e dimmi che ti fermerai, e allora saprò che hanno torto, e non piangerò più. Non vuoi dire di sì, Nell?»

La testa china e il volto nascosto, e la bambina completamente silenziosa, a parte i suoi singhiozzi.

«Dopo un po'',» continuò il ragazzo, cercando di ritirare la sua mano, «gli angeli buoni saranno felici di pensare che non sei tra loro, e che sei rimasta qui per stare con noi. Willy se n’è andato per unirsi a loro; ma se avesse saputo quanto mi mancherebbe nel nostro piccolo letto di notte, non mi avrebbe mai lasciato, ne sono sicuro.»

Eppure il bambino non riusciva a risponderle e singhiozzava come se il suo cuore stesse per spezzarsi. «Perché vuoi andartene, cara Nell? So che non saresti felice se sapessi che stiamo piangendo per la tua perdita. Dicono che Willy sia in Paradiso, e che lì sia sempre estate, eppure sono sicuro che si addolora quando mi sdraio sul suo giardino letto, e non può girarsi per baciarmi. Ma se te ne vai, Nell», disse il ragazzo, accarezzandola e premendo il suo viso contro il suo, «ama lui per il mio bene. Digli quanto lo amo ancora, e quanto ti ho amata; e quando penso che voi due siete insieme, e siete felici, cercherò di sopportarlo, e non ti darò mai dolore facendo qualcosa di sbagliato, davvero non lo farò!»

Il bambino la lasciò muovere le mani e le mise intorno al suo collo. Ci fu un silenzio lacrimoso, ma non passò molto tempo prima che lei lo guardasse con un sorriso e gli promettesse, con una voce molto dolce e tranquilla, che sarebbe rimasta e sarebbe stata sua amica, finché il Cielo glielo avrebbe permesso. Lui batté le mani per la gioia e la ringraziò molte volte; e poiché gli era stato raccomandato di non dire a nessuno ciò che era accaduto tra loro, le fece una promessa solenne che non l’avrebbe mai fatto.

Né lo fece, per quanto il bambino potesse apprendere; ma fu il suo tranquillo compagno in tutte le sue passeggiate e riflessioni, e non fece mai più cenno al tema, che sentiva le avesse dato dolore, sebbene non ne conoscesse la causa. Qualcosa di diffidenza persisteva ancora in lui; perché spesso veniva, anche nelle sere buie, e chiamava con voce timida fuori dalla porta per sapere se lei era al sicuro dentro; e, ricevendo risposta affermativa e invito ad entrare, prendeva posto su uno sgabello basso ai suoi piedi, e sedeva lì pazientemente finché non venivano a cercarlo e a portarlo a casa. Sicuro come la mattina arrivava, lo trovava indugiare vicino alla casa per chiedere se lei stava bene; e, che fosse mattina, mezzogiorno o notte, andasse dove voleva, egli abbandonava i suoi compagni di gioco e i suoi divertimenti per farle compagnia.

«E un buon amico, anche,» disse una volta la vecchia sagrestana a lei. «Quando morì il fratello maggiore - maggiore sembra una parola strana, perché aveva solo sette anni - ricordo che questo qui lo prese molto a cuore.»

La bambina pensò a ciò che il maestro le aveva detto e sentì come la sua verità fosse delineata anche in questo infante.

«Gli ha dato un po’ di tranquillità, credo», disse il vecchio, «anche se a volte è abbastanza allegro. Scommetto che voi e lui siete stati ad ascoltare vicino al vecchio pozzo.»

«Infatti non l’abbiamo fatto», rispose il bambino. «Ho avuto paura di avvicinarmi; perché non scendo spesso in quella parte della chiesa e non conosco il terreno.»

“Vieni con me”, disse il vecchio. “Lo so da quando ero ragazzo. Vieni!”

Scendevano per le strette scale che conducevano nella cripta, e si fermarono tra gli archi cupi, in un luogo oscuro e buio.

«Questo è il posto», disse il vecchio. «Dammi la mano mentre sollevi il coperchio, per non inciampare e cadere dentro. Sono troppo vecchio - intendo dire, reumatico - per chinarmi io stesso.»

«Un luogo nero e spaventoso!» esclamò il bambino.

«Guarda dentro», disse il vecchio, indicando verso il basso con il dito.

Il bambino obbedì e guardò giù nella fossa.

«Sembra una tomba in sé», disse il vecchio.

‘Lo fa,’ rispose il bambino.

«Spesso ho pensato», disse il sagrestano, «che potrebbe essere stato scavato in un primo momento per rendere il vecchio luogo più cupo e i vecchi monaci più religiosi. Dovrà essere chiuso e costruito sopra.»

Il bambino stava ancora in piedi, guardando pensieroso nella cripta.

«Lo vedremo», disse il sagrestano, «su quali capi allegri si sarà chiusa altra terra, quando la luce sarà stata spenta qui. Dio lo sa! La chiuderanno, la prossima primavera.»

«Gli uccelli cantano di nuovo in primavera», pensò la bambina, mentre si appoggiava alla sua finestra finestra e guardava il sole che declinava. «Primavera! un tempo bello e felice!»

CHAPTER 56

A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr Swiveller walked into Sampson Brass’s office at the usual hour, and being alone in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking from his pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to folding and pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband. Having completed the construction of this appendage, he surveyed his work with great complacency, and put his hat on again—very much over one eye, to increase the mournfulness of the effect. These arrangements perfected to his entire satisfaction, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the office with measured steps.

‘It has always been the same with me,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘always. ‘Twas ever thus—from childhood’s hour I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay, I never loved a tree or flower but ‘twas the first to fade away; I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a market-gardener.’

Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the clients’ chair, and flung himself into its open arms.

‘And this,’ said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure, ‘is life, I believe. Oh, certainly. Why not! I’m quite satisfied. I shall wear,’ added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary considerations from spurning it with his foot, ‘I shall wear this emblem of woman’s perfidy, in remembrance of her with whom I shall never again thread the windings of the mazy; whom I shall never more pledge in the rosy; who, during the short remainder of my existence, will murder the balmy. Ha, ha, ha!’

It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any incongruity in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr Swiveller did not wind up with a cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been undoubtedly at variance with his solemn reflections, but that, being in a theatrical mood, he merely achieved that performance which is designated in melodramas ‘laughing like a fiend,’—for it seems that your fiends always laugh in syllables, and always in three syllables, never more nor less, which is a remarkable property in such gentry, and one worthy of remembrance.

The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr Swiveller was still sitting in a very grim state in the clients’ chair, when there came a ring—or, if we may adapt the sound to his then humour, a knell—at the office bell. Opening the door with all speed, he beheld the expressive countenance of Mr Chuckster, between whom and himself a fraternal greeting ensued.

‘You’re devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter-house,’ said that gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the other in an easy manner.

‘Rather,’ returned Dick.

‘Rather!’ retorted Mr Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling which so well became him. ‘I should think so. Why, my good feller, do you know what o’clock it is—half-past nine a.m. in the morning?’

‘Won’t you come in?’ said Dick. ‘All alone. Swiveller solus. “‘Tis now the witching—“’

‘“Hour of night!”’

‘“When churchyards yawn,”’

‘“And graves give up their dead.”’

At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the office. Such morsels of enthusiasm are common among the Glorious Apollos, and were indeed the links that bound them together, and raised them above the cold dull earth.

‘Well, and how are you my buck?’ said Mr Chuckster, taking a stool. ‘I was forced to come into the City upon some little private matters of my own, and couldn’t pass the corner of the street without looking in, but upon my soul I didn’t expect to find you. It is so everlastingly early.’

Mr Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments; and it appearing on further conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr Chuckster was in the like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in compliance with a solemn custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which they belonged, joined in a fragment of the popular duet of ‘All’s Well,’ with a long shake at the end.

‘And what’s the news?’ said Richard.

‘The town’s as flat, my dear feller,’ replied Mr Chuckster, ‘as the surface of a Dutch oven. There’s no news. By-the-bye, that lodger of yours is a most extraordinary person. He quite eludes the most vigorous comprehension, you know. Never was such a feller!’

‘What has he been doing now?’ said Dick.

‘By Jove, Sir,’ returned Mr Chuckster, taking out an oblong snuff-box, the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox’s head curiously carved in brass, ‘that man is an unfathomable. Sir, that man has made friends with our articled clerk. There’s no harm in him, but he is so amazingly slow and soft. Now, if he wanted a friend, why couldn’t he have one that knew a thing or two, and could do him some good by his manners and conversation. I have my faults, sir,’ said Mr Chuckster—

‘No, no,’ interposed Mr Swiveller.

‘Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better than I know mine. But,’ said Mr Chuckster, ‘I’m not meek. My worst enemies—every man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine—never accused me of being meek. And I tell you what, Sir, if I hadn’t more of these qualities that commonly endear man to man, than our articled clerk has, I’d steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it round my neck, and drown myself. I’d die degraded, as I had lived. I would upon my honour.’

Mr Chuckster paused, rapped the fox’s head exactly on the nose with the knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he was going to sneeze, he would find himself mistaken.

‘Not contented, Sir,’ said Mr Chuckster, ‘with making friends with Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother. Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there— actually been there. He patronises young Snobby besides; you’ll find, Sir, that he’ll be constantly coming backwards and forwards to this place: yet I don’t suppose that beyond the common forms of civility, he has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me. Now, upon my soul, you know,’ said Mr Chuckster, shaking his head gravely, as men are wont to do when they consider things are going a little too far, ‘this is altogether such a low-minded affair, that if I didn’t feel for the governor, and know that he could never get on without me, I should be obliged to cut the connection. I should have no alternative.’

CAPITOLO 56

Un giorno o due dopo il tè di Quilp al Deserto, il signor Swiveller entrò nell’ufficio di Sampson Brass all’ora solita, e trovandosi solo in quel Tempio della Probità, posò il cappello sulla scrivania e, tirando fuori di tasca un piccolo pacchetto di crespo nero, si mise a piegarlo e fissarlo con degli spilli, come fosse una fascia per cappelli. Dopo aver completato la costruzione di questo accessorio, esaminò il suo lavoro con grande compiacimento e si rimise il cappello, molto spostato su un occhio, per aumentare il lutto dell’effetto. Questi preparativi, portati a termine con sua piena soddisfazione, si mise le mani in tasca e si mise a camminare su e giù per l’ufficio con passi misurati.

«È sempre stato così per me», disse il signor Swiveller, «sempre. È sempre stato così — fin dall’ora dell’infanzia ho visto le mie speranze più care appassire, non ho mai amato un albero o un fiore che non fosse il primo a sfiorire; non ho mai allevato una cara gazzella, per rallegrarmi con il suo dolce occhio nero, che quando arrivava a conoscermi bene, e a amarmi, non fosse sicura di sposare un ortolano.»

Sopraffatto da queste riflessioni, il signor Swiveller si fermò di colpo davanti alla poltrona dei clienti e vi si abbandonò tra le sue braccia aperte.

«E questa», disse il signor Swiveller, con una specie di compostezza scherzosa, «è la vita, credo. Oh, certamente. Perché no! Sono completamente soddisfatto. Porterò», aggiunse Richard, togliendosi di nuovo il cappello e guardandolo attentamente, come se fosse stato trattenuto solo da considerazioni pecuniarie dal respingerlo con il piede, «porterò questo emblema della perfidia femminile, in ricordo di colei con la quale non filerò mai più i tortuosi meandri del labirinto; di colei con la quale non brinderò mai più al rosy; che, durante il breve resto della mia esistenza, ucciderà il balmy. Ha, ha, ha!»

Potrebbe essere necessario osservare, per evitare che appaia qualche incongruità nella conclusione di questo soliloquio, che il signor Swiveller non terminò con una risata allegra e gioiosa, che sarebbe stata senza dubbio in contrasto con le sue riflessioni solenni, ma che, trovandosi in vena teatrale, si limitò a eseguire quella performance che nei melodrammi è designata come “ridere come un demonio”, poiché sembra che i demoni ridano sempre in sillabe, e sempre in tre sillabe, mai di più né di meno, il che è una proprietà notevole in tali personaggi e degna di essere ricordata.

A malapena i suoni sinistri erano svaniti, e il signor Swiveller era ancora seduto in uno stato di profonda tristezza sulla sedia dei clienti, quando si udì un suono — o, se possiamo adattare il suono al suo umore del momento, un rintocco — alla campana dell’ufficio. Aprì la porta con tutta la rapidità possibile e vide il volto espressivo del signor Chuckster, con cui si scambiarono un saluto fraterno.

«Siete diavolosamente presto in questo pestilenziale vecchio mattatoio», disse quel gentiluomo, bilanciandosi su una gamba e agitando l’altra con disinvoltura.

«Piuttosto», rispose Dick.

«Anzi!» ribatté il signor Chuckster, con quell’aria di graziosa frivolezza che gli si addiceva così bene. «Lo credo bene. Ma, mio caro amico, sai che o’ora è - le nove e mezza del mattino?»

«Non vuole entrare?» disse Dick. «Tutto solo. Swiveller solus. «“È ora l’incantesimo—”»

«“Ora della notte!”»

“Quando i cimiteri si aprono”

‘“E le tombe restituiscono i loro morti.”’

Alla fine di questa citazione in dialogo, ciascun gentiluomo assunse un’attitudine, e subito dopo, tornando alla prosa, entrò nell’ufficio. Questi frammenti di entusiasmo sono comuni tra i Gloriosi Apollo, e furono davvero i legami che li univano e li elevavano al di sopra della fredda e noiosa terra.

«Bene, e come stai, mio caro?» disse il signor Chuckster, prendendo uno sgabello. «Sono stato costretto a venire in Città per alcune piccole questioni private, e non potevo passare all’angolo della strada senza dare un’occhiata, ma sulla mia anima non mi aspettavo di trovarti. È così terribilmente presto.»

Il signor Swiveller esprimeva i suoi ringraziamenti; e poiché, nel corso della conversazione, appariva chiaro che godeva di buona salute, e che il signor Chuckster era in condizioni altrettanto invidiabili, entrambi i signori, in conformità con una solenne usanza dell’antica Confraternita a cui appartenevano, si unirono in un frammento del popolare duetto di “Tutto va bene”, con una lunga stretta di mano alla fine.

«E quali sono le novità?» disse Richard.

«La città è piatta, mio caro amico», rispose il signor Chuckster, «come la superficie di un forno olandese. Non ci sono novità. A proposito, quel tuo inquilino è una persona davvero straordinaria. È completamente al di là della più vigorosa comprensione, sai. Mai visto un tipo del genere!»

«Che cosa ha fatto questa volta?» disse Dick.

«Per Giove, signore», rispose il signor Chuckster, estraendo un tabacchiera oblunga il cui coperchio era decorato con la testa di una volpe intagliata con cura in ottone, «quell’uomo è un enigma. Signore, quell’uomo ha stretto amicizia con il nostro praticante. Non c’è niente di male in lui, ma è così incredibilmente lento e mite. Ora, se voleva un amico, perché non poteva averne uno che ne sapesse qualcosa, e potesse fargli del bene con i suoi modi e la sua conversazione. Ho i miei difetti, signore», disse il signor Chuckster—

«No, no», intervenne il signor Swiveller.

«Oh sì, le ho, ho i miei difetti, nessuno conosce i propri difetti meglio di me. Ma», disse il signor Chuckster, «non sono mite. I miei peggiori nemici - ogni uomo ha i suoi nemici, signore, e io ho i miei - non mi hanno mai accusato di essere mite. E le dico una cosa, signore, se non avessi più di queste qualità che di solito rendono un uomo caro agli altri di quante ne ha il nostro praticante, ruberei un formaggio di Cheshire, me lo legherei al collo e mi getterei in acqua. Morirei degradato, come ho vissuto. Lo farei, lo giuro sul mio onore.»

Il signor Chuckster fece una pausa, diede un colpetto esattamente sulla punta del naso al volpe con il polpastrello dell’indice, si prese una presa di tabacco da fiuto e guardò con fermezza il signor Swiveller, come per dire che se pensava che stesse per starnutire, si sarebbe accorto di essersi sbagliato.

«Non contento, signore», disse il signor Chuckster, «di farsi amico di Abel, ha coltivato la conoscenza di suo padre e di sua madre. Da quando è tornato a casa da quella caccia al gatto selvatico, è stato lì - è stato effettivamente lì. Inoltre, fa da protettore al giovane Snobby; scoprirà, signore, che verrà costantemente avanti e indietro in questo posto: eppure non credo che, oltre le comuni formalità di cortesia, abbia mai scambiato con me mezza dozzina di parole. Ora, per la mia anima, sa», disse il signor Chuckster, scuotendo gravemente la testa, come gli uomini sono soliti fare quando considerano che le cose stanno andando un po’ troppo oltre, «questa è una faccenda così meschina che, se non provassi compassione per il governatore e non sapessi che non potrebbe mai cavarsela senza di me, sarei costretto a rompere i rapporti. Non avrei altra scelta».

Mr Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend, stirred the fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing.

‘As to young Snob, sir,’ pursued Mr Chuckster with a prophetic look, ‘you’ll find he’ll turn out bad. In our profession we know something of human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller that came back to work out that shilling, will show himself one of these days in his true colours. He’s a low thief, sir. He must be.’

Mr Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door, which seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business, caused him to assume a greater appearance of meekness than was perhaps quite consistent with his late declaration. Mr Swiveller, hearing the same sound, caused his stool to revolve rapidly on one leg until it brought him to his desk, into which, having forgotten in the sudden flurry of his spirits to part with the poker, he thrust it as he cried ‘Come in!’

Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme of Mr Chuckster’s wrath! Never did man pluck up his courage so quickly, or look so fierce, as Mr Chuckster when he found it was he. Mr Swiveller stared at him for a moment, and then leaping from his stool, and drawing out the poker from its place of concealment, performed the broad-sword exercise with all the cuts and guards complete, in a species of frenzy.

‘Is the gentleman at home?’ said Kit, rather astonished by this uncommon reception.

Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took occasion to enter his indignant protest against this form of inquiry; which he held to be of a disrespectful and snobbish tendency, inasmuch as the inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and there present, should have spoken of the other gentleman; or rather (for it was not impossible that the object of his search might be of inferior quality) should have mentioned his name, leaving it to his hearers to determine his degree as they thought proper. Mr Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had some reason to believe this form of address was personal to himself, and that he was not a man to be trifled with—as certain snobs (whom he did not more particularly mention or describe) might find to their cost.

‘I mean the gentleman up-stairs,’ said Kit, turning to Richard Swiveller. ‘Is he at home?’

‘Why?’ rejoined Dick.

‘Because if he is, I have a letter for him.’

‘From whom?’ said Dick.

‘From Mr Garland.’

‘Oh!’ said Dick, with extreme politeness. ‘Then you may hand it over, Sir. And if you’re to wait for an answer, Sir, you may wait in the passage, Sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated apartment, sir.’

‘Thank you,’ returned Kit. ‘But I am to give it to himself, if you please.’

The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster, and so moved his tender regard for his friend’s honour, that he declared, if he were not restrained by official considerations, he must certainly have annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of the affront which he did consider, under the extraordinary circumstances of aggravation attending it, could but have met with the proper sanction and approval of a jury of Englishmen, who, he had no doubt, would have returned a verdict of justifiable Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the morals and character of the Avenger. Mr Swiveller, without being quite so hot upon the matter, was rather shamed by his friend’s excitement, and not a little puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and good-humoured), when the single gentleman was heard to call violently down the stairs.

‘Didn’t I see somebody for me, come in?’ cried the lodger.

‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Dick. ‘Certainly, Sir.’

‘Then where is he?’ roared the single gentleman.

‘He’s here, sir,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller. ‘Now young man, don’t you hear you’re to go up-stairs? Are you deaf?’

Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing at each other in silence.

‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ said Mr Chuckster. ‘What do you think of that?’

Mr Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not perceiving in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude, scarcely knew what answer to return. He was relieved from his perplexity, however, by the entrance of Mr Sampson and his sister, Sally, at sight of whom Mr Chuckster precipitately retired.

Mr Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of great interest and importance. On the occasion of such conferences, they generally appeared in the office some half an hour after their usual time, and in a very smiling state, as though their late plots and designs had tranquillised their minds and shed a light upon their toilsome way. In the present instance, they seemed particularly gay; Miss Sally’s aspect being of a most oily kind, and Mr Brass rubbing his hands in an exceedingly jocose and light-hearted manner.

‘Well, Mr Richard,’ said Brass. ‘How are we this morning? Are we pretty fresh and cheerful sir—eh, Mr Richard?’

‘Pretty well, sir,’ replied Dick.

‘That’s well,’ said Brass. ‘Ha ha! We should be as gay as larks, Mr Richard—why not? It’s a pleasant world we live in sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. Ha ha! Any letters by the post this morning, Mr Richard?’

Mr Swiveller answered in the negative.

‘Ha!’ said Brass, ‘no matter. If there’s little business to-day, there’ll be more to-morrow. A contented spirit, Mr Richard, is the sweetness of existence. Anybody been here, sir?’

‘Only my friend’—replied Dick. ‘May we ne’er want a—’

‘Friend,’ Brass chimed in quickly, ‘or a bottle to give him. Ha ha! That’s the way the song runs, isn’t it? A very good song, Mr Richard, very good. I like the sentiment of it. Ha ha! Your friend’s the young man from Witherden’s office I think—yes—May we ne’er want a— Nobody else at all, been, Mr Richard?’

Il signor Swiveller, che sedeva su un altro sgabello di fronte al suo amico, mescolò la fiamma in un eccesso di simpatia, ma non disse nulla.

«Per quanto riguarda il giovane Snob, signore», proseguì il signor Chuckster con uno sguardo profetico, «scoprirà che diventerà un cattivo soggetto. Nella nostra professione conosciamo qualcosa della natura umana, e creda a me, quel tizio che è tornato per guadagnare quel scellino, un giorno o l’altro mostrerà il suo vero volto. È un ladro di bassa lega, signore. Lo è, e basta.»

Mr Chuckster, risvegliatosi, avrebbe probabilmente continuato su questo argomento e con un linguaggio più enfatico, se non fosse stato per un colpetto alla porta, che sembrava annunciare l’arrivo di qualcuno per affari, e lo indusse a assumere un’aria più mite di quanto forse fosse del tutto conforme alla sua recente dichiarazione. Mr Swiveller, udendo lo stesso suono, fece ruotare rapidamente lo sgabello su una gamba finché non lo portò alla sua scrivania, nella quale, avendo dimenticato nel repentino impeto dei suoi spiriti di separarsi dal poker, lo infilò mentre gridava «Avanti!»

E chi si presenta se non proprio quel Kit che era stato oggetto dell’ira del signor Chuckster! Mai uomo ebbe a raccogliere il proprio coraggio così rapidamente, né mai uomo apparve così feroce, come il signor Chuckster quando si accorse che si trattava proprio di lui. Il signor Swiveller lo fissò per un momento, poi balzò dallo sgabello, estrasse il poker dal suo nascondiglio e, in una specie di frenesia, eseguì l’esercizio della spada larga con tutti i tagli e le parate complete.

«Il signore è in casa?» disse Kit, piuttosto stupito da questo insolito benvenuto.

Prima che il signor Swiveller potesse rispondere, il signor Chuckster si sentì in dovere di protestare indignato contro quella forma di domanda, che riteneva di tendenza irrispettosa e snobistica, in quanto l’interrogante, vedendo due signori presenti, avrebbe dovuto parlare dell’altro signore; o piuttosto (perché non era impossibile che l’oggetto della sua ricerca fosse di qualità inferiore) avrebbe dovuto menzionare il suo nome, lasciando ai suoi ascoltatori la decisione sul suo grado come ritenevano opportuno. Il signor Chuckster osservò inoltre che aveva qualche ragione di credere che quella forma di indirizzo fosse personale nei suoi confronti, e che non era un uomo con cui si potesse scherzare, come avrebbero potuto scoprire a loro costo certi snob (che non menzionò né descrisse più particolarmente).

«Intendo il signore al piano di sopra», disse Kit, rivolgendosi a Richard Swiveller. «È in casa?»

«Perché?» ribatté Dick.

‘Perché se lo è, ho una lettera per lui.’

«Da chi?» disse Dick.

‘Da Mr Garland.’

«Oh!» disse Dick, con estrema cortesia. «Allora potete consegnarlo, signore. E se dovete aspettare una risposta, signore, potete aspettare nel corridoio, signore, che è un locale arioso e ben ventilato, signore.»

‘Grazie,’ rispose Kit. ‘Ma devo consegnarla a lui in persona, se non le dispiace.’

L’eccessiva audacia di questa risposta sopraffecì così tanto il signor Chuckster e così commosse il suo tenero riguardo per l’onore del suo amico, che egli dichiarò che, se non fosse stato trattenuto da considerazioni ufficiali, avrebbe certamente annientato Kit sul posto; un risentimento per l’affronto che egli considerava, date le straordinarie circostanze di aggravamento che lo accompagnavano, non poteva che incontrare la giusta sanzione e l’approvazione di una giuria di inglesi, che, non aveva dubbio, avrebbe emesso un verdetto di omicidio giustificabile, unito a un alto tributo alla morale e al carattere del vendicatore. Il signor Swiveller, senza essere altrettanto acceso nella questione, fu piuttosto imbarazzato dall’agitazione del suo amico e non poco perplesso su come agire (Kit essendo del tutto calmo e di buon umore), quando si udì il gentiluomo chiamare violentemente giù per le scale.

«Non ho visto qualcuno che veniva per me?» gridò l’inquilino.

“Sì, signore”, rispose Dick. “Certamente, signore”.

«Allora, dov’è?» ruggì il signore.

«È qui, signore», rispose il signor Swiveller. «Ora, giovane, non senti che devi salire le scale? Sei sordo?»

Kit non sembrava ritenere che valesse la pena di impegnarsi in una contesa, ma si affrettò ad andarsene, lasciando i Gloriosi Apolli a guardarsi l’un l’altro nel silenzio.

“Non ve l’avevo detto?” disse il signor Chuckster. “Che ne pensate?”

Il signor Swiveller, essendo in generale un buon diavolo e non scorgendo nel comportamento di Kit alcuna infamia di enormi proporzioni, non sapeva che risposta dare. Fu però sollevato dalla sua perplessità dall’entrata del signor Sampson e di sua sorella, Sally, alla vista dei quali il signor Chuckster si ritirò in tutta fretta.

Il signor Brass e la sua incantevole compagna sembravano aver tenuto una consultazione durante la loro sobria colazione, su un argomento di grande interesse e importanza. In occasione di tali conferenze, generalmente apparivano in ufficio circa mezz’ora dopo il loro solito orario, e in uno stato di grande serenità, come se i loro recenti intrighi e progetti avessero tranquillizzato le loro menti e gettato luce sul loro faticoso cammino. In questo caso, sembravano particolarmente allegri; l’aspetto della signorina Sally era di una natura estremamente olimpica, e il signor Brass si strofinava le mani in un modo estremamente scherzoso e spensierato.

«Bene, signor Richard,» disse Brass. «Come stiamo questa mattina? Siamo piuttosto freschi e allegri, signore — eh, signor Richard?»

«Abbastanza bene, signore», rispose Dick.

«Bene», disse Brass. «Ah ah! Dovremmo essere allegra come un usignolo, signor Richard — perché no? È un mondo piacevole in cui viviamo, signore, un mondo molto piacevole. Ci sono persone cattive, signor Richard, ma se non ci fossero persone cattive, non ci sarebbero avvocati bravi. Ah ah! Ci sono lettere per posta questa mattina, signor Richard?»

Il signor Swiveller rispose negativamente.

«Ah!» disse Brass, «non importa. Se oggi c’è poco lavoro, domani ce ne sarà di più. Uno spirito contento, signor Richard, è la dolcezza dell’esistenza. Qualcuno è stato qui, signore?»

‘Solo il mio amico’ — rispose Dick. ‘Possiamo non averne mai bisogno —’

«Amico», intervenne prontamente Brass, «o una bottiglia da regalargli. Ha ha! È così che va la canzone, vero? Una canzone molto bella, signor Richard, molto bella. Mi piace il sentimento che esprime. Ha ha! Il suo amico è il giovane dell’ufficio di Witherden, credo—sì—Possiamo sperare di non averne mai bisogno— Nessun altro, signor Richard?»

‘Only somebody to the lodger,’ replied Mr Swiveller.

‘Oh indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘Somebody to the lodger eh? Ha ha! May we ne’er want a friend, or a---- Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr Richard?’

‘Yes,’ said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy of spirits which his employer displayed. ‘With him now.’

‘With him now!’ cried Brass; ‘Ha ha! There let ‘em be, merry and free, toor rul lol le. Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!’

‘Oh certainly,’ replied Dick.

‘And who,’ said Brass, shuffling among his papers, ‘who is the lodger’s visitor—not a lady visitor, I hope, eh, Mr Richard? The morals of the Marks you know, sir—“when lovely women stoops to folly”—and all that—eh, Mr Richard?’

‘Another young man, who belongs to Witherden’s too, or half belongs there,’ returned Richard. ‘Kit, they call him.’

‘Kit, eh!’ said Brass. ‘Strange name—name of a dancing-master’s fiddle, eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha! Kit’s there, is he? Oh!’

Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn’t check this uncommon exuberance on the part of Mr Sampson; but as she made no attempt to do so, and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit acquiescence in it, he concluded that they had just been cheating somebody, and receiving the bill.

‘Will you have the goodness, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, taking a letter from his desk, ‘just to step over to Peckham Rye with that? There’s no answer, but it’s rather particular and should go by hand. Charge the office with your coach-hire back, you know; don’t spare the office; get as much out of it as you can—clerk’s motto—Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!’

Mr Swiveller solemnly doffed the aquatic jacket, put on his coat, took down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed. As soon as he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling sweetly at her brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return) withdrew also.

Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-door wide open, and establishing himself at his desk directly opposite, so that he could not fail to see anybody who came down-stairs and passed out at the street door, began to write with extreme cheerfulness and assiduity; humming as he did so, in a voice that was anything but musical, certain vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the union between Church and State, inasmuch as they were compounded of the Evening Hymn and God save the King.

Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for a long time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning face, and hearing nothing, went on humming louder, and writing slower than ever. At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his lodger’s door opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the stairs. Then, Mr Brass left off writing entirely, and, with his pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest; shaking his head meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul was in the music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic.

It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the sweet sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass stopped his singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at the same time beckoning to him with his pen.

‘Kit,’ said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, ‘how do you do?’

Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had his hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him softly back.

‘You are not to go, if you please, Kit,’ said the attorney in a mysterious and yet business-like way. ‘You are to step in here, if you please. Dear me, dear me! When I look at you,’ said the lawyer, quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his back towards it, ‘I am reminded of the sweetest little face that ever my eyes beheld. I remember your coming there, twice or thrice, when we were in possession. Ah Kit, my dear fellow, gentleman in my profession have such painful duties to perform sometimes, that you needn’t envy us—you needn’t indeed!’

‘I don’t, sir,’ said Kit, ‘though it isn’t for the like of me to judge.’

‘Our only consolation, Kit,’ pursued the lawyer, looking at him in a sort of pensive abstraction, ‘is, that although we cannot turn away the wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so, to the shorn lambs.’

‘Shorn indeed!’ thought Kit. ‘Pretty close!’ But he didn’t say so.

‘On that occasion, Kit,’ said Mr Brass, ‘on that occasion that I have just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr Quilp is a very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had. It might have cost me a client. But suffering virtue inspired me, and I prevailed.’

‘He’s not so bad after all,’ thought honest Kit, as the attorney pursed up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with his better feelings.

‘I respect you, Kit,’ said Brass with emotion. ‘I saw enough of your conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is humble, and your fortune lowly. It isn’t the waistcoat that I look at. It is the heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. But the heart is the bird. Ah! How many sich birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all mankind!’

This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to his own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass’s voice and manner added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all the mild austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be completely set up in that line of business.

‘Well, well,’ said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-creatures, ‘this is wide of the bull’s-eye. You’re to take that, if you please.’ As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns on the desk.

Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.

‘For yourself,’ said Brass. ‘From—’

‘No matter about the person they came from,’ replied the lawyer. ‘Say me, if you like. We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and we mustn’t ask questions or talk too much—you understand? You’re to take them, that’s all; and between you and me, I don’t think they’ll be the last you’ll have to take from the same place. I hope not. Good bye, Kit. Good bye!’

With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took the money and made the best of his way home. Mr Brass remained airing himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his seraphic smile, simultaneously.

‘May I come in?’ said Miss Sally, peeping.

‘Oh yes, you may come in,’ returned her brother.

‘Ahem!’ coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.

‘Why, yes,’ returned Sampson, ‘I should say as good as done.’

«Solo qualcuno per l’inquilino», rispose il signor Swiveller.

«Oh, davvero!» esclamò Brass. «Qualcuno per l’inquilino, eh? Ha ha! Possiamo non aver bisogno di un amico, o di un---- Qualcuno per l’inquilino, eh, signor Richard?»

«Sì», disse Dick, un po’ disorientato dall’eccessiva vivacità di spirito che il suo datore di lavoro mostrava. «Con lui adesso».

«Con lui adesso!» gridò Brass; «Ah ah! Lasciateli stare, allegri e liberi, toor rul lol le. Eh, signor Richard? Ah ah!»

«Oh, certamente», rispose Dick.

«E chi», disse Brass, frugando tra i suoi documenti, «chi è il visitatore dell’inquilino — non una visitatrice, spero, eh, signor Richard? I costumi dei Marks li conosce, signore — “quando le donne belle si abbassano alla follia” — e tutto il resto — eh, signor Richard?»

«Un altro giovane, che appartiene anche a Witherden, o vi appartiene a metà», rispose Richard. «Kit, lo chiamano.»

«Kit, eh!» disse Brass. «Nome strano, nome di un violino di un maestro di ballo, eh, signor Richard? Ha ha! Kit è lì, eh? Oh!»

Dick guardò Miss Sally, chiedendosi perché non frenasse questo insolito sfogo da parte del signor Sampson; ma dato che non faceva alcun tentativo di farlo, e anzi sembrava mostrare un tacito assenso, concluse che avevano appena truffato qualcuno e ricevuto il conto.

«Avete la bontà, signor Richard,» disse Brass, prendendo una lettera dalla scrivania, «di portare questo a Peckham Rye? Non c’è risposta, ma è piuttosto particolare e dovrebbe essere consegnata di persona. Mettete sul conto dell’ufficio la spesa del vostro viaggio di ritorno, sapete; non risparmiate l’ufficio; tirate fuori tutto quello che potete — motto del commesso — Eh, signor Richard? Ha ha!»

Il signor Swiveller si tolse solennemente la giacca acquatica, si mise il cappotto, prese il cappello dal suo gancio, mise la lettera in tasca e se ne andò. Non appena fu uscito, la signorina Sally Brass si alzò e, sorridendo dolcemente a suo fratello (che annuì e si diede una pacca sul naso in risposta), se ne andò anche lei.

Non appena Sampson Brass si trovò solo, spalancò la porta dello studio e si sistemò alla scrivania proprio di fronte, in modo da non poter fare a meno di vedere chiunque scendesse le scale e uscisse dalla porta della strada; e così cominciò a scrivere con estrema allegria e assiduità, canticchiando, mentre lo faceva, con una voce che era tutt’altro che melodiosa, certi frammenti vocali che sembravano avere a che fare con l’unione tra Chiesa e Stato, in quanto erano composti dall’Inno serale e da Dio salvi il Re.

Così, l’avvocato di Bevis Marks sedeva, scriveva e canticchiava per un lungo periodo, tranne quando si fermava per ascoltare con un’espressione molto astuta, e non sentendo nulla, continuava a canticchiare più forte e a scrivere più lentamente che mai. Alla fine, in una di queste pause, sentì la porta del suo inquilino aprirsi e chiudersi, e dei passi scendere le scale. Allora, il signor Brass smise completamente di scrivere e, con la penna in mano, canticchiò a squarciagola; scuotendo intanto la testa da una parte all’altra, come un uomo la cui intera anima fosse nella musica, e sorridendo in modo del tutto serafico.

Fu verso questo spettacolo in movimento che la scala e i dolci suoni guidarono Kit; al cui arrivo davanti alla sua porta, il signor Brass smise di cantare, ma non di sorridere, e annuì con affabilità: allo stesso tempo facendogli cenno con la penna.

‘Kit’, disse il signor Brass nel modo più piacevole immaginabile, ‘come stai?’

Kit, che era piuttosto timoroso del suo amico, fece una risposta appropriata e stava per aprire la porta d’ingresso quando il signor Brass lo richiamò dolcemente indietro.

«Non dovete andare, se non vi dispiace, Kit», disse l’avvocato in modo misterioso eppure professionale. «Dovete entrare qui, se non vi dispiace. Santo cielo, santo cielo! Quando vi guardo», disse l’avvocato, alzandosi dallo sgabello e mettendosi davanti al fuoco con le spalle rivolte verso di esso, «mi ricordo del visino più dolce che mai i miei occhi abbiano visto. Ricordo che siete venuto lì, due o tre volte, quando eravamo in possesso. Ah Kit, mio caro ragazzo, gli uomini della mia professione hanno talvolta doveri così penosi da svolgere che non dovete invidiarci, davvero non dovete!»

‘Non lo faccio, signore,’ disse Kit, ‘anche se non spetta a me giudicare.’

«Il nostro unico conforto, Kit», continuò l’avvocato, guardandolo con una sorta di astratta riflessività, «è che, sebbene non possiamo allontanare il vento, possiamo ammorbidirlo; possiamo addolcirlo, se mi è lecito dire, per gli agnelli tosati.»

«Sì, rasato davvero!» pensò Kit. «E proprio a zero!» Ma non lo disse.

«In quell’occasione, Kit», disse il signor Brass, «in quell’occasione a cui ho appena accennato, ho dovuto sostenere una dura battaglia con il signor Quilp (perché il signor Quilp è un uomo molto duro) per ottenere loro la grazia che avevano. Avrebbe potuto costarmi un cliente. Ma la virtù sofferente mi ha ispirato, e ho prevalso.»

«Non è poi così cattivo», pensò il buon Kit, mentre l’avvocato stringeva le labbra e sembrava un uomo che lottava con i suoi sentimenti migliori.

«Vi rispetto, Kit», disse Brass con emozione. «Ho visto abbastanza del vostro comportamento, in quel periodo, per rispettarvi, anche se la vostra posizione è umile e la vostra fortuna modesta. Non è il panciotto che guardo. È il cuore. I motivi del panciotto sono solo le sbarre della gabbia. Ma il cuore è l’uccello. Ah! Quanti uccelli del genere stanno sempre mutando e infilano il becco tra le sbarre per beccare tutta l’umanità!»

Questa figura poetica, che Kit interpretò come un’allusione speciale al suo gilet a quadri, lo sopraffece completamente; la voce e il modo di fare di Mr Brass contribuirono non poco al suo effetto, perché egli parlava con tutta la mite austerità di un eremita, e mancava solo di una corda intorno alla vita del suo soprabito arrugginito e di uno scheletro sul camino, per essere completamente avviato in quel ramo d’affari.

«Bene, bene», disse Sampson, sorridendo come sorridono gli uomini buoni quando compatisono la propria debolezza o quella dei loro simili, «questo è lontano dal bersaglio. Prendete questo, se vi piace.» Mentre parlava, indicò una coppia di mezzecorone sulla scrivania.

Kit guardò le monete, poi guardò Sampson, e esitò.

‘Per te’, disse Brass. ‘Da—’

«Non importa da chi provengano», rispose l’avvocato. «Dì me, se preferisci. Abbiamo amici eccentrici al piano di sopra, Kit, e non dobbiamo fare domande o parlare troppo — capisci? Devi prenderli, questo è tutto; e tra te e me, non credo che saranno gli ultimi che dovrai prendere dallo stesso posto. Io spero di no. Addio, Kit. Addio!»

Con molti ringraziamenti e ancora più autocritiche per aver sospettato, su così deboli basi, di qualcuno che già nella loro prima conversazione si era rivelato un uomo così diverso da quello che aveva immaginato, Kit prese i soldi e si affrettò a tornare a casa. Il signor Brass rimase a scaldarsi al fuoco, riprendendo contemporaneamente il suo esercizio vocale e il suo sorriso angelico.

«Posso entrare?» disse la signorina Sally, sbirciando.

«Oh sì, potete entrare», rispose suo fratello.

«Ahem!» tossì Miss Brass interrogativamente.

“Beh, sì”, rispose Sampson, “direi che è praticamente fatto.”

CHAPTER 57

Mr Chuckster’s indignant apprehensions were not without foundation. Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr Garland was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and flourished exceedingly. They were soon in habits of constant intercourse and communication; and the single gentleman labouring at this time under a slight attack of illness—the consequence most probably of his late excited feelings and subsequent disappointment—furnished a reason for their holding yet more frequent correspondence; so that some one of the inmates of Abel Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between that place and Bevis Marks, almost every day.

As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any mincing of the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused to be driven by anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether old Mr Garland came, or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party. Of all messages and inquiries, Kit was, in right of his position, the bearer; thus it came about that, while the single gentleman remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis Marks every morning with nearly as much regularity as the General Postman.

Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony’s trot and the clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever the sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee.

‘Ha ha!’ he would cry. ‘Here’s the pony again! Most remarkable pony, extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?’

Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass standing on the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of the street over the top of the window-blind, would take an observation of the visitors.

‘The old gentleman again!’ he would exclaim, ‘a very prepossessing old gentleman, Mr Richard—charming countenance, sir—extremely calm—benevolence in every feature, sir. He quite realises my idea of King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his kingdom, Mr Richard—the same good humour, the same white hair and partial baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon. Ah! A sweet subject for contemplation, sir, very sweet!’

Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would nod and smile to Kit from the window, and presently walk out into the street to greet him, when some such conversation as the following would ensue.

‘Admirably groomed, Kit’—Mr Brass is patting the pony—‘does you great credit—amazingly sleek and bright to be sure. He literally looks as if he had been varnished all over.’

Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses his conviction, ‘that Mr Brass will not find many like him.’

‘A beautiful animal indeed!’ cries Brass. ‘Sagacious too?’

‘Bless you!’ replies Kit, ‘he knows what you say to him as well as a Christian does.’

‘Does he indeed!’ cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the same place from the same person in the same words a dozen times, but is paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding. ‘Dear me!’

‘I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,’ says Kit, pleased with the attorney’s strong interest in his favourite, ‘that I should come to be as intimate with him as I am now.’

‘Ah!’ rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of virtue. ‘A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming. A subject of proper pride and congratulation, Christopher. Honesty is the best policy.—I always find it so myself. I lost forty-seven pound ten by being honest this morning. But it’s all gain, it’s gain!’

Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with the water standing in his eyes. Kit thinks that if ever there was a good man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass.

‘A man,’ says Sampson, ‘who loses forty-seven pound ten in one morning by his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been eighty pound, the luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased. Every pound lost, would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained. The still small voice, Christopher,’ cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the bosom, ‘is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy!’

Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so completely home to his feelings, that he is considering what he shall say, when Mr Garland appears. The old gentleman is helped into the chaise with great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and the pony, after shaking his head several times, and standing for three or four minutes with all his four legs planted firmly on the ground, as if he had made up his mind never to stir from that spot, but there to live and die, suddenly darts off, without the smallest notice, at the rate of twelve English miles an hour. Then, Mr Brass and his sister (who has joined him at the door) exchange an odd kind of smile—not at all a pleasant one in its expression—and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, who, during their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats of pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a penknife.

Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr Swiveller, if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some pretty distant place from which he could not be expected to return for two or three hours, or in all probability a much longer period, as that gentleman was not, to say the truth, renowned for using great expedition on such occasions, but rather for protracting and spinning out the time to the very utmost limit of possibility. Mr Swiveller out of sight, Miss Sally immediately withdrew. Mr Brass would then set the office-door wide open, hum his old tune with great gaiety of heart, and smile seraphically as before. Kit coming down-stairs would be called in; entertained with some moral and agreeable conversation; perhaps entreated to mind the office for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over the way; and afterwards presented with one or two half-crowns as the case might be. This occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but that they came from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his mother with great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity; and bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them was having some new trifle every day of their lives.

While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the office of Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone therein, began to find the time hang heavy on his hands. For the better preservation of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent his faculties from rusting, he provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes even fifty thousand pounds aside, besides many hazardous bets to a considerable amount.

As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the magnitude of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think that on those evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp living. Looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct, he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach.

‘Oh! I didn’t mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn’t,’ cried the small servant, struggling like a much larger one. ‘It’s so very dull, down-stairs, Please don’t you tell upon me, please don’t.’

‘Tell upon you!’ said Dick. ‘Do you mean to say you were looking through the keyhole for company?’

‘Yes, upon my word I was,’ replied the small servant.

‘How long have you been cooling your eye there?’ said Dick.

‘Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before.’

Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of which, no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted Mr Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered himself speedily.

‘Well—come in’—he said, after a little consideration. ‘Here—sit down, and I’ll teach you how to play.’

‘Oh! I durstn’t do it,’ rejoined the small servant; ‘Miss Sally ‘ud kill me, if she know’d I come up here.’

‘Have you got a fire down-stairs?’ said Dick.

‘A very little one,’ replied the small servant.

‘Miss Sally couldn’t kill me if she know’d I went down there, so I’ll come,’ said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket. ‘Why, how thin you are! What do you mean by it?’

‘It ain’t my fault.’

‘Could you eat any bread and meat?’ said Dick, taking down his hat. ‘Yes? Ah! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer?’

‘I had a sip of it once,’ said the small servant.

‘Here’s a state of things!’ cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. ‘She never tasted it—it can’t be tasted in a sip! Why, how old are you?’

‘I don’t know.’

Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, vanished straightway.

Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public-house, who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a particular recipe which Mr Swiveller had imparted to the landlord, at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate his friendship. Relieving the boy of his burden at the door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, Mr Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.

‘There!’ said Richard, putting the plate before her. ‘First of all clear that off, and then you’ll see what’s next.’

The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon empty.

‘Next,’ said Dick, handing the purl, ‘take a pull at that; but moderate your transports, you know, for you’re not used to it. Well, is it good?’

‘Oh! isn’t it?’ said the small servant.

Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply, and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his companion while he did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning.

‘Now,’ said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt, ‘those are the stakes. If you win, you get ‘em all. If I win, I get ‘em. To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the Marchioness, do you hear?’

The small servant nodded.

‘Then, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘fire away!’

The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered which to play, and Mr Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air which such society required, took another pull at the tankard, and waited for her lead.

CAPITOLO 57

Le apprensioni indignate del signor Chuckster non erano infondate. Certamente l’amicizia tra il gentiluomo scapolo e il signor Garland non fu lasciata raffreddare, ma crebbe rapidamente e fiorì in modo straordinario. Ben presto entrarono in abitudine di costante rapporto e comunicazione; e il gentiluomo scapolo, che in questo periodo era affetto da un leggero attacco di malattia — la conseguenza più probabile dei suoi recenti sentimenti esacerbati e della successiva delusione — fornì un motivo per mantenere una corrispondenza ancora più frequente; così che qualcuno degli abitanti del cottage di Abel, a Finchley, andava avanti e indietro tra quel luogo e Bevis Marks, quasi ogni giorno.

Poiché il pony aveva ormai smesso di fingere e, senza mezzi termini né giri di parole, si rifiutava in modo deciso di essere condotto da chiunque tranne che da Kit, generalmente accadeva che, sia che venisse il vecchio signor Garland sia che venisse il signor Abel, Kit faceva parte del gruppo. Di tutti i messaggi e le richieste, Kit era, in virtù della sua posizione, il portatore; così accadeva che, mentre il signorino rimaneva indisposto, Kit si recava a Bevis Marks ogni mattina con quasi la stessa regolarità del postino generale.

Il signor Sampson Brass, che senza dubbio aveva le sue ragioni per guardarsi intorno con attenzione, imparò presto a distinguere il trotto del pony e il rumore della piccola carrozza all’angolo della strada. Ogni volta che il suono raggiungeva le sue orecchie, subito posava la penna e si metteva a strofinarsi le mani, mostrando la massima allegria.

«Ah ah!» esclamava. «Ecco di nuovo il pony! Un pony davvero notevole, estremamente docile, eh, signor Richard, eh, signore?»

Dick avrebbe risposto con qualche risposta di circostanza, e il signor Brass, in piedi sul fondo dello sgabello, in modo da poter vedere la strada oltre la parte superiore della tenda della finestra, avrebbe osservato i visitatori.

«Lo stesso vecchio signore!» esclamava, «un vecchio signore davvero affascinante, signor Richard — un volto incantevole, signore — estremamente calmo — la benevolenza in ogni tratto, signore. Realizza perfettamente la mia idea del Re Lear, come appariva quando era in possesso del suo regno, signor Richard — lo stesso buon umore, gli stessi capelli bianchi e la stessa parziale calvizie, la stessa tendenza a lasciarsi ingannare. Ah! Un dolce soggetto di contemplazione, signore, molto dolce!»

Poi, quando il signor Garland era sceso e salito al piano di sopra, Sampson faceva cenni e sorrideva a Kit dalla finestra, e poco dopo usciva in strada per salutarlo, e allora seguiva una conversazione come la seguente.

«Ben curato, Kit» — il signor Brass sta accarezzando il pony — «fa onore a te — incredibilmente lucido e splendente, davvero. Ha letteralmente l’aspetto di essere stato verniciato tutto.»

Kit si tocca il cappello, sorride, accarezza il pony lui stesso, e manifesta la sua convinzione: «che il signor Brass non troverà molti come lui».

“Un animale davvero magnifico!” esclama Brass. “Anche intelligente?”

«Dio vi benedica!» risponde Kit, «sa quello che gli dite altrettanto bene quanto un cristiano.»

«Davvero!» esclama Brass, che ha sentito la stessa cosa nello stesso posto dalla stessa persona con le stesse parole una dozzina di volte, ma è paralizzato dallo stupore nonostante tutto. «Ma che sorpresa!»

«Non pensavo proprio, la prima volta che lo vidi, signore», dice Kit, compiaciuto dell’interesse vivo che l’avvocato dimostra per il suo preferito, «che sarei arrivato a essere così intimo con lui come sono ora».

«Ah!» esclama il signor Brass, colmo di precetti morali e amore per la virtù. «Un argomento incantevole per la riflessione, davvero incantevole. Un argomento di giusta fierezza e congratulazioni, Christopher. L’onestà è la migliore politica. — Io la penso sempre così. Ho perso quarantasette sterline e dieci scellini per essere stato onesto questa mattina. Ma è tutto un guadagno, è guadagno!»

Il signor Brass si solletica sottilmente il naso con la penna e guarda Kit con l’acqua agli occhi. Kit pensa che se mai ci fu un uomo buono che smentiva le apparenze, quell’uomo è Sampson Brass.

«Un uomo», dice Sampson, «che perde quarantasette sterline e dieci scellini in una mattina per la sua onestà, è un uomo da invidiare. Se fossero state ottanta sterline, il lusso del sentimento sarebbe stato maggiore. Ogni sterlina persa, sarebbe stata un quintale di felicità guadagnata. La voce sommessa, Christopher», grida Brass, sorridendo e battendosi sul petto, «sta cantando canzoni comiche dentro di me, e tutto è felicità e gioia!»

Kit è così arricchito dalla conversazione, e la trova così profondamente in sintonia con i suoi sentimenti, che sta già pensando a cosa dire, quando appare il signor Garland. Il vecchio signore viene aiutato a salire sulla carrozza con grande deferenza dal signor Sampson Brass; e il pony, dopo essersi scosso la testa diverse volte e aver rimasto in piedi per tre o quattro minuti con tutte e quattro le zampe piantate saldamente a terra, come se avesse deciso di non muoversi mai da quel posto, ma di vivere e morire lì, improvvisamente scatta via, senza il minimo preavviso, alla velocità di dodici miglia inglesi all’ora. Poi, il signor Brass e sua sorella (che si è unita a lui sulla porta) scambiano un sorriso strano, tutt’altro che piacevole nella sua espressione, e tornano dalla compagnia del signor Richard Swiveller, che, durante la loro assenza, si è divertito con vari numeri di pantomima, e viene trovato alla sua scrivania, in uno stato di grande agitazione e calore, cancellando violentemente nulla con mezzo temperino.

Ogni volta che Kit veniva da solo, e senza la carrozza, succedeva sempre che Sampson Brass si ricordasse di qualche missione, chiamando il signor Swiveller, se non di nuovo a Peckham Rye, almeno in qualche luogo abbastanza lontano da cui non si poteva aspettare che tornasse per due o tre ore, o con ogni probabilità per un periodo molto più lungo, dato che quel signore non era, per dirla tutta, rinomato per la grande rapidità in tali occasioni, ma piuttosto per prolungare e dilatare il tempo fino al limite massimo della possibilità. Il signor Swiveller fuori vista, la signorina Sally si ritirava immediatamente. Il signor Brass apriva poi la porta dell’ufficio spalancata, intonava la sua vecchia canzone con grande allegria di cuore, e sorrideva seraficamente come prima. Kit scendendo le scale veniva chiamato dentro; intrattenuto con qualche conversazione morale e piacevole; forse pregato di badare all’ufficio per un istante mentre il signor Brass andava di là; e in seguito presentato con una o due mezza corona a seconda del caso. Questo accadeva così spesso, che Kit, senza dubitare che provenissero dal signorino che aveva già ricompensato sua madre con grande liberalità, non poteva ammirare abbastanza la sua generosità; e comprava così tanti regali a buon mercato per lei, e per il piccolo Giacobbe, e per il bambino, e per Barbara per di più, che uno o l’altro di loro aveva qualche nuovo gingillo ogni giorno della loro vita.

Mentre questi atti e fatti erano in corso dentro e fuori dall’ufficio di Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, essendo spesso lasciato solo al suo interno, iniziò a trovare che il tempo gli pesasse addosso. Per preservare al meglio il suo buon umore, quindi, e per evitare che le sue facoltà si arrugginissero, si procurò una scacchiera da cribbage e un mazzo di carte, e si abituò a giocare a cribbage con un fantoccio, per venti, trenta, o a volte anche cinquanta mila sterline di lato, oltre a molte scommesse rischiose per un importo considerevole.

Poiché questi giochi venivano condotti in modo molto silenzioso, nonostante l’importanza degli interessi coinvolti, il signor Swiveller cominciò a pensare che in quelle sere in cui il signor e la signorina Brass erano fuori (e ora uscivano spesso) sentiva una specie di suono di russamento o di respiro affannoso nella direzione della porta, che gli venne in mente, dopo averci riflettuto un po’, dovesse provenire dalla piccola domestica, che aveva sempre un raffreddore a causa dell’umidità in cui viveva. Guardando attentamente in quella direzione una notte, distinse chiaramente un occhio che brillava e luccicava nella toppa; e non avendo ora più dubbio che i suoi sospetti fossero corretti, si avvicinò furtivamente alla porta e la colse prima che si accorgesse del suo avvicinarsi.

«Oh! Non volevo fare alcun danno, davvero, sulla mia parola non volevo», gridò il piccolo domestico, lottando come se fosse molto più grande. «È così terribilmente noioso, al piano di sotto. Per favore, non andate a raccontarlo in giro, per favore no.»

«Denunciarti!» disse Dick. «Vuoi dire che stavi spiando dalla serratura per compagnia?»

«Sì, davvero lo ero», rispose il piccolo domestico.

«Da quanto tempo state lì a spiare?» chiese Dick.

‘Oh, fin da quando hai iniziato a giocare a carte, e molto prima.’

Vaghi ricordi di vari esercizi fantastici con i quali si era rifrescato dopo le fatiche del lavoro, e ai quali, senza dubbio, il piccolo servitore aveva partecipato, disorientarono un po’ il signor Swiveller; ma non era molto sensibile su tali punti, e si riprese rapidamente.

«Bene—entrate»—disse, dopo un attimo di riflessione. «Ecco—sedetevi, e vi insegnerò a giocare.»

«Oh! Non oso farlo», rispose il piccolo domestico; «la signorina Sally mi ucciderebbe, se sapesse che vengo qui».

«Avete un fuoco al piano di sotto?» disse Dick.

«Un bambino molto piccolo», rispose il piccolo servitore.

«La signorina Sally non potrebbe uccidermi se sapesse che sono andato laggiù, quindi verrò», disse Richard, mettendo le carte in tasca. «Ma guarda che magro che sei! Cosa vuol dire?»

‘Non è colpa mia.’

«Potresti mangiare pane e carne?» disse Dick, togliendosi il cappello. «Sì? Ah! Lo pensavo. Hai mai assaggiato la birra?»

«Ne ho bevuto un sorso una volta», disse il piccolo servitore.

«Ecco una situazione!» esclamò il signor Swiveller, alzando gli occhi al soffitto. «Non l’ha mai assaggiato - non si può assaggiare in un sorso! Perché, quanti anni hai?»

‘Non lo so.’

Mr Swiveller spalancò gli occhi e parve pensieroso per un momento; poi, dopo aver detto al bambino di badare alla porta finché non fosse tornato, scomparve all’istante.

Poco dopo, tornò, seguito dal ragazzo del pub, che portava in una mano un piatto di pane e carne, e nell’altra un grande pentolone, pieno di una composizione molto profumata, che emanava un vapore piacevole, ed era in realtà un’ottima birra, preparata secondo una ricetta particolare che il signor Swiveller aveva impartito al locandiere, in un periodo in cui era immerso nei suoi libri e desideroso di conciliare la sua amicizia. Liberando il ragazzo del suo carico alla porta, e incaricando la sua piccola compagna di chiuderla per evitare sorprese, il signor Swiveller la seguì in cucina.

«Ecco!» disse Richard, mettendo il piatto davanti a lei. «Prima di tutto togli quello, e poi vedrai cosa c’è dopo.»

Il piccolo domestico non aveva bisogno di essere invitato una seconda volta, e il piatto fu presto vuoto.

«Avanti», disse Dick, passando il purl, «dai un sorso a quello; ma controlla i tuoi trasporti, sai, perché non sei abituato. Bene, è buono?»

«Oh! Non lo è?», disse il piccolo domestico.

Il signor Swiveller parve gratificato oltre ogni espressione da questa risposta, e prese un lungo sorso lui stesso, guardando con fermezza la sua compagna mentre lo faceva. Questi preliminari conclusi, si dedicò a insegnarle il gioco, che lei imparò presto abbastanza bene, essendo sia acuta che astuta.

«Ora», disse il signor Swiveller, mettendo due scellini in un piattino e rimettendo a posto la misera candela, quando le carte erano state tagliate e distribuite, «queste sono le puntate. Se vinci, le prendi tutte. Se vinco io, le prendo io. Per far sembrare tutto più reale e piacevole, ti chiamerò la marchesa, mi hai sentito?»

La piccola domestica annuì.

«Allora, marchesa,» disse il signor Swiveller, «spari pure!»

La marchesa, stringendo le carte con entrambe le mani, rifletteva su quale giocare, e il signor Swiveller, assumendo l’aria gaia e alla moda che quella società richiedeva, bevve un altro sorso dalla boccale e attese che lei facesse la prima mossa.

CHAPTER 58

Mr Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the purl, and the striking of ten o’clock, combined to render that gentleman mindful of the flight of Time, and the expediency of withdrawing before Mr Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned.

‘With which object in view, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller gravely, ‘I shall ask your ladyship’s permission to put the board in my pocket, and to retire from the presence when I have finished this tankard; merely observing, Marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, I care not how fast it rolls on, ma’am, on, while such purl on the bank still is growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run. Marchioness, your health. You will excuse my wearing my hat, but the palace is damp, and the marble floor is—if I may be allowed the expression—sloppy.’

As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr Swiveller had been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly sipped the last choice drops of nectar.

‘The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the Play?’ said Mr Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table, and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a theatrical bandit.

The Marchioness nodded.

‘Ha!’ said Mr Swiveller, with a portentous frown. ‘’Tis well. Marchioness!—but no matter. Some wine there. Ho!’ He illustrated these melodramatic morsels by handing the tankard to himself with great humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely.

The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical conventionalities as Mr Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play, or heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors and in other forbidden places), was rather alarmed by demonstrations so novel in their nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks, that Mr Swiveller felt it necessary to discharge his brigand manner for one more suitable to private life, as he asked,

‘Do they often go where glory waits ‘em, and leave you here?’

‘Oh, yes; I believe you they do,’ returned the small servant. ‘Miss Sally’s such a one-er for that, she is.’

‘Such a what?’ said Dick.

‘Such a one-er,’ returned the Marchioness.

After a moment’s reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk on; as it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and her opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a momentary check of little consequence.

‘They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,’ said the small servant with a shrewd look; ‘they go to a many places, bless you!’

‘Is Mr Brass a wunner?’ said Dick.

‘Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn’t,’ replied the small servant, shaking her head. ‘Bless you, he’d never do anything without her.’

‘Oh! He wouldn’t, wouldn’t he?’ said Dick.

‘Miss Sally keeps him in such order,’ said the small servant; ‘he always asks her advice, he does; and he catches it sometimes. Bless you, you wouldn’t believe how much he catches it.’

‘I suppose,’ said Dick, ‘that they consult together, a good deal, and talk about a great many people—about me for instance, sometimes, eh, Marchioness?’

The Marchioness nodded amazingly.

‘Complimentary?’ said Mr Swiveller.

The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side, with a vehemence which threatened to dislocate her neck.

‘Humph!’ Dick muttered. ‘Would it be any breach of confidence, Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has now the honour to—?’

‘Miss Sally says you’re a funny chap,’ replied his friend.

‘Well, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘that’s not uncomplimentary. Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a degrading quality. Old King Cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages of history.’

‘But she says,’ pursued his companion, ‘that you an’t to be trusted.’

‘Why, really Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully; ‘several ladies and gentlemen—not exactly professional persons, but tradespeople, ma’am, tradespeople—have made the same remark. The obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined strongly to that opinion to-night when I ordered him to prepare the banquet. It’s a popular prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure I don’t know why, for I have been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and I can safely say that I never forsook my trust until it deserted me—never. Mr Brass is of the same opinion, I suppose?’

His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that Mr Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, ‘But don’t you ever tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.’

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, rising, ‘the word of a gentleman is as good as his bond—sometimes better, as in the present case, where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. I am your friend, and I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in this same saloon. But, Marchioness,’ added Richard, stopping in his way to the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was following with the candle; ‘it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes, to know all this.’

‘I only wanted,’ replied the trembling Marchioness, ‘to know where the key of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn’t have taken much, if I had found it—only enough to squench my hunger.’

CAPITOLO 58

Il signor Swiveller e il suo compagno giocarono diverse partite con successo variabile, finché la perdita di tre soldi, il graduale abbassamento del purl, e il suono delle dieci in punto, si unirono per rendere quell’gentiluomo consapevole del volo del Tempo, e della convenienza di ritirarsi prima che il signor Sampson e la signorina Sally Brass tornassero.

«Con quale scopo, marchesa,» disse gravemente il signor Swiveller, «chiederò a Vostra Signoria il permesso di mettere il tavolo in tasca e di ritirarmi dalla sua presenza quando avrò finito questo boccale; osservando semplicemente, marchesa, che poiché la vita, come un fiume, scorre, non mi importa quanto velocemente si muova, signora, purché il purl sulle rive continui a crescere e tali occhi illuminino le onde mentre scorrono. Marchesa, alla sua salute. Mi scuserà se indosso il cappello, ma il palazzo è umido e il pavimento di marmo è—se mi è consentito l’espressione—scivoloso.»

Per precauzione contro quest’ultimo inconveniente, il signor Swiveller era stato seduto per qualche tempo con i piedi sul focolare, in tale atteggiamento egli ora esprimeva queste osservazioni di scuse, e lentamente sorveva le ultime gocce pregiate di nettare.

«Il barone Sampsono Brasso e la sua bella sorella sono (mi dite) al teatro?» disse il signor Swiveller, appoggiando pesantemente il braccio sinistro sul tavolo, e alzando la voce e la gamba destra alla maniera di un bandito teatrale.

La marchesa annuì.

«Ah!» disse il signor Swiveller, con una smorfia portentosa. «È bene. Marchioness! — ma non importa. Un po’ di vino lì. Oho!» Illustrò questi frammenti melodrammatici porgendosi la boccale con grande umiltà, ricevendola con arroganza, bevendo da essa con sete e leccandosi le labbra con foga.

La piccola serva, che non era così bene avvezza alle convenzioni teatrali come il signor Swiveller (avendo infatti mai visto una commedia, o sentito parlare di una, se non per caso attraverso le fessure delle porte e in altri luoghi proibiti), fu piuttosto allarmata da dimostrazioni così nuove nella loro natura, e mostrò la sua preoccupazione così chiaramente nel suo sguardo, che il signor Swiveller sentì la necessità di abbandonare il suo modo brigantesco per uno più adatto alla vita privata, mentre chiedeva,

‘Spesso vanno dove li attende la gloria, e ti lasciano qui?’

«Oh, sì, credo che lo facciano», rispose il piccolo domestico. «La signorina Sally è proprio così, lo è.»

«Un che cosa?» disse Dick.

«Una vera marchionessa», rispose.

Dopo un momento di riflessione, il signor Swiveller decise di rinunciare al suo dovere di correggerla e di lasciarla parlare, poiché era evidente che la lingua le si era sciolta grazie al purl, e le sue occasioni di conversazione non erano così frequenti da rendere un momento di pausa di poca importanza.

«A volte vanno a trovare il signor Quilp», disse il piccolo domestico con uno sguardo acuto; «vanno in molti posti, vi assicuro!»

«È il signor Brass un vincitore?» disse Dick.

«Non è nemmeno la metà di quello che è la signorina Sally», rispose la piccola domestica, scuotendo la testa. «Dio la benedica, lui non farebbe mai niente senza di lei.»

«Oh! Non lo farebbe, no?» disse Dick.

«La signorina Sally lo tiene in perfetto ordine», disse il piccolo domestico; «le chiede sempre consiglio, lo fa; e a volte se la becca. Dio vi benedica, non credereste quanto se la becca.»

«Suppongo», disse Dick, «che si consultino molto, e parlino di un gran numero di persone, di me, per esempio, a volte, eh, marchesa?»

La marchesa annuì in modo sorprendente.

«Complimentary?» disse il signor Swiveller.

La marchesa cambiò il movimento della sua testa, che non aveva ancora smesso di annuire, e improvvisamente iniziò a scuoterla da un lato all’altro, con una veemenza che minacciava di slogarle il collo.

‘Humph!’ borbottò Dick. ‘Sarebbe una violazione della fiducia, Marchesa, se raccontassi quello che dicono di questo umile individuo che ora ha l’onore di—?’

«La signorina Sally dice che sei un tipo strano», rispose il suo amico.

«Beh, Marchioness,» disse Mr Swiveller, «non è una cosa sgradevole. La gaiezza, Marchioness, non è una qualità negativa o degradante. Anche il vecchio Re Cole era un vecchio soggetto allegra, se possiamo dare credito alle pagine della storia.»

“Ma lei dice,” continuò il suo compagno, “che non si può fidarsi di te.”

«Ma davvero, marchesa,» disse il signor Swiveller, pensieroso, «diverse signore e signori - non proprio professionisti, ma commercianti, signora, commercianti - hanno fatto la stessa osservazione. Il cittadino oscuro che gestisce l’albergo di fronte, era fortemente incline a quell’opinione ieri-sera quando gli ho ordinato di preparare il banchetto. È un pregiudizio popolare, marchesa; eppure non so davvero perché, perché mi è stato affidato in passato un importo considerevole, e posso dire con sicurezza che non ho mai tradito la fiducia riposta in me finché non mi ha abbandonato - mai. Il signor Brass è dello stesso avviso, immagino?»

Il suo amico annuì di nuovo, con uno sguardo astuto che sembrava suggerire che il signor Brass aveva opinioni più forti sull’argomento di sua sorella; e, come se si fosse ricordata, aggiunse supplicante: «Ma non dire mai a nessuno, altrimenti sarò picchiata fino a morte.»

«Marchioness», disse il signor Swiveller, alzandosi, «la parola di un gentiluomo vale quanto la sua promessa scritta, e a volte vale di più, come nel caso presente, dove la sua promessa scritta potrebbe rivelarsi una garanzia piuttosto dubbia. Sono tuo amico, e spero che giocheremo insieme a molte altre partite in questo stesso salotto. Ma, Marchioness», aggiunse Richard, fermandosi sulla via verso la porta e voltandosi lentamente verso il piccolo servitore che lo seguiva con la candela, «mi viene in mente che tu debba avere l’abitudine costante di sbirciare negli occhielli delle serrature per sapere tutto questo.»

«Volevo solo», rispose la tremante marchesa, «sapere dove fosse nascosta la chiave della cassaforte; questo era tutto; e non avrei preso molto, se l’avessi trovata, solo quel tanto per placare la mia fame».

‘You didn’t find it then?’ said Dick. ‘But of course you didn’t, or you’d be plumper. Good night, Marchioness. Fare thee well, and if for ever, then for ever fare thee well—and put up the chain, Marchioness, in case of accidents.’

With this parting injunction, Mr Swiveller emerged from the house; and feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings, and to bed at once. Homeward he went therefore; and his apartments (for he still retained the plural fiction) being at no great distance from the office, he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber, where, having pulled off one boot and forgotten the other, he fell into deep cogitation.

‘This Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, folding his arms, ‘is a very extraordinary person—surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors—can these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an opposition to the decrees of fate? It is a most inscrutable and unmitigated staggerer!’

When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became aware of his remaining boot, of which, with unimpaired solemnity he proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with exceeding gravity all the time, and sighing deeply.

‘These rubbers,’ said Mr Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly the same style as he wore his hat, ‘remind me of the matrimonial fireside. Cheggs’s wife plays cribbage; all-fours likewise. She rings the changes on ‘em now. From sport to sport they hurry her to banish her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that she forgets—but she don’t. By this time, I should say,’ added Richard, getting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; ‘by this time, I should say, the iron has entered into her soul. It serves her right!’

Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic mood, Mr Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.

Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but as Mr Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to playing the flute; thinking after mature consideration that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours. In pursuance of this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most mournfully.

The air was ‘Away with melancholy’—a composition, which, when it is played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect. Yet, for half the night, or more, Mr Swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune over and over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a time to take breath and soliloquise about the Marchioness, and then beginning again with renewed vigour. It was not until he had quite exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs, and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the next doors, and over the way—that he shut up the music-book, extinguished the candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep.

He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having taken half an hour’s exercise at the flute, and graciously received a notice to quit from his landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for that purpose since the dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks; where the beautiful Sally was already at her post, bearing in her looks a radiance, mild as that which beameth from the virgin moon.

Mr Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his coat for the aquatic jacket; which usually took some time fitting on, for in consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only to be got into by a series of struggles. This difficulty overcome, he took his seat at the desk.

‘I say’—quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, ‘you haven’t seen a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?’

‘I didn’t meet many in the street,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller. ‘I saw one—a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance—but as he was in company with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with whom he was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking to him.’

‘No, but have you?’ returned Miss Brass. ‘Seriously, you know.’

‘What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘Haven’t I this moment come?’

‘Well, all I know is,’ replied Miss Sally, ‘that it’s not to be found, and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on the desk.’

‘Halloa!’ thought Richard, ‘I hope the Marchioness hasn’t been at work here.’

‘There was a knife too,’ said Miss Sally, ‘of the same pattern. They were given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone. You haven’t missed anything yourself, have you?’

«Non l’hai trovata, allora?» disse Dick. «Ma certo che no, altrimenti saresti più grassa. Buona notte, marchesa. Addio, e se per sempre, allora per sempre addio—e metti su la catena, marchesa, per evitare incidenti.»

Con questo ammonimento di congedo, il signor Swiveller uscì dalla casa; e sentendo che in quel momento aveva bevuto esattamente quanto era salutare per la sua costituzione (il purl essendo una miscela piuttosto forte e inebriante), decise saggiamente di recarsi alla sua dimora, e di andare a letto subito. Perciò si diresse verso casa; e i suoi appartamenti (perché manteneva ancora la finzione del plurale) essendo a non grande distanza dall’ufficio, fu presto seduto nella sua camera da letto, dove, avendo tolto un stivale e dimenticato l’altro, cadde in profonda riflessione.

«Questa marchesa,» disse il signor Swiveller, incrociando le braccia, «è una persona davvero straordinaria: circondata da misteri, ignara del gusto della birra, ignara del proprio nome (il che è meno notevole), e che ha una visione limitata della società attraverso le serrature delle porte. Possono queste cose essere il suo destino, o qualche persona sconosciuta ha opposto resistenza ai decreti del fato? È un fatto davvero incomprensibile e sconcertante!»

Quando le sue meditazioni avevano raggiunto questo punto soddisfacente, si accorse del suo stivale rimanente, del quale, con solennità intatta, procedette a spogliarsi; scuotendo la testa con estrema gravità tutto il tempo, e sospirando profondamente.

«Queste partite», disse il signor Swiveller, mettendosi il berretto da notte esattamente nello stesso modo in cui portava il cappello, «mi ricordano il focolare domestico. La moglie di Cheggs gioca a cribbage; e allo stesso modo a tutti i giochi di carte. Suona le variazioni su di loro ora. Da uno sport all’altro la affrettano per farle dimenticare i suoi rimpianti, e quando riescono a strapparle un sorriso, pensano che lei dimentichi — ma lei non dimentica. A quest’ora, direi», aggiunse Richard, mettendo il suo guanciale sinistro in posizione laterale e guardando con compiacimento il riflesso di un piccolissimo pezzo di baffo nello specchio; «a quest’ora, direi, il ferro è entrato nella sua anima. Le serve!»

Passando da questo umore severo e ostinato a uno tenero e patetico, il signor Swiveller gemette un po’, camminò avanti e indietro in preda all’agitazione e fece anche finta di strapparsi i capelli, cosa che però ritenne più opportuno non fare, e strappò invece il pompon dal suo berretto da notte. Infine, spogliandosi con cupa determinazione, si mise a letto.

Alcuni uomini nella sua disastrosa situazione si sarebbero dati al bere; ma poiché il signor Swiveller aveva già preso quell’abitudine in precedenza, si limitò, appena ricevuta la notizia che Sophy Wackles gli era perduta per sempre, a suonare il flauto; pensando, dopo matura riflessione, che fosse un’occupazione buona, sana, tetra, non solo in armonia con i suoi tristi pensieri, ma anche in grado di suscitare simpatia nel cuore dei suoi vicini. In conformità a questa decisione, ora trascinò un tavolino accanto al suo letto, e sistemando la luce e un piccolo libro di musica a forma di rettangolo nel modo più vantaggioso, tirò fuori il suo flauto dalla custodia e cominciò a suonare in modo estremamente malinconico.

L’aria era “Via con la malinconia” — una composizione che, quando viene suonata molto lentamente al flauto, a letto, con l’ulteriore svantaggio di essere eseguita da un gentiluomo che conosce l’istrumento solo imperfettamente, e che ripete una nota molte volte prima di trovare la successiva, non ha un effetto vivace. Eppure, per metà della notte, o più, il signor Swiveller, a volte sdraiato sulla schiena con gli occhi al soffitto, e a volte a metà fuori dal letto per correggersi con il libro, suonava questa sfortunata melodia più e più volte; smetteva solo per un minuto o due alla volta per riprendere fiato e fare monologhi sulla Marchionessa, e poi ricominciava con rinnovato vigore. Non fu fino a quando non ebbe esaurito del tutto i vari argomenti di meditazione, e non ebbe soffiato nel flauto tutto il sentimento del purl fino ai suoi ultimi residui, e non ebbe quasi mandato in bestia la gente della casa, e di entrambe le porte accanto, e di fronte — che chiuse il libro di musica, spense la candela, e trovandosi molto alleggerito e sollievo nello spirito, si girò e si addormentò.

Si svegliò la mattina, molto riposato; e dopo aver fatto mezz’ora di esercizio al flauto, e aver ricevuto con grazia un avviso di sfratto dalla sua padrona di casa, che era in attesa sulle scale a tale scopo fin dalla alba del giorno, si recò a Bevis Marks; dove la bella Sally era già al suo posto, con un’espressione che irradiava una luce dolce come quella che emana dalla vergine luna.

Il signor Swiveller riconobbe la sua presenza con un cenno del capo e scambiò il suo cappotto con la giacca impermeabile; che di solito richiedeva un po’ di tempo per essere indossata, poiché a causa della strettezza delle maniche, poteva essere indossata solo dopo una serie di sforzi. Superata questa difficoltà, si sedette alla scrivania.

«Dico» — disse Miss Brass, rompendo bruscamente il silenzio, «non avete visto una custodia per matite d’argento questa mattina, vero?»

«Non ne ho incontrati molti in strada», replicò il signor Swiveller. «Ne ho visto uno, un robusto portamatite dall’aspetto rispettabile, ma dato che era in compagnia di un vecchio temperino e di un giovane stuzzicadenti con i quali stava conversando seriamente, ho ritenuto di non essere autorizzato a parlargli.»

“No, ma l’hai fatto?” rispose Miss Brass. “Sul serio, sai.”

«Che cane noioso devi essere per farmi una domanda del genere seriamente», disse il signor Swiveller. «Non sono forse appena arrivato?»

«Beh, tutto quello che so», rispose Miss Sally, «è che non si trova, e che è scomparso un giorno di questa settimana, quando l’ho lasciato sulla scrivania».

«Ehi!» pensò Richard, «spero che la Marchioness non sia stata all’opera qui.»

«C’era anche un coltello», disse Miss Sally, «dello stesso modello. Me li ha regalati mio padre anni fa, e sono entrambi spariti. Non hai perso niente anche tu, vero?»

Mr Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be quite sure that it WAS a jacket and not a skirted coat; and having satisfied himself of the safety of this, his only moveable in Bevis Marks, made answer in the negative.

‘It’s a very unpleasant thing, Dick,’ said Miss Brass, pulling out the tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; ‘but between you and me—between friends you know, for if Sammy knew it, I should never hear the last of it—some of the office-money, too, that has been left about, has gone in the same way. In particular, I have missed three half-crowns at three different times.’

‘You don’t mean that?’ cried Dick. ‘Be careful what you say, old boy, for this is a serious matter. Are you quite sure? Is there no mistake?’

‘It is so, and there can’t be any mistake at all,’ rejoined Miss Brass emphatically.

‘Then by Jove,’ thought Richard, laying down his pen, ‘I am afraid the Marchioness is done for!’

The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more probable it appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was the culprit. When he considered on what a spare allowance of food she lived, how neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural cunning had been sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely doubted it. And yet he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling to have a matter of such gravity disturbing the oddity of their acquaintance, that he thought, and thought truly, that rather than receive fifty pounds down, he would have the Marchioness proved innocent.

While he was plunged in very profound and serious meditation upon this theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great mystery and doubt; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling a cheerful strain, was heard in the passage, and that gentleman himself, beaming with virtuous smiles, appeared.

‘Mr Richard, sir, good morning! Here we are again, sir, entering upon another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and breakfast, and our spirits fresh and flowing. Here we are, Mr Richard, rising with the sun to run our little course—our course of duty, sir—and, like him, to get through our day’s work with credit to ourselves and advantage to our fellow-creatures. A charming reflection sir, very charming!’

While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr Brass was, somewhat ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up against the light a five-pound bank note, which he had brought in, in his hand.

Mr Richard not receiving his remarks with anything like enthusiasm, his employer turned his eyes to his face, and observed that it wore a troubled expression.

‘You’re out of spirits, sir,’ said Brass. ‘Mr Richard, sir, we should fall to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state. It becomes us, Mr Richard, sir, to—’

Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr Sampson, ‘you too! Is anything the matter? Mr Richard, sir—’

Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making signals to him, to acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent conversation. As his own position was not a very pleasant one until the matter was set at rest one way or other, he did so; and Miss Brass, plying her snuff-box at a most wasteful rate, corroborated his account.

The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his features. Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money, as Miss Sally had expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened it, looked outside, shut it softly, returned on tiptoe, and said in a whisper,

‘This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance—Mr Richard, sir, a most painful circumstance. The fact is, that I myself have missed several small sums from the desk, of late, and have refrained from mentioning it, hoping that accident would discover the offender; but it has not done so—it has not done so. Sally—Mr Richard, sir—this is a particularly distressing affair!’

As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some papers, in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Richard Swiveller pointed to it, and admonished him to take it up.

‘No, Mr Richard, sir,’ rejoined Brass with emotion, ‘I will not take it up. I will let it lie there, sir. To take it up, Mr Richard, sir, would imply a doubt of you; and in you, sir, I have unlimited confidence. We will let it lie there, Sir, if you please, and we will not take it up by any means.’ With that, Mr Brass patted him twice or thrice on the shoulder, in a most friendly manner, and entreated him to believe that he had as much faith in his honesty as he had in his own.

Although at another time Mr Swiveller might have looked upon this as a doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then-existing circumstances, a great relief to be assured that he was not wrongfully suspected. When he had made a suitable reply, Mr Brass wrung him by the hand, and fell into a brown study, as did Miss Sally likewise. Richard too remained in a thoughtful state; fearing every moment to hear the Marchioness impeached, and unable to resist the conviction that she must be guilty.

When they had severally remained in this condition for some minutes, Miss Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with her clenched fist, and cried, ‘I’ve hit it!’—as indeed she had, and chipped a piece out of it too; but that was not her meaning.

‘Well,’ cried Brass anxiously. ‘Go on, will you!’

‘Why,’ replied his sister with an air of triumph, ‘hasn’t there been somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or four weeks; hasn’t that somebody been left alone in it sometimes—thanks to you; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody isn’t the thief!’

‘What somebody?’ blustered Brass.

‘Why, what do you call him—Kit.’

‘Mr Garland’s young man?’

‘To be sure.’

‘Never!’ cried Brass. ‘Never. I’ll not hear of it. Don’t tell me’—said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs. ‘I’ll never believe it of him. Never!’

‘I say,’ repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, ‘that he’s the thief.’

‘I say,’ returned Sampson violently, ‘that he is not. What do you mean? How dare you? Are characters to be whispered away like this? Do you know that he’s the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name? Come in, come in!’

These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had been uttered. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at the office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr Brass, when this very Kit himself looked in.

‘Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?’

‘Yes, Kit,’ said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; ‘Yes Kit, he is. I am glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you come down-stairs, Kit. That lad a robber!’ cried Brass when he had withdrawn, ‘with that frank and open countenance! I’d trust him with untold gold. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to Wrasp and Co.’s in Broad Street, and inquire if they have had instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter. THAT lad a robber,’ sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath. ‘Am I blind, deaf, silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see it before me? Kit a robber! Bah!’

Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable scorn and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as if to shut the base world from his view, and breathed defiance from under its half-closed lid.

Il signor Swiveller si mise involontariamente le mani sul giaccone per assicurarsi che fosse proprio un giaccone e non un soprabito con le code; e, convintosi della sicurezza di questo, il suo unico mobile a Bevis Marks, rispose negativamente.

«È una cosa molto spiacevole, Dick», disse Miss Brass, tirando fuori la scatola di latta e rinfrescandosi con una presa di tabacco da fiuto; «ma tra te e me — tra amici, sai, perché se Sammy lo sapesse, non ne sentirei più parlare — anche parte dei soldi dell’ufficio che erano stati lasciati in giro, sono spariti nello stesso modo. In particolare, ho notato la mancanza di tre mezzecorone in tre momenti diversi.»

«Non vorrai dire sul serio?» esclamò Dick. «Fai attenzione a quello che dici, vecchio mio, perché si tratta di una faccenda seria. Sei proprio sicuro? Non ci sarà un errore?»

«È così, e non può esserci alcun errore», ribatté con enfasi Miss Brass.

«Allora, per Giove», pensò Richard, posando la penna, «temo che la marchesa sia spacciata!»

Più Dick rifletteva sull’argomento, più gli sembrava probabile che la misera servetta fosse la colpevole. Quando considerava quanto scarsamente fosse nutrita, quanto trascurata e ignorante, e quanto la sua astuzia naturale fosse stata affilata dalla necessità e dalla privazione, non ne dubitava quasi più. Eppure la compativa così tanto, e si sentiva così poco disposto a lasciare che una questione così grave disturbasse la stranezza della loro conoscenza, che pensava, e pensava giustamente, che avrebbe preferito dimostrare l’innocenza della Marchesa piuttosto che ricevere cinquanta sterline.

Mentre era immerso in una meditazione molto profonda e seria su questo argomento, la signorina Sally sedeva scuotendo la testa con un’aria di grande mistero e dubbio; quando la voce di suo fratello Sampson, che intonava una melodia allegra, fu udita nel corridoio, e lo stesso signore, irradiante sorrisi virtuosi, apparve.

«Signor Richard, buongiorno! Ecco che ci ritroviamo, signore, a iniziare un’altra giornata, con i nostri corpi rinforzati dal sonno e dalla colazione, e i nostri spiriti freschi e vivaci. Ecco che ci ritroviamo, signor Richard, a sorgere con il sole per correre la nostra piccola corsa, la nostra corsa del dovere, signore, e, come lui, a portare a termine il nostro lavoro quotidiano con onore per noi stessi e vantaggio per i nostri simili. Una riflessione incantevole, signore, davvero incantevole!»

Mentre si rivolgeva al suo impiegato con queste parole, il signor Brass era, in modo un po’ ostentato, impegnato a esaminare minuziosamente e a tenere contro la luce una banconota da cinque sterline, che aveva portato con sé in mano.

Il signor Richard non accogliendo le sue osservazioni con alcun entusiasmo, il suo datore di lavoro volse lo sguardo verso il suo viso e osservò che aveva un’espressione turbata.

«Siete fuori di sé, signore», disse Brass. «Signor Richard, signore, dovremmo metterci al lavoro con allegria, e non in uno stato di disperazione. Ci si addice, signor Richard, signore, di—»

Qui la casta Sarah emise un sospiro sonoro.

«Dio mio!» disse il signor Sampson, «anche lei! C’è qualcosa che non va? Signor Richard, signore—»

Dick, lanciando un’occhiata a Miss Sally, vide che gli faceva dei segnali per informare suo fratello dell’argomento della loro recente conversazione. Poiché la sua posizione non era molto piacevole finché la questione non fosse stata risolta in un modo o nell’altro, lo fece; e Miss Brass, usando il suo tabacchiera a un ritmo davvero sperpero, corroborò il suo racconto.

Il volto di Sampson si rabbuiò e l’ansia si diffuse sulle sue fattezze. Invece di piangere appassionatamente la perdita dei suoi soldi, come Miss Sally si aspettava, egli si avvicinò in punta di piedi alla porta, l’aprì, guardò fuori, la richiuse dolcemente, tornò in punta di piedi e disse sottovoce,

«Questa è una circostanza davvero straordinaria e penosa — signor Richard, signore, una circostanza molto penosa. Il fatto è che io stesso ho notato la scomparsa di diversi piccoli importi dalla scrivania, di recente, e ho evitato di parlarne, sperando che un caso fortuito portasse alla luce il colpevole; ma non è stato così — non è stato così. Sally — signor Richard, signore — questa è una faccenda particolarmente angosciante!»

Mentre Sampson parlava, posò la banconota sulla scrivania tra alcuni documenti, in modo distratto, e infilò le mani nelle tasche. Richard Swiveller la indicò e lo ammonì a raccoglierla.

«No, signor Richard, signore», rispose Brass con emozione, «non lo prenderò. Lo lascerò lì, signore. Prenderlo, signor Richard, signore, implicherebbe un dubbio su di lei; e in lei, signore, ho fiducia illimitata. Lo lasceremo lì, signore, se non le dispiace, e non lo prenderemo assolutamente.» Con ciò, il signor Brass gli diede due o tre pacche sulla spalla, in modo molto amichevole, e lo pregò di credere che aveva tanta fede nella sua onestà quanto nella sua.

Anche se in un altro momento Mr Swiveller avrebbe potuto considerare questo un complimento dubbio, lo sentì, date le circostanze esistenti, un grande sollievo essere certo di non essere sospettato ingiustamente. Quando ebbe fatto una risposta adeguata, Mr Brass gli strinse la mano e cadde in una profonda riflessione, come fece anche Miss Sally. Anche Richard rimase in uno stato pensieroso; temendo di sentire in ogni momento l’accusa alla Marchioness e incapace di resistere alla convinzione che dovesse essere colpevole.

Quando erano rimasti in quella condizione per alcuni minuti, la signorina Sally diede improvvisamente un forte colpo sulla scrivania con il pugno chiuso e gridò: «L’ho trovato!» — e in effetti lo aveva trovato, e ne aveva pure staccato un pezzo; ma non era questo che intendeva.

«Bene,» esclamò Brass con ansia. «Continua, vuoi!»

«Perché», rispose sua sorella con aria trionfante, «non c’è stato qualcuno che è sempre entrato ed uscito da questo ufficio nelle ultime tre o quattro settimane; non è stato lasciato solo in esso a volte —grazie a te; e intendi dirmi che quel qualcuno non è il ladro!»

«Chi, qualcuno?» sbottò Brass.

‘Perché, come lo chiami—Kit.’

‘Il giovane di Mr Garland?’

‘Certamente.’

«Mai!» gridò Brass. «Mai. Non ne voglio sentir parlare. Non dirmelo» — disse Sampson, scuotendo la testa e lavorando con entrambe le mani come se stesse spazzando via diecimila ragnatele. «Non ci crederò mai di lui. Mai!»

“Dico”, ripeté Miss Brass, prendendo un’altra presa di tabacco da fiuto, “che è il ladro.”

«Io dico», ribatté Sampson con violenza, «che non lo è. Cosa intendete? Come osate? I caratteri si possono sussurrare via così? Sapete che è il più onesto e fedele compagno che sia mai vissuto, e che ha un nome irreprensibile? Entrate, entrate!»

Queste ultime parole non erano rivolte a Miss Sally, sebbene partecipassero del tono in cui erano state pronunciate le indignate proteste che le avevano precedute. Erano rivolte a qualcuno che aveva bussato alla porta dello studio; e non erano ancora uscite dalle labbra di Mr Brass, quando questo stesso Kit si affacciò alla porta.

‘È in casa il signore di sopra, per favore?’

«Sì, Kit», disse Brass, ancora acceso di una sincera indignazione e aggrottando le sopracciglia mentre guardava sua sorella; «Sì, Kit, lo è. Sono felice di vederti, Kit, sono contento di vederti. Ripassa a trovarci quando scendi le scale, Kit. Quel ragazzo un ladro!», esclamò Brass quando se ne fu andato, «con quel viso così franco e aperto! Mi fiderei di lui anche con un tesoro inestimabile. Signor Richard, signore, per cortesia vada subito da Wrasp e Co. in Broad Street e chieda se hanno ricevuto istruzioni per comparire a Carkem e Painter. QUEL ragazzo un ladro», sogghignò Sampson, arrossato e accalorato dalla sua ira. «Sarò forse cieco, sordo, stupido; non so nulla della natura umana quando la vedo davanti a me? Kit un ladro! Bah!»

Scagliando questa ultima interiezione contro Miss Sally con incommensurabile disprezzo e sdegno, Sampson Brass affondò la testa nella scrivania, come per chiudere fuori dalla sua vista il vile mondo, e sfidò il mondo da sotto il coperchio semiaperto.

CHAPTER 59

When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the single gentleman’s apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or so, Mr Sampson Brass was alone in the office. He was not singing as usual, nor was he seated at his desk. The open door showed him standing before the fire with his back towards it, and looking so very strange that Kit supposed he must have been suddenly taken ill.

‘Is anything the matter, sir?’ said Kit.

‘Matter!’ cried Brass. ‘No. Why anything the matter?’

‘You are so very pale,’ said Kit, ‘that I should hardly have known you.’

‘Pooh pooh! mere fancy,’ cried Brass, stooping to throw up the cinders. ‘Never better, Kit, never better in all my life. Merry too. Ha ha! How’s our friend above-stairs, eh?’

‘A great deal better,’ said Kit.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ rejoined Brass; ‘thankful, I may say. An excellent gentleman—worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little trouble—an admirable lodger. Ha ha! Mr Garland—he’s well I hope, Kit—and the pony—my friend, my particular friend you know. Ha ha!’

Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel Cottage. Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and impatient, mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him by the button-hole.

‘I have been thinking, Kit,’ said the lawyer, ‘that I could throw some little emoluments in your mother’s way—You have a mother, I think? If I recollect right, you told me—’

‘Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.’

‘A widow, I think? an industrious widow?’

‘A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.’

‘Ah!’ cried Brass. ‘That’s affecting, truly affecting. A poor widow struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a delicious picture of human goodness.—Put down your hat, Kit.’

‘Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.’

‘Put it down while you stay, at any rate,’ said Brass, taking it from him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a place for it on the desk. ‘I was thinking, Kit, that we have often houses to let for people we are concerned for, and matters of that sort. Now you know we’re obliged to put people into those houses to take care of ‘em—very often undeserving people that we can’t depend upon. What’s to prevent our having a person that we CAN depend upon, and enjoying the delight of doing a good action at the same time? I say, what’s to prevent our employing this worthy woman, your mother? What with one job and another, there’s lodging—and good lodging too—pretty well all the year round, rent free, and a weekly allowance besides, Kit, that would provide her with a great many comforts she don’t at present enjoy. Now what do you think of that? Do you see any objection? My only desire is to serve you, Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.’

As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled among the papers again, as if in search of something.

‘How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?’ replied Kit with his whole heart. ‘I don’t know how to thank you sir, I don’t indeed.’

‘Why then,’ said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his face close to Kit’s with such a repulsive smile that the latter, even in the very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite startled. ‘Why then, it’s done.’

Kit looked at him in some confusion.

‘Done, I say,’ added Sampson, rubbing his hands and veiling himself again in his usual oily manner. ‘Ha ha! and so you shall find Kit, so you shall find. But dear me,’ said Brass, ‘what a time Mr Richard is gone! A sad loiterer to be sure! Will you mind the office one minute, while I run up-stairs? Only one minute. I’ll not detain you an instant longer, on any account, Kit.’

Talking as he went, Mr Brass bustled out of the office, and in a very short time returned. Mr Swiveller came back, almost at the same instant; and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up for lost time, Miss Brass herself encountered him in the doorway.

‘Oh!’ sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered. ‘There goes your pet, Sammy, eh?’

‘Ah! There he goes,’ replied Brass. ‘My pet, if you please. An honest fellow, Mr Richard, sir—a worthy fellow indeed!’

‘Hem!’ coughed Miss Brass.

‘I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,’ said the angry Sampson, ‘that I’d stake my life upon his honesty. Am I never to hear the last of this? Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean suspicions? Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant fellow? If you come to that, I’d sooner suspect your honesty than his.’

Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow pinch, regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time.

‘She drives me wild, Mr Richard, sir,’ said Brass, ‘she exasperates me beyond all bearing. I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am. These are not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she carries me out of myself.’

‘Why don’t you leave him alone?’ said Dick.

‘Because she can’t, sir,’ retorted Brass; ‘because to chafe and vex me is a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don’t believe she’d have her health. But never mind,’ said Brass, ‘never mind. I’ve carried my point. I’ve shown my confidence in the lad. He has minded the office again. Ha ha! Ugh, you viper!’

The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff-box in her pocket; still looking at her brother with perfect composure.

‘He has minded the office again,’ said Brass triumphantly; ‘he has had my confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he—why, where’s the—’

‘What have you lost?’ inquired Mr Swiveller.

‘Dear me!’ said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another, and looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly tossing the papers about, ‘the note, Mr Richard, sir, the five-pound note—what can have become of it? I laid it down here—God bless me!’

CAPITOLO 59

Quando Kit, dopo aver svolto la sua commissione, scese le scale dall’appartamento del giovane scapolo dopo un quarto d’ora circa, il signor Sampson Brass era solo in ufficio. Non stava cantando come al solito, né era seduto alla sua scrivania. La porta aperta lo mostrava in piedi davanti al fuoco con le spalle rivolte verso di esso, e con un’aria così strana che Kit pensò che doveva essere stato colpito improvvisamente da un male.

«C’è qualcosa che non va, signore?» disse Kit.

“Problemi!” esclamò Brass. “No. Perché dovrebbe esserci qualche problema?”

‘Siete così pallido’, disse Kit, ‘che a malapena vi avrei riconosciuto.’

«Pfui! Sono solo fantasie», esclamò Brass, chinandosi a rastrellare le ceneri. «Non sono mai stato meglio, Kit, mai in tutta la mia vita. E anche allegra. Ha ha! Come sta il nostro amico al piano di sopra, eh?»

«Molto meglio», disse Kit.

«Sono contento di saperlo», rispose Brass; «anzi, direi che ne sono grato. Un eccellente signore, degno, generoso, di grande liberalità, che dà pochissimo disturbo, un inquilino ammirevole. Ah ah! Il signor Garland — spero che stia bene, Kit — e il pony — mio amico, il mio amico particolare, sai. Ah ah!»

Kit diede una descrizione soddisfacente di tutti i membri della piccola famiglia di Abel Cottage. Il signor Brass, che sembrava straordinariamente distratto e impaziente, salì sul suo sgabello e, facendogli cenno di avvicinarsi, lo prese per il buco del bottone.

«Stavo pensando, Kit», disse l’avvocato, «che potrei procurare qualche piccolo guadagno per tua madre. Hai una madre, vero? Se non sbaglio, me l’hai detto tu, »

‘Oh sì, signore, certo.’

‘Una vedova, credo? Una vedova laboriosa?’

‘Non esisteva una donna più laboriosa o una madre migliore, signore.’

«Ah!» esclamò Brass. «Questo è commovente, veramente commovente. Una povera vedova che si affanna per mantenere i suoi orfani in decenza e agio è un quadro delizioso di bontà umana. — Metti giù il cappello, Kit.»

‘Grazie, signore, devo andarmene subito.’

«Mettetela giù mentre siete qui, almeno», disse Brass, prendendola da lui e creando un po’ di confusione tra i documenti, cercando un posto per metterla sulla scrivania. «Stavo pensando, Kit, che abbiamo spesso case da affittare per conto di persone per le quali lavoriamo, e cose del genere. Ora sapete che siamo costretti a mettere delle persone in quelle case per prendersi cura di loro, molto spesso persone indegne su cui non possiamo contare. Cosa ci impedisce di avere una persona su cui possiamo contare e di godere del piacere di fare una buona azione allo stesso tempo? Dico, cosa ci impedisce di assumere questa degna donna, vostra madre? Con un lavoro e l’altro, c’è un alloggio, e un buon alloggio per giunta, abbastanza bene tutto l’anno, affitto gratuito, e un’indennità settimanale in più, Kit, che le fornirebbe molti comfort che non gode attualmente. Cosa ne pensate di questo? Vedete qualche obiezione? Il mio unico desiderio è servirvi, Kit; quindi se ne avete, ditemelo liberamente.»

Mentre Brass parlava, mosse il cappello due o tre volte e frugò di nuovo tra i documenti, come se cercasse qualcosa.

«Come potrei trovare qualcosa da ridire a un’offerta così gentile, signore?» rispose Kit con tutto il cuore. «Non so come ringraziarla, signore, davvero non so.»

«Ebbene,» disse Brass, voltandosi improvvisamente verso di lui e avvicinando il viso a quello di Kit con un sorriso così ripugnante che quest’ultimo, anche nel pieno della sua gratitudine, indietreggiò, piuttosto spaventato. «Ebbene, è fatto.»

Kit lo guardò con un certo imbarazzo.

«Fatto, dico io», aggiunse Sampson, strofinandosi le mani e avvolgendosi di nuovo nel suo solito modo untuoso. «Ah ah! e così troverete Kit, così troverete. Ma caro me», disse Brass, «che tempo è passato da quando Mr Richard è andato via! Un vero perditempo, davvero! Volete tenere d’occhio l’ufficio un minuto, mentre corro di sopra? Solo un minuto. Non vi tratterrò un istante più a lungo, per nessuna ragione, Kit.»

Parlando mentre camminava, il signor Brass uscì in fretta dall’ufficio e tornò dopo un brevissimo tempo. Il signor Swiveller rientrò quasi nello stesso istante; e mentre Kit stava uscendo di corsa dalla stanza per recuperare il tempo perso, la stessa Miss Brass lo incontrò sulla porta.

“Oh!” sghignazzò Sally, guardandolo mentre entrava. “Ecco il tuo tesoro, Sammy, eh?”

«Ah! Ecco che se ne va», rispose Brass. «Mia cara, se non ti dispiace. Un uomo onesto, signor Richard, signore, un uomo davvero degno!»

«Ehm!» tossì la signorina Brass.

«Le dico, lei vagabondo esasperante», disse Sampson, furioso, «che scommetterei la mia vita sulla sua onestà. Non dovrò mai più sentire parlare di questa storia? Devo sempre essere provocato e assediato dai suoi sospetti meschini? Non ha alcun riguardo per il vero merito, lei malvagio? Se ci arriva, sospetterei prima della sua onestà che della sua.»

Miss Sally estrasse la scatolina di latta per il tabacco da fiuto e ne prese una lunga, lenta presa, osservando suo fratello con uno sguardo fisso tutto il tempo.

«Mi fa impazzire, signor Richard, signore», disse Brass, «mi esaspera oltre ogni limite. Sono agitato ed eccitato, signore, lo so. Questi non sono modi da commerciante, signore, né atteggiamenti da commerciante, ma lei mi fa perdere il controllo».

«Perché non lo lasciate solo?» disse Dick.

«Perché non può, signore», ribatté Brass; «perché irritarmi e tormentarmi è parte della sua natura, signore, e lo farà e deve farlo, altrimenti non credo che avrebbe la sua salute. Ma non importa», disse Brass, «non importa. Ho ottenuto ciò che volevo. Ho dimostrato la mia fiducia nel ragazzo. Ha di nuovo badato all’ufficio. Ha ha! Ugh, tu serpe!»

La bella vergine prese un’altra presa e ripose il tabacchiera in tasca, continuando a guardare suo fratello con perfetta calma.

«Si è occupato dell’ufficio di nuovo», disse Brass trionfalmente, «ha avuto la mia fiducia, e continuerà ad averla; lui, perché, dov’è il, »

«Che cosa avete perso?» domandò il signor Swiveller.

«Dio mio!» esclamò Brass, frugandosi in tutte le tasche, una dopo l’altra, e guardando nella scrivania, sotto e sopra, e gettando via i fogli in preda al panico, «la banconota, signor Richard, la banconota da cinque sterline—dove sarà finita? L’avevo messa qui—Dio mi benedica!»

‘What!’ cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and scattering the papers on the floor. ‘Gone! Now who’s right? Now who’s got it? Never mind five pounds—what’s five pounds? He’s honest, you know, quite honest. It would be mean to suspect him. Don’t run after him. No, no, not for the world!’

‘Is it really gone though?’ said Dick, looking at Brass with a face as pale as his own.

‘Upon my word, Mr Richard, Sir,’ replied the lawyer, feeling in all his pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, ‘I fear this is a black business. It’s certainly gone, Sir. What’s to be done?’

‘Don’t run after him,’ said Miss Sally, taking more snuff. ‘Don’t run after him on any account. Give him time to get rid of it, you know. It would be cruel to find him out!’

Mr Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each other, in a state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse, caught up their hats and rushed out into the street—darting along in the middle of the road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as though they were running for their lives.

It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and having the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance ahead. As they were pretty certain of the road he must have taken, however, and kept on at a great pace, they came up with him, at the very moment when he had taken breath, and was breaking into a run again.

‘Stop!’ cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr Swiveller pounced upon the other. ‘Not so fast sir. You’re in a hurry?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Kit, looking from one to the other in great surprise.

‘I—I—can hardly believe it,’ panted Sampson, ‘but something of value is missing from the office. I hope you don’t know what.’

‘Know what! good Heaven, Mr Brass!’ cried Kit, trembling from head to foot; ‘you don’t suppose—’

‘No, no,’ rejoined Brass quickly, ‘I don’t suppose anything. Don’t say I said you did. You’ll come back quietly, I hope?’

‘Of course I will,’ returned Kit. ‘Why not?’

‘To be sure!’ said Brass. ‘Why not? I hope there may turn out to be no why not. If you knew the trouble I’ve been in, this morning, through taking your part, Christopher, you’d be sorry for it.’

‘And I am sure you’ll be sorry for having suspected me sir,’ replied Kit. ‘Come. Let us make haste back.’

‘Certainly!’ cried Brass, ‘the quicker, the better. Mr Richard—have the goodness, sir, to take that arm. I’ll take this one. It’s not easy walking three abreast, but under these circumstances it must be done, sir; there’s no help for it.’

Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when they secured him thus, and for a moment seemed disposed to resist. But, quickly recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made any struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the public streets, he only repeated, with great earnestness and with the tears standing in his eyes, that they would be sorry for this—and suffered them to lead him off. While they were on the way back, Mr Swiveller, upon whom his present functions sat very irksomely, took an opportunity of whispering in his ear that if he would confess his guilt, even by so much as a nod, and promise not to do so any more, he would connive at his kicking Sampson Brass on the shins and escaping up a court; but Kit indignantly rejecting this proposal, Mr Richard had nothing for it, but to hold him tight until they reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into the presence of the charming Sarah, who immediately took the precaution of locking the door.

‘Now, you know,’ said Brass, ‘if this is a case of innocence, it is a case of that description, Christopher, where the fullest disclosure is the best satisfaction for everybody. Therefore if you’ll consent to an examination,’ he demonstrated what kind of examination he meant by turning back the cuffs of his coat, ‘it will be a comfortable and pleasant thing for all parties.’

‘Search me,’ said Kit, proudly holding up his arms. ‘But mind, sir—I know you’ll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.’

‘It is certainly a very painful occurrence,’ said Brass with a sigh, as he dived into one of Kit’s pockets, and fished up a miscellaneous collection of small articles; ‘very painful. Nothing here, Mr Richard, Sir, all perfectly satisfactory. Nor here, sir. Nor in the waistcoat, Mr Richard, nor in the coat tails. So far, I am rejoiced, I am sure.’

Richard Swiveller, holding Kit’s hat in his hand, was watching the proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the slightest possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of his eyes, looked with the other up the inside of one of the poor fellow’s sleeves as if it were a telescope—when Sampson turning hastily to him, bade him search the hat.

‘Here’s a handkerchief,’ said Dick.

‘No harm in that sir,’ rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the other sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was contemplating an immense extent of prospect. ‘No harm in a handkerchief Sir, whatever. The faculty don’t consider it a healthy custom, I believe, Mr Richard, to carry one’s handkerchief in one’s hat—I have heard that it keeps the head too warm—but in every other point of view, its being there, is extremely satisfactory—extremely so.’

An exclamation, at once from Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit himself, cut the lawyer short. He turned his head, and saw Dick standing with the bank-note in his hand.

‘In the hat?’ cried Brass in a sort of shriek.

‘Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,’ said Dick, aghast at the discovery.

Mr Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at the floor—everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite stupefied and motionless.

‘And this,’ cried Sampson, clasping his hands, ‘is the world that turns upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions round Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort! This is human natur, is it! Oh natur, natur! This is the miscreant that I was going to benefit with all my little arts, and that, even now, I feel so much for, as to wish to let him go! But,’ added Mr Brass with greater fortitude, ‘I am myself a lawyer, and bound to set an example in carrying the laws of my happy country into effect. Sally my dear, forgive me, and catch hold of him on the other side. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to run and fetch a constable. The weakness is past and over sir, and moral strength returns. A constable, sir, if you please!’

«Che cosa!» esclamò Miss Sally, alzandosi, battendo le mani e facendo cadere i fogli sul pavimento. «Andato! Ora chi ha ragione? Ora chi l’ha indovinato? Non importa dei cinque sterline — che cosa sono cinque sterline? È onesto, sapete, proprio onesto. Sarebbe meschino sospettare di lui. Non corrergli dietro. No, no, per niente al mondo!»

«Ma è davvero sparito?» disse Dick, guardando Brass con un viso pallido quanto il suo.

«Perbacco, signor Richard, Sir», rispose l’avvocato, frugando in tutte le sue tasche con aria di grande agitazione, «temo che si tratti di una brutta faccenda. È certamente sparito, Sir. Cosa si può fare?»

«Non corrergli dietro», disse Miss Sally, prendendo altro tabacco da fiuto. «Non corrergli dietro per nessun motivo. Dategli tempo di liberarsene, sapete. Sarebbe crudele smascherarlo!»

Il signor Swiveller e Sampson Brass guardarono da Miss Sally l’uno all’altro, in uno stato di disorientamento, e poi, come se fosse stato un impulso unico, afferrarono i loro cappelli e corsero fuori in strada, sfrecciando nel mezzo della strada, e spingendo da parte tutti gli ostacoli, come se stessero correndo per la loro vita.

Accadde che anche Kit stava correndo, sebbene non così veloce, e avendo qualche minuto di vantaggio, era già ben lontano. Poiché erano abbastanza certi della strada che doveva aver preso, tuttavia, e proseguivano a gran velocità, lo raggiunsero proprio nel momento in cui aveva ripreso fiato e stava per ricominciare a correre.

«Fermatevi!» gridò Sampson, posandogli una mano su una spalla, mentre il signor Swiveller gli si avventava sull’altra. «Non così in fretta, signore. Avete fretta?»

«Sì, sono io», disse Kit, guardando l’uno e l’altro con grande sorpresa.

«Io—io—a malapena ci credo», ansimò Sampson, «ma qualcosa di valore è scomparso dall’ufficio. Spero che tu non sappia di che si tratta.»

«Sapete che cosa? Buon Dio, signor Brass!» esclamò Kit, tremando dalla testa ai piedi; «non vorrete dire che, »

«No, no», rispose subito Brass, «non suppongo nulla. Non dire che ho detto che lo hai fatto. Tornerai indietro tranquillamente, lo spero?»

“Certamente che lo farò”, rispose Kit. “Perché no?”

«Certo!» disse Brass. «Perché no? Spero che non ci sia un perché no. Se sapessi i guai in cui mi sono cacciato questa mattina, prendendo le tue difese, Christopher, te ne pentiresti.»

«E sono sicuro che le dispiacerà di avermi sospettato, signore», rispose Kit. «Su, torniamo in fretta.»

«Certamente!» esclamò Brass «più in fretta, meglio è. Signor Richard—abbia la bontà, signore, di prendere quel braccio. Io prenderò questo. Non è facile camminare a tre di spalla, ma in queste circostanze bisogna farlo, signore; non c’è altro modo.»

Kit passò dal bianco al rosso e dal rosso al bianco di nuovo, quando lo legarono così, e per un momento sembrò disposto a resistere. Ma, riprendendosi in fretta e ricordando che se avesse fatto resistenza, forse lo avrebbero trascinato per il colletto per le strade pubbliche, ripeté soltanto, con grande serietà e con le lacrime agli occhi, che sarebbero stati pentiti di questo—e si lasciò condurre via. Mentre tornavano, il signor Swiveller, a cui le sue attuali funzioni pesavano molto, approfittò dell’occasione per sussurrargli all’orecchio che se avesse confessato la sua colpa, anche solo con un cenno, e avesse promesso di non farlo più, avrebbe fatto finta di niente se lo avesse calciato negli stinchi a Sampson Brass e fosse scappato su per un cortile; ma Kit respinse con indignazione questa proposta, e al signor Richard non restò che tenerlo stretto finché non arrivarono a Bevis Marks, e lo introdussero alla presenza della deliziosa Sarah, che subito prese la precauzione di chiudere la porta a chiave.

«Ora, sapete», disse Brass, «se si tratta di un caso di innocenza, è un caso di quel tipo, Christopher, in cui la più completa rivelazione è la migliore soddisfazione per tutti. Perciò, se acconsentirete a un esame», dimostrò che tipo di esame intendesse arrotolandosi le maniche del cappotto, «sarà una cosa confortevole e piacevole per tutte le parti coinvolte.»

«Perquisiscimi», disse Kit, alzando con fierezza le braccia. «Ma ricordati, signore, che ti pentirai di questo fino all’ultimo giorno della tua vita.»

«È certamente un evento molto doloroso», disse Brass con un sospiro, mentre si infilava in una delle tasche di Kit e tirava fuori una collezione eterogenea di piccoli oggetti; «molto doloroso. Niente qui, signor Richard, signore, tutto perfettamente soddisfacente. Né qui, signore. Né nel panciotto, signor Richard, né nelle code della giacca. Finora, sono felice, ne sono sicuro».

Richard Swiveller, che teneva in mano il cappello di Kit, osservava la scena con grande interesse e sul suo volto si leggeva il più lieve accenno di un sorriso, mentre Brass, chiudendo uno dei suoi occhi, scrutava con l’altro l’interno di una delle maniche del poveretto come se fosse un telescopio, quando Sampson, voltandosi bruscamente verso di lui, gli ordinò di perquisire il cappello.

«Ecco un fazzoletto», disse Dick.

«Non c’è niente di male in questo, signore», ribatté Brass, portando l’occhio all’altra manica e parlando con la voce di uno che stava contemplando un immenso panorama. «Non c’è niente di male in un fazzoletto, signore, in nessun caso. La facoltà non lo considera un’abitudine salutare, credo, signor Richard, portare il proprio fazzoletto nel cappello — ho sentito dire che tiene la testa troppo calda — ma da ogni altro punto di vista, il fatto che sia lì, è estremamente soddisfacente — estremamente.»

Un’esclamazione, che partì simultaneamente da Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally e lo stesso Kit, interruppe il legale. Questi girò la testa e vide Dick in piedi con la banconota in mano.

«Nel cappello?» esclamò Brass con una specie di grido.

«Sotto il fazzoletto, e infilato sotto il fodero», disse Dick, atterrito dalla scoperta.

Il signor Brass lo guardò, guardò sua sorella, le pareti, il soffitto, il pavimento, insomma guardò dappertutto tranne che Kit, che rimase lì immobile, completamente stupito.

«E questo», esclamò Sampson, stringendosi le mani, «è il mondo che gira sul suo asse, e ha influenze Lunari, e rivoluzioni intorno a Corpi Celesti, e vari giochi del genere! Questa è la natura umana, è così! Oh natura, natura! Questo è il miscreante che stavo per beneficiare con tutti i miei piccoli artifici, e che, anche ora, mi fa sentire così tanto, da desiderare di lasciarlo andare! Ma», aggiunse il signor Brass con maggiore fermezza, «sono io stesso un avvocato, e sono obbligato a dare l’esempio nell’applicare le leggi del mio felice paese. Sally mia cara, perdona, e tienilo per l’altro braccio. Signor Richard, signore, fate la cortesia di correre a chiamare un ufficiale di polizia. La debolezza è passata e la forza morale ritorna. Un ufficiale di polizia, signore, per cortesia!»

CHAPTER 60

Kit stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed upon the ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr Brass maintained on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp of Miss Sally upon the other; although this latter detention was in itself no small inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides screwing her knuckles inconveniently into his throat from time to time, had fastened upon him in the first instance with so tight a grip that even in the disorder and distraction of his thoughts he could not divest himself of an uneasy sense of choking. Between the brother and sister he remained in this posture, quite unresisting and passive, until Mr Swiveller returned, with a police constable at his heels.

This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes; looking upon all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to housebreaking or ventures on the highway, as matters in the regular course of business; and regarding the perpetrators in the light of so many customers coming to be served at the wholesale and retail shop of criminal law where he stood behind the counter; received Mr Brass’s statement of facts with about as much interest and surprise, as an undertaker might evince if required to listen to a circumstantial account of the last illness of a person whom he was called in to wait upon professionally; and took Kit into custody with a decent indifference.

‘We had better,’ said this subordinate minister of justice, ‘get to the office while there’s a magistrate sitting. I shall want you to come along with us, Mr Brass, and the—’ he looked at Miss Sally as if in some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other fabulous monster.

‘The lady, eh?’ said Sampson.

‘Ah!’ replied the constable. ‘Yes—the lady. Likewise the young man that found the property.’

‘Mr Richard, Sir,’ said Brass in a mournful voice. ‘A sad necessity. But the altar of our country sir—’

‘You’ll have a hackney-coach, I suppose?’ interrupted the constable, holding Kit (whom his other captors had released) carelessly by the arm, a little above the elbow. ‘Be so good as send for one, will you?’

‘But, hear me speak a word,’ cried Kit, raising his eyes and looking imploringly about him. ‘Hear me speak a word. I am no more guilty than any one of you. Upon my soul I am not. I a thief! Oh, Mr Brass, you know me better. I am sure you know me better. This is not right of you, indeed.’

‘I give you my word, constable—’ said Brass. But here the constable interposed with the constitutional principle ‘words be blowed;’ observing that words were but spoon-meat for babes and sucklings, and that oaths were the food for strong men.

‘Quite true, constable,’ assented Brass in the same mournful tone. ‘Strictly correct. I give you my oath, constable, that down to a few minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such confidence in that lad, that I’d have trusted him with—a hackney-coach, Mr Richard, sir; you’re very slow, Sir.’

‘Who is there that knows me,’ cried Kit, ‘that would not trust me— that does not? ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me; whether I have ever wronged them of a farthing. Was I ever once dishonest when I was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would begin now! Oh consider what you do. How can I meet the kindest friends that ever human creature had, with this dreadful charge upon me!’

Mr Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if he had thought of that before and was about to make some other gloomy observations when the voice of the single gentleman was heard, demanding from above-stairs what was the matter, and what was the cause of all that noise and hurry. Kit made an involuntary start towards the door in his anxiety to answer for himself, but being speedily detained by the constable, had the agony of seeing Sampson Brass run out alone to tell the story in his own way.

‘And he can hardly believe it, either,’ said Sampson, when he returned, ‘nor nobody will. I wish I could doubt the evidence of my senses, but their depositions are unimpeachable. It’s of no use cross-examining my eyes,’ cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them, ‘they stick to their first account, and will. Now, Sarah, I hear the coach in the Marks; get on your bonnet, and we’ll be off. A sad errand! a moral funeral, quite!’

‘Mr Brass,’ said Kit. ‘Do me one favour. Take me to Mr Witherden’s first.’

Sampson shook his head irresolutely.

‘Do,’ said Kit. ‘My master’s there. For Heaven’s sake, take me there, first.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons for wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary. ‘How do we stand in point of time, constable, eh?’

The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with great philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would have time enough, but that if they stood shilly-shallying there, any longer, they must go straight to the Mansion House; and finally expressed his opinion that that was where it was, and that was all about it.

Mr Richard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still remaining immoveable in the most commodious corner with his face to the horses, Mr Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner, and declared himself quite ready. Therefore, the constable, still holding Kit in the same manner, and pushing him on a little before him, so as to keep him at about three-quarters of an arm’s length in advance (which is the professional mode), thrust him into the vehicle and followed himself. Miss Sally entered next; and there being now four inside, Sampson Brass got upon the box, and made the coachman drive on.

Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which had taken place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach window, almost hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon in the streets which might give him reason to believe he was in a dream. Alas! Everything was too real and familiar: the same succession of turnings, the same houses, the same streams of people running side by side in different directions upon the pavement, the same bustle of carts and carriages in the road, the same well-remembered objects in the shop windows: a regularity in the very noise and hurry which no dream ever mirrored. Dream-like as the story was, it was true. He stood charged with robbery; the note had been found upon him, though he was innocent in thought and deed; and they were carrying him back, a prisoner.

CAPITOLO 60

Kit rimase come incantato, con gli occhi spalancati e fissi a terra, senza badare né alla presa tremante che il signor Brass manteneva su un lato della sua cravatta, né alla stretta più salda della signorina Sally sull’altro; sebbene quest’ultima detenzione non fosse di per sé un piccolo inconveniente, poiché quella affascinante donna, oltre a conficcare le sue nocche in modo scomodo nella sua gola di tempo in tempo, lo aveva afferrato inizialmente con una presa così stretta che anche nel disordine e nella distrazione dei suoi pensieri non poteva liberarsi di una spiacevole sensazione di soffocamento. Tra il fratello e la sorella rimase in questa posizione, del tutto resistente e passivo, fino al ritorno del signor Swiveller, seguito da un agente di polizia.

Questo funzionario, essendo, ovviamente, ben abituato a tali scene; considerando ogni tipo di furto, dal piccolo furto fino alla scasso o alle imprese sulla strada, come fatti nel corso normale degli affari; e vedendo i perpetratori come tanti clienti che vengono serviti al negozio all’ingrosso e al dettaglio del diritto penale dove lui stava dietro il bancone; ricevette la dichiarazione dei fatti di Mr Brass con circa lo stesso interesse e sorpresa che un becchino potrebbe mostrare se richiesto di ascoltare un resoconto circostanziato dell’ultima malattia di una persona per la quale era stato chiamato a prestare servizi professionali; e mise Kit in stato di fermo con una decente indifferenza.

«È meglio», disse questo ministro subalterno della giustizia, «andare in ufficio mentre c’è un magistrato in carica. Avrò bisogno che tu venga con noi, signor Brass, e la—» guardò la signorina Sally come se avesse qualche dubbio se non potesse essere una grifone o un altro mostro favoloso.

«La signora, eh?» disse Sampson.

«Ah!» rispose il poliziotto. «Sì, la signora. E anche il giovane che ha trovato la proprietà.»

«Signor Richard, signore», disse Brass con voce luttuosa. «Una triste necessità. Ma l’altare della nostra patria, signore, »

«Suppongo che vorrete una carrozza pubblica?» interruppe il guardiano, tenendo Kit (che gli altri suoi catturatori avevano lasciato andare) con noncuranza per il braccio, un po’ sopra il gomito. «Avete la bontà di mandarne a chiamare una, per favore?»

«Ma ascoltatemi, vi prego», gridò Kit, alzando gli occhi e guardandosi intorno con aria supplichevole. «Ascoltatemi, vi prego. Non sono più colpevole di chiunque di voi. Sulla mia anima non lo sono. Io, un ladro! Oh, signor Brass, voi mi conoscete meglio. Sono sicuro che mi conoscete meglio. Questo non è giusto da parte vostra, davvero.»

«Le do la mia parola, agente» disse Brass. Ma qui l’agente intervenne con il principio costituzionale «le parole siano ignorate», osservando che le parole erano solo cibo da bambini e lattanti, e che i giuramenti erano il cibo per gli uomini forti.

«È proprio vero, agente», assentì Brass con lo stesso tono malinconico. «Strettamente corretto. Le do la mia parola, agente, che fino a pochi minuti fa, quando è stata fatta questa scoperta fatale, avevo una tale fiducia in quel ragazzo che gli avrei affidato, un cabriolet, signor Richard, signore; lei è molto lento, signore.»

«Chi mi conosce», esclamò Kit, «che non mi darebbe fiducia, che non me la dà? Chiedetelo a chiunque, se mai ha dubitato di me, se mai l’ho derubato di un soldo. Sono mai stato disonesto una volta sola, quando ero povero e affamato, e ora che sono ricco è probabile che cominci? Oh, pensate a quello che fate. Come potrò presentarmi davanti agli amici più buoni che un essere umano abbia mai avuto, con questa terribile accusa addosso!»

Il signor Brass replicò che sarebbe stato bene per il prigioniero se ci avesse pensato prima e stava per fare altre osservazioni lugubri quando si udì la voce del signorotto chiedere da sopra che cosa fosse successo e qual fosse la causa di tutto quel rumore e quel trambusto. Kit fece un involontario balzo verso la porta nella sua ansia di rispondere di persona, ma essendo stato rapidamente trattenuto dal poliziotto, ebbe l’angoscia di vedere Sampson Brass correre fuori da solo per raccontare la storia a modo suo.

«E neppure lui riesce a crederci», disse Sampson, quando tornò, «e nessuno ci crederà. Vorrei poter dubitare delle prove dei miei sensi, ma le loro deposizioni sono ineccepibili. Non serve a nulla interrogare i miei occhi», esclamò Sampson, strizzandoli e strofinandoli, «insistono sulla loro prima versione, e continueranno a farlo. Ora, Sarah, sento il calesse nei Marks; mettiti il cappello e ce ne andremo. Una triste missione! Un funerale morale, proprio!»

‘Signor Brass,’ disse Kit, ‘faccia una cosa per me. Portami prima da signor Witherden.’

Sampson scosse la testa, indeciso.

“Fatelo,” disse Kit. “Il mio padrone è lì. Per l’amor del cielo, portatemi lì per primo.”

«Beh, non lo so», balbettò Brass, che forse aveva le sue ragioni per voler apparire il più possibile equo agli occhi del notaio. «Come stanno le cose per quanto riguarda il tempo, agente, eh?»

L’agente, che nel frattempo aveva masticato un filo d’erba con grande filosofia, rispose che se se ne fossero andati subito avrebbero avuto tempo a sufficienza, ma che se fossero rimasti lì a esitare ancora, avrebbero dovuto andare dritti alla Mansion House; e infine espresse la sua opinione che era lì che si trovava, e che era tutto quello che c’era da dire.

Il signor Richard Swiveller, essendo salito sull’omnibus, e rimanendo ancora immobile nell’angolo più comodo con il viso rivolto ai cavalli, il signor Brass istruì l’ufficiale a rimuovere il suo prigioniero, e si dichiarò del tutto pronto. Pertanto, il poliziotto, tenendo ancora Kit nello stesso modo, e spingendolo un po’ davanti a sé, in modo da tenerlo a circa tre quarti di lunghezza di braccio in avanti (che è la modalità professionale), lo spinse dentro il veicolo e lo seguì. La signorina Sally entrò dopo; e dato che ora c’erano quattro persone all’interno, Sampson Brass salì sulla cassetta e fece partire il cocchiere.

Ancora completamente sbalordito dal repentino e terribile cambiamento che era avvenuto nelle sue vicende, Kit sedeva fissando fuori dal finestrino della carrozza, quasi sperando di vedere qualche mostruoso fenomeno nelle strade che potesse dargli motivo di credere di essere in un sogno. Ahimè! Tutto era troppo reale e familiare: la stessa successione di curve, le stesse case, gli stessi flussi di persone che correvano fianco a fianco in diverse direzioni sul marciapiede, lo stesso trambusto di carri e carrozze nella strada, gli stessi oggetti ben noti nelle vetrine dei negozi: una regolarità nel rumore e nella fretta che nessun sogno avrebbe mai riflettuto. Per quanto la storia fosse simile a un sogno, era vera. Era accusato di rapina; la nota era stata trovata su di lui, sebbene fosse innocente in pensiero e azione; e lo stavano riportando indietro, come prigioniero.

Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping heart of his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the consciousness of innocence would be insufficient to support him in the presence of his friends if they believed him guilty, and sinking in hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to the notary’s, poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window, observant of nothing,—when all at once, as though it had been conjured up by magic, he became aware of the face of Quilp.

And what a leer there was upon the face! It was from the open window of a tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread himself over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head resting on both his hands, that what between this attitude and his being swoln with suppressed laughter, he looked puffed and bloated into twice his usual breadth. Mr Brass, on recognising him, immediately stopped the coach. As it came to a halt directly opposite to where he stood, the dwarf pulled off his hat, and saluted the party with a hideous and grotesque politeness.

‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘Where now, Brass? where now? Sally with you too? Sweet Sally! And Dick? Pleasant Dick! And Kit! Honest Kit!’

‘He’s extremely cheerful!’ said Brass to the coachman. ‘Very much so! Ah, sir—a sad business! Never believe in honesty any more, sir.’

‘Why not?’ returned the dwarf. ‘Why not, you rogue of a lawyer, why not?’

‘Bank-note lost in our office sir,’ said Brass, shaking his head. ‘Found in his hat sir—he previously left alone there—no mistake at all sir—chain of evidence complete—not a link wanting.’

‘What!’ cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window. ‘Kit a thief! Kit a thief! Ha ha ha! Why, he’s an uglier-looking thief than can be seen anywhere for a penny. Eh, Kit—eh? Ha ha ha! Have you taken Kit into custody before he had time and opportunity to beat me! Eh, Kit, eh?’ And with that, he burst into a yell of laughter, manifestly to the great terror of the coachman, and pointed to a dyer’s pole hard by, where a dangling suit of clothes bore some resemblance to a man upon a gibbet.

‘Is it coming to that, Kit!’ cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands violently. ‘Ha ha ha ha! What a disappointment for little Jacob, and for his darling mother! Let him have the Bethel minister to comfort and console him, Brass. Eh, Kit, eh? Drive on coachey, drive on. Bye bye, Kit; all good go with you; keep up your spirits; my love to the Garlands—the dear old lady and gentleman. Say I inquired after ‘em, will you? Blessings on ‘em, on you, and on everybody, Kit. Blessings on all the world!’

With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and when he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled upon the ground in an ecstacy of enjoyment.

When they reached the notary’s, which they were not long in doing, for they had encountered the dwarf in a bye street at a very little distance from the house, Mr Brass dismounted; and opening the coach door with a melancholy visage, requested his sister to accompany him into the office, with the view of preparing the good people within, for the mournful intelligence that awaited them. Miss Sally complying, he desired Mr Swiveller to accompany them. So, into the office they went; Mr Sampson and his sister arm-in-arm; and Mr Swiveller following, alone.

The notary was standing before the fire in the outer office, talking to Mr Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat writing at the desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation as happened to fall in his way. This posture of affairs Mr Brass observed through the glass-door as he was turning the handle, and seeing that the notary recognised him, he began to shake his head and sigh deeply while that partition yet divided them.

‘Sir,’ said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two fore-fingers of his right hand beaver glove, ‘my name is Brass—Brass of Bevis Marks, Sir. I have had the honour and pleasure, Sir, of being concerned against you in some little testamentary matters. How do you do, sir?’

‘My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr Brass,’ said the notary, turning away.

‘Thank you Sir,’ said Brass, ‘thank you, I am sure. Allow me, Sir, to introduce my sister—quite one of us Sir, although of the weaker sex—of great use in my business Sir, I assure you. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to come foward if you please—No really,’ said Brass, stepping between the notary and his private office (towards which he had begun to retreat), and speaking in the tone of an injured man, ‘really Sir, I must, under favour, request a word or two with you, indeed.’

‘Mr Brass,’ said the other, in a decided tone, ‘I am engaged. You see that I am occupied with these gentlemen. If you will communicate your business to Mr Chuckster yonder, you will receive every attention.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Brass, laying his right hand on his waistcoat, and looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile—‘Gentlemen, I appeal to you—really, gentlemen—consider, I beg of you. I am of the law. I am styled “gentleman” by Act of Parliament. I maintain the title by the annual payment of twelve pound sterling for a certificate. I am not one of your players of music, stage actors, writers of books, or painters of pictures, who assume a station that the laws of their country don’t recognise. I am none of your strollers or vagabonds. If any man brings his action against me, he must describe me as a gentleman, or his action is null and void. I appeal to you—is this quite respectful? Really gentlemen—’

‘Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr Brass?’ said the notary.

Immerso in queste dolorose riflessioni, pensando con il cuore affranto a sua madre e al piccolo Jacob, sentendosi come se anche la coscienza della innocenza non sarebbe stata sufficiente a sostenerlo di fronte ai suoi amici se lo avessero creduto colpevole, e affondando sempre più nella speranza e nel coraggio man mano che si avvicinavano alla casa del notaio, il povero Kit stava guardando intensamente fuori dalla finestra, senza osservare nulla, quando all’improvviso, come se fosse stato evocato dalla magia, si accorse del volto di Quilp.

E che ghigno aveva sul viso! Era l’apertura di una finestra di una taverna da cui si affacciava; e il nanerottolo si era così disteso su di essa, con i gomiti sul davanzale della finestra e la testa appoggiata su entrambe le mani, che tra questa posizione e il fatto di essere gonfio di risate represse, appariva così tumefatto e gonfio da raddoppiare la sua larghezza abituale. Il signor Brass, riconoscendolo, fermò immediatamente la carrozza. Mentre si fermava proprio di fronte a lui, il nanerottolo si tolse il cappello e salutò il gruppo con una cortesia mostruosa e grottesca.

«Ah!» esclamò. «Dove ora, Brass? dove ora? Anche Sally con te? Dolce Sally! E Dick? Amabile Dick! E Kit! Onesto Kit!»

«È estremamente allegro!» disse Brass al cocchiere. «Davvero! Ah, signore, una faccenda triste! Non creda mai più nell’onestà, signore.»

«Perché no?» rispose il nanerottolo. «Perché no, mascalzone d’avvocato, perché no?»

«Una banconota persa nel nostro ufficio, signore», disse Brass, scuotendo la testa. «Trovata nel suo cappello, signore, che aveva precedentemente lasciato solo lì - nessun errore, signore - la catena delle prove è completa - non manca un anello.»

«Cosa!» gridò il nanerottolo, sporgendo metà del suo corpo dal finestrino. «Kit un ladro! Kit un ladro! Ah ah ah! Perché, è un ladro dall’aspetto più brutto che si possa vedere da nessuna parte per un penny. Eh, Kit—eh? Ah ah ah! Avete preso Kit in custodia prima che avesse tempo e opportunità di picchiarmi! Eh, Kit, eh?» E con ciò, scoppiò in una risata fragorosa, manifestamente a grande terrore del cocchiere, e indicò una pertica del tintore lì vicino, dove un abito che penzolava aveva una certa somiglianza con un uomo appeso a un patibolo.

«È arrivato a questo, Kit!» esclamò il nanerottolo, strofinandosi le mani con violenza. «Ha ha ha ha! Che delusione per il piccolo Giacobbe e per la sua adorata madre! Fagli avere il ministro del Bethel per confortarlo e consolarlo, Brass. Eh, Kit, eh? Avanti, cocchiere, avanti. Arrivederci, Kit; tutto il bene che c’è vada con te; mantieni il tuo coraggio; il mio affetto va ai Garland, alla cara vecchia signora e al signore. Di’ che ho chiesto di loro, vuoi? Benedizioni su di loro, su di te e su tutti, Kit. Benedizioni su tutto il mondo!»

Con tanti buoni auguri e saluti, riversati in un rapido torrente finché non furono fuori portata d’orecchio, Quilp permise loro di partire; e quando non poté più vedere la carrozza, ritirò la testa e rotolò a terra in un’estasi di godimento.

Quando arrivarono dal notaio, cosa che non tardarono a fare, poiché avevano incontrato il nanerottolo in una stradina laterale a poca distanza dalla casa, il signor Brass smontò; e aprendo la portiera della carrozza con un’aria malinconica, chiese a sua sorella di accompagnarlo nell’ufficio, al fine di preparare le brave persone che vi erano all’interno, per le tristi notizie che li attendevano. La signorina Sally acconsentì, e lui chiese al signor Swiveller di accompagnarli. Così, nell’ufficio entrarono; il signor Sampson e sua sorella braccio a braccio; e il signor Swiveller che li seguiva, solo.

Il notaio stava in piedi davanti al fuoco nell’ufficio esterno, parlando con il signor Abel e il signor Garland più anziano, mentre il signor Chuckster sedeva scrivendo alla scrivania, raccogliendo i briciole della loro conversazione che capitavano di cadere sulla sua strada. Questa situazione il signor Brass la osservò attraverso la porta di vetro mentre stava girando la maniglia, e vedendo che il notaio lo riconosceva, cominciò a scuotere la testa e sospirare profondamente mentre quella partizione li divideva ancora.

«Signore», disse Sampson, togliendosi il cappello e baciando le due dita indice del guanto di castoro della sua mano destra, «mi chiamo Brass, Brass di Bevis Marks, signore. Ho avuto l’onore e il piacere, signore, di essere coinvolto contro di lei in alcuni piccoli affari testamentari. Come sta, signore?»

«Il mio impiegato si occuperà di qualsiasi affare lei abbia da trattare, signor Brass», disse il notaio, voltandosi.

«Grazie, signore», disse Brass, «grazie, glielo assicuro. Mi permetta, signore, di presentarle mia sorella — una di noi, signore, anche se del sesso debole — di grande utilità per il mio lavoro, glielo assicuro. Signor Richard, signore, faccia il favore di avvicinarsi, per cortesia — No, davvero», disse Brass, mettendosi tra il notaio e il suo ufficio privato (verso il quale aveva iniziato a ritirarsi), e parlando con il tono di un uomo offeso, «davvero, signore, devo, con il dovuto rispetto, chiedere una parola o due con lei, davvero.»

«Signor Brass», disse l’altro con tono deciso, «sono occupato. Vedete che sono impegnato con questi signori. Se vorrete comunicare la vostra faccenda al signor Chuckster laggiù, riceverete ogni attenzione.»

«Signori», disse Brass, posando la mano destra sul panciotto e rivolgendo un sorriso mellifluo al padre e al figlio, «signori, vi faccio appello: in verità, signori, riflettete, ve ne prego. Sono un avvocato. Sono definito “gentiluomo” per legge parlamentare. Mantengo il titolo pagando annualmente dodici sterline per un certificato. Non sono uno di quei musicisti, attori di teatro, scrittori di libri o pittori che si attribuiscono un rango non riconosciuto dalle leggi del loro paese. Non sono uno di quei vagabondi. Se qualcuno mi citasse in giudizio, dovrebbe descrivermi come un gentiluomo, altrimenti la sua azione sarebbe nulla. Vi faccio appello: è questo un comportamento rispettoso? In verità, signori, »

«Bene, vuole avere la gentilezza di dirci in cosa possiamo esserle utili, signor Brass?» disse il notaio.

‘Sir,’ rejoined Brass, ‘I will. Ah Mr Witherden! you little know the—but I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir, I believe the name of one of these gentlemen is Garland.’

‘Of both,’ said the notary.

‘In-deed!’ rejoined Brass, cringing excessively. ‘But I might have known that, from the uncommon likeness. Extremely happy, I am sure, to have the honour of an introduction to two such gentlemen, although the occasion is a most painful one. One of you gentlemen has a servant called Kit?’

‘Both,’ replied the notary.

‘Two Kits?’ said Brass smiling. ‘Dear me!’

‘One Kit, sir,’ returned Mr Witherden angrily, ‘who is employed by both gentlemen. What of him?’

‘This of him, sir,’ rejoined Brass, dropping his voice impressively. ‘That young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and unlimited confidence in, and always behaved to as if he was my equal—that young man has this morning committed a robbery in my office, and been taken almost in the fact.’

‘This must be some falsehood!’ cried the notary.

‘It is not possible,’ said Mr Abel.

‘I’ll not believe one word of it,’ exclaimed the old gentleman.

Mr Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined,

‘Mr Witherden, sir, YOUR words are actionable, and if I was a man of low and mean standing, who couldn’t afford to be slandered, I should proceed for damages. Hows’ever, sir, being what I am, I merely scorn such expressions. The honest warmth of the other gentleman I respect, and I’m truly sorry to be the messenger of such unpleasant news. I shouldn’t have put myself in this painful position, I assure you, but that the lad himself desired to be brought here in the first instance, and I yielded to his prayers. Mr Chuckster, sir, will you have the goodness to tap at the window for the constable that’s waiting in the coach?’

The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when these words were uttered, and Mr Chuckster, doing as he was desired, and leaping off his stool with something of the excitement of an inspired prophet whose foretellings had in the fulness of time been realised, held the door open for the entrance of the wretched captive.

Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the rude eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called Heaven to witness that he was innocent, and that how the property came to be found upon him he knew not! Such a confusion of tongues, before the circumstances were related, and the proofs disclosed! Such a dead silence when all was told, and his three friends exchanged looks of doubt and amazement!

‘Is it not possible,’ said Mr Witherden, after a long pause, ‘that this note may have found its way into the hat by some accident,—such as the removal of papers on the desk, for instance?’

But this was clearly shown to be quite impossible. Mr Swiveller, though an unwilling witness, could not help proving to demonstration, from the position in which it was found, that it must have been designedly secreted.

‘It’s very distressing,’ said Brass, ‘immensely distressing, I am sure. When he comes to be tried, I shall be very happy to recommend him to mercy on account of his previous good character. I did lose money before, certainly, but it doesn’t quite follow that he took it. The presumption’s against him—strongly against him—but we’re Christians, I hope?’

‘I suppose,’ said the constable, looking round, ‘that no gentleman here can give evidence as to whether he’s been flush of money of late, Do you happen to know, Sir?’

‘He has had money from time to time, certainly,’ returned Mr Garland, to whom the man had put the question. ‘But that, as he always told me, was given him by Mr Brass himself.’

‘Yes to be sure,’ said Kit eagerly. ‘You can bear me out in that, Sir?’

‘Eh?’ cried Brass, looking from face to face with an expression of stupid amazement.

‘The money you know, the half-crowns, that you gave me—from the lodger,’ said Kit.

‘Oh dear me!’ cried Brass, shaking his head and frowning heavily. ‘This is a bad case, I find; a very bad case indeed.’

‘What! Did you give him no money on account of anybody, Sir?’ asked Mr Garland, with great anxiety.

‘I give him money, Sir!’ returned Sampson. ‘Oh, come you know, this is too barefaced. Constable, my good fellow, we had better be going.’

‘What!’ shrieked Kit. ‘Does he deny that he did? ask him, somebody, pray. Ask him to tell you whether he did or not!’

‘Did you, sir?’ asked the notary.

‘I tell you what, gentlemen,’ replied Brass, in a very grave manner, ‘he’ll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some other tack. Did I, sir? Of course I never did.’

‘Gentlemen,’ cried Kit, on whom a light broke suddenly, ‘Master, Mr Abel, Mr Witherden, every one of you—he did it! What I have done to offend him, I don’t know, but this is a plot to ruin me. Mind, gentlemen, it’s a plot, and whatever comes of it, I will say with my dying breath that he put that note in my hat himself! Look at him, gentlemen! see how he changes colour. Which of us looks the guilty person—he, or I?’

‘You hear him, gentlemen?’ said Brass, smiling, ‘you hear him. Now, does this case strike you as assuming rather a black complexion, or does it not? Is it at all a treacherous case, do you think, or is it one of mere ordinary guilt? Perhaps, gentlemen, if he had not said this in your presence and I had reported it, you’d have held this to be impossible likewise, eh?’

With such pacific and bantering remarks did Mr Brass refute the foul aspersion on his character; but the virtuous Sarah, moved by stronger feelings, and having at heart, perhaps, a more jealous regard for the honour of her family, flew from her brother’s side, without any previous intimation of her design, and darted at the prisoner with the utmost fury. It would undoubtedly have gone hard with Kit’s face, but that the wary constable, foreseeing her design, drew him aside at the critical moment, and thus placed Mr Chuckster in circumstances of some jeopardy; for that gentleman happening to be next the object of Miss Brass’s wrath; and rage being, like love and fortune, blind; was pounced upon by the fair enslaver, and had a false collar plucked up by the roots, and his hair very much dishevelled, before the exertions of the company could make her sensible of her mistake.

The constable, taking warning by this desperate attack, and thinking perhaps that it would be more satisfactory to the ends of justice if the prisoner were taken before a magistrate, whole, rather than in small pieces, led him back to the hackney-coach without more ado, and moreover insisted on Miss Brass becoming an outside passenger; to which proposal the charming creature, after a little angry discussion, yielded her consent; and so took her brother Sampson’s place upon the box: Mr Brass with some reluctance agreeing to occupy her seat inside. These arrangements perfected, they drove to the justice-room with all speed, followed by the notary and his two friends in another coach. Mr Chuckster alone was left behind—greatly to his indignation; for he held the evidence he could have given, relative to Kit’s returning to work out the shilling, to be so very material as bearing upon his hypocritical and designing character, that he considered its suppression little better than a compromise of felony.

At the justice-room, they found the single gentleman, who had gone straight there, and was expecting them with desperate impatience. But not fifty single gentlemen rolled into one could have helped poor Kit, who in half an hour afterwards was committed for trial, and was assured by a friendly officer on his way to prison that there was no occasion to be cast down, for the sessions would soon be on, and he would, in all likelihood, get his little affair disposed of, and be comfortably transported, in less than a fortnight.

«Signore», riprese Brass, «lo farò. Ah, signor Witherden! Lei sa poco del—ma non voglio essere tentato di allontanarmi dall’argomento, signore, credo che il nome di uno di questi signori sia Garland.»

«Di entrambi», disse il notaio.

«In effetti!» rispose Brass, inchinandosi eccessivamente. «Ma avrei potuto indovinarlo, dalla somiglianza straordinaria. Sono estremamente felice, ne sono certo, di avere l’onore di essere presentato a due signori così distinguiti, anche se l’occasione è estremamente dolorosa. Uno di voi signori ha un domestico chiamato Kit?»

«Entrambi», rispose il notaio.

“Due Kit?” disse Brass sorridendo. “Caspita!”

«Un solo Kit, signore», rispose Mr Witherden con rabbia, «che è al servizio di entrambi i signori. Che c’è di lui?»

«Questo è quanto, signore», riprese Brass, abbassando la voce in modo solenne. «Quel giovane, signore, in cui ho riposto una fiducia senza limiti e senza confini, e che ho sempre trattato come se fosse mio pari, quel giovane questa mattina ha commesso un furto nel mio ufficio ed è stato sorpreso quasi sul fatto.»

«Questo deve essere qualche falsità!» esclamò il notaio.

«Non è possibile», disse il signor Abel.

«Non ci credo neanche per un momento», esclamò il vecchio signore.

Mr Brass li guardò con dolcezza e rispose:

«Signor Witherden, le sue parole sono azionabili, e se fossi un uomo di rango basso e meschino, che non potrebbe permettersi di essere calunniato, procederei per i danni. Comunque, signore, essendo ciò che sono, disprezzo semplicemente tali espressioni. Rispetto il sincero calore dell’altro gentiluomo, e mi dispiace davvero di essere il messaggero di notizie così spiacevoli. Non mi sarei messo in questa posizione dolorosa, ve lo assicuro, ma il ragazzo stesso ha desiderato di essere portato qui in primo luogo, e ho ceduto alle sue preghiere. Signor Chuckster, vorrà avere la gentilezza di bussare alla finestra per il poliziotto che sta aspettando nella carrozza?»

I tre signori si guardarono con espressioni vuote quando queste parole furono pronunciate, e il signor Chuckster, facendo come gli era stato chiesto, e saltando giù dal suo sgabello con un po’ dell’agitazione di un profeta ispirato le cui predizioni si erano avverate nel pieno del tempo, tenne la porta aperta per l’ingresso del povero prigioniero.

Fu una scena davvero incredibile, quando Kit entrò e, sfogando l’eloquenza rozza con cui alla fine lo ispirò la Verità, chiamò il Cielo a testimoniare la sua innocenza e che non sapeva come fosse finita in suo possesso quella proprietà! Fu un tale confuso baccano, prima che si raccontassero le circostanze e si rivelassero le prove! Fu un tale silenzio di morte quando tutto fu raccontato, e i suoi tre amici si scambiarono sguardi di dubbio e stupore!

«Non è possibile», disse il signor Witherden dopo una lunga pausa, «che questo biglietto sia finito nel cappello per un caso, — come, per esempio, lo spostamento di documenti sulla scrivania?»

Ma si dimostrò chiaramente che ciò era del tutto impossibile. Il signor Swiveller, sebbene fosse un testimone riluttante, non poté fare a meno di provare, sulla base della posizione in cui fu trovato, che doveva essere stato nascosto intenzionalmente.

«È molto angosciante», disse Brass, «immensamente angosciante, ne sono sicuro. Quando verrà processato, sarò molto felice di raccomandarlo alla clemenza in considerazione del suo buon carattere precedente. Ho perso denaro prima, certo, ma non segue necessariamente che sia stato lui a prenderlo. La presunzione è contro di lui —fortemente contro di lui— ma siamo cristiani, spero?»

«Suppongo», disse il poliziotto, guardandosi intorno, «che nessuno dei signori presenti possa testimoniare se di recente fosse in possesso di denaro in abbondanza. Lei per caso lo sa, signore?»

«Ha avuto dei soldi di tanto in tanto, certamente», rispose il signor Garland, a cui l’uomo aveva posto la domanda. «Ma, come mi diceva sempre, glieli dava lo stesso il signor Brass».

‘Sì, certo,’ disse Kit con entusiasmo. ‘Può confermare questo, signore?’

«Eh?» esclamò Brass, guardando da un volto all’altro con un’espressione di stupore ottuso.

«Il denaro che conosci, le meze corone, che mi hai dato - dal pensionante», disse Kit.

«Oh, mio Dio!» esclamò Brass, scuotendo la testa e aggrottando la fronte in modo severo. «Questo è un brutto caso, vedo; un caso davvero molto brutto.»

«Che cosa! Non gli ha dato del denaro per conto di nessuno, signore?» chiese il signor Garland, con grande ansia.

«Gli do dei soldi, signore!» rispose Sampson. «Oh, come sapete, questo è troppo sfacciato. Agente, mio buon uomo, è meglio che ce ne andiamo.»

«Che cosa!» gridò Kit. «Negherebbe di averlo fatto? chiedeteglielo, qualcuno, per favore. Chiedetegli di dirvi se l’ha fatto o no!»

«Lo ha fatto, signore?» chiese il notaio.

«Vi dico una cosa, signori», rispose Brass in un modo molto serio, «non servirà la sua causa in questo modo, e davvero, se provate qualche interesse per lui, è meglio che lo consigliate a cambiare strategia. L’ho fatto io, signore? Certo che non l’ho mai fatto.»

«Signori», gridò Kit, a cui si accese improvvisamente una luce, «Maestro, signor Abel, signor Witherden, tutti voi, l’ha fatto lui! Non so cosa gli abbia fatto, ma è un complotto per rovinarmi. Badate, signori, è un complotto, e qualunque cosa ne derivi, dirò con il mio ultimo respiro che è stato lui a mettere quel biglietto nel mio cappello! Guardatelo, signori! Vedete come cambia colore. Chi di noi ha l’aria di essere colpevole, lui o io?»

«Lo avete sentito, signori?» disse Brass, sorridendo, «lo avete sentito. Ora, questo caso vi sembra assumere una colorazione piuttosto nera, o no? È un caso del tutto traditore, secondo voi, o è solo un caso di colpa ordinaria? Forse, signori, se non l’avesse detto in vostra presenza e io ve l’avessi riferito, lo avreste ritenuto altrettanto impossibile, eh?»

Con tali osservazioni pacifiche e scherzose, il signor Brass confutò la spregevole asserzione sulla sua reputazione; ma la virtuosa Sarah, mossa da sentimenti più forti e forse avendo a cuore un riguardo più geloso per l’onore della sua famiglia, si staccò dal fianco del fratello senza alcun preavviso delle sue intenzioni e si scagliò contro il prigioniero con la massima furia. Senza dubbio, il volto di Kit sarebbe stato malconcio, ma il costabile prudente, prevedendo il suo piano, lo tirò da parte nel momento critico, mettendo così il signor Chuckster in una situazione di qualche pericolo; poiché quel gentiluomo, trovandosi per caso accanto all’oggetto dell’ira della signorina Brass, e poiché la rabbia, come l’amore e la fortuna, è cieca, fu assalito dalla bella tiranna, che gli strappò il colletto falso dalle radici e gli scompigliò molto i capelli, prima che gli sforzi degli astanti riuscissero a farle capire il suo errore.

L’agente, messo in guardia da quell’attacco disperato e pensando forse che sarebbe stato più soddisfacente per gli scopi della giustizia se il prigioniero fosse stato portato davanti a un magistrato, intero, piuttosto che a pezzi, lo ricondusse senza indugio alla carrozza pubblica, e oltretutto insistette affinché la signorina Brass diventasse una passeggera esterna; a tale proposta la graziosa creatura, dopo una breve discussione arrabbiata, diede il suo consenso; e così prese il posto di suo fratello Sampson sulla predella: il signor Brass, con qualche riluttanza, accettò di occupare il suo posto all’interno. Una volta perfezionati questi accordi, si diressero verso la sala di giustizia con tutta celerità, seguiti dal notaio e dai suoi due amici in un’altra carrozza. Il signor Chuckster fu l’unico a rimanere indietro, con grande indignazione; perché riteneva la testimonianza che avrebbe potuto fornire, relativa al ritorno di Kit per guadagnare lo scellino, così importante per il suo carattere ipocrita e astuto, che considerava la sua soppressione poco migliore di un compromesso di reato.

Nella sala della giustizia trovarono il signore single, che vi si era recato direttamente e li aspettava con disperata impazienza. Ma nemmeno cinquanta signori single messi insieme avrebbero potuto aiutare il povero Kit, che mezz’ora dopo fu mandato in carcere in attesa di giudizio, e fu rassicurato da un ufficiale amichevole mentre lo conducevano in prigione che non c’era motivo di abbattersi, perché le udienze sarebbero iniziate presto e, molto probabilmente, la sua piccola faccenda sarebbe stata risolta e lui sarebbe stato comodamente deportato in meno di due settimane.

CHAPTER 61

Let moralists and philosophers say what they may, it is very questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much misery that night, as Kit did, being innocent. The world, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last; ‘in which case,’ say they who have hunted him down, ‘—though we certainly don’t expect it—nobody will be better pleased than we.’ Whereas, the world would do well to reflect, that injustice is in itself, to every generous and properly constituted mind, an injury, of all others the most insufferable, the most torturing, and the most hard to bear; and that many clear consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and many sound hearts have broken, because of this very reason; the knowledge of their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and rendering them the less endurable.

The world, however, was not in fault in Kit’s case. But Kit was innocent; and knowing this, and feeling that his best friends deemed him guilty—that Mr and Mrs Garland would look upon him as a monster of ingratitude—that Barbara would associate him with all that was bad and criminal—that the pony would consider himself forsaken—and that even his own mother might perhaps yield to the strong appearances against him, and believe him to be the wretch he seemed—knowing and feeling all this, he experienced, at first, an agony of mind which no words can describe, and walked up and down the little cell in which he was locked up for the night, almost beside himself with grief.

Even when the violence of these emotions had in some degree subsided, and he was beginning to grow more calm, there came into his mind a new thought, the anguish of which was scarcely less. The child—the bright star of the simple fellow’s life—she, who always came back upon him like a beautiful dream—who had made the poorest part of his existence, the happiest and best—who had ever been so gentle, and considerate, and good—if she were ever to hear of this, what would she think! As this idea occurred to him, the walls of the prison seemed to melt away, and the old place to reveal itself in their stead, as it was wont to be on winter nights—the fireside, the little supper table, the old man’s hat, and coat, and stick—the half-opened door, leading to her little room—they were all there. And Nell herself was there, and he—both laughing heartily as they had often done—and when he had got as far as this, Kit could go no farther, but flung himself upon his poor bedstead and wept.

It was a long night, which seemed as though it would have no end; but he slept too, and dreamed—always of being at liberty, and roving about, now with one person and now with another, but ever with a vague dread of being recalled to prison; not that prison, but one which was in itself a dim idea—not of a place, but of a care and sorrow: of something oppressive and always present, and yet impossible to define. At last, the morning dawned, and there was the jail itself—cold, black, and dreary, and very real indeed.

He was left to himself, however, and there was comfort in that. He had liberty to walk in a small paved yard at a certain hour, and learnt from the turnkey, who came to unlock his cell and show him where to wash, that there was a regular time for visiting, every day, and that if any of his friends came to see him, he would be fetched down to the grate. When he had given him this information, and a tin porringer containing his breakfast, the man locked him up again; and went clattering along the stone passage, opening and shutting a great many other doors, and raising numberless loud echoes which resounded through the building for a long time, as if they were in prison too, and unable to get out.

This turnkey had given him to understand that he was lodged, like some few others in the jail, apart from the mass of prisoners; because he was not supposed to be utterly depraved and irreclaimable, and had never occupied apartments in that mansion before. Kit was thankful for this indulgence, and sat reading the church catechism very attentively (though he had known it by heart from a little child), until he heard the key in the lock, and the man entered again.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘come on!’

‘Where to, Sir?’ asked Kit.

The man contented himself by briefly replying ‘Wisitors;’ and taking him by the arm in exactly the same manner as the constable had done the day before, led him, through several winding ways and strong gates, into a passage, where he placed him at a grating and turned upon his heel. Beyond this grating, at the distance of about four or five feet, was another exactly like it. In the space between, sat a turnkey reading a newspaper, and outside the further railing, Kit saw, with a palpitating heart, his mother with the baby in her arms; Barbara’s mother with her never-failing umbrella; and poor little Jacob, staring in with all his might, as though he were looking for the bird, or the wild beast, and thought the men were mere accidents with whom the bars could have no possible concern.

But when little Jacob saw his brother, and, thrusting his arms between the rails to hug him, found that he came no nearer, but still stood afar off with his head resting on the arm by which he held to one of the bars, he began to cry most piteously; whereupon, Kit’s mother and Barbara’s mother, who had restrained themselves as much as possible, burst out sobbing and weeping afresh. Poor Kit could not help joining them, and not one of them could speak a word. During this melancholy pause, the turnkey read his newspaper with a waggish look (he had evidently got among the facetious paragraphs) until, happening to take his eyes off for an instant, as if to get by dint of contemplation at the very marrow of some joke of a deeper sort than the rest, it appeared to occur to him, for the first time, that somebody was crying.

CAPITOLO 61

Che dicono i moralisti e i filosofi, è molto dubbio che un uomo colpevole avrebbe provato la metà della miseria che quella notte provò Kit, essendo innocente. Il mondo, essendo costantemente responsabile di enormi quantità di ingiustizia, è un po’ troppo propenso a consolarsi con l’idea che se la vittima della sua falsità e malizia ha una coscienza pulita, non può non essere sostenuta nelle sue prove, e in qualche modo alla fine tutto si sistemerà; ‘in tal caso,’ dicono coloro che l’hanno perseguitato, ‘—anche se certamente non ce lo aspettiamo—nessuno ne sarà più contento di noi.’ Mentre, il mondo farebbe bene a riflettere che l’ingiustizia è di per sé, per ogni mente generosa e correttamente costituita, un’offesa, tra tutte le più intollerabili, le più tormentanti e le più difficili da sopportare; e che molte coscienze pulite sono andate a fare i conti altrove, e molti cuori sani si sono spezzati, proprio per questa ragione; la conoscenza dei propri meriti non fa che aggravare le loro sofferenze, rendendole ancora meno sopportabili.

Il mondo, tuttavia, non aveva colpe nel caso di Kit. Ma Kit era innocente; e sapendo questo, e sentendo che i suoi migliori amici lo ritenevano colpevole, che il signor e la signora Garland lo avrebbero considerato un mostro di ingratitudine, che Barbara lo avrebbe associato a tutto ciò che era cattivo e criminale, che il pony si sarebbe sentito abbandonato, e che persino sua madre avrebbe forse ceduto alle forti apparenze contro di lui, e lo avrebbe creduto il miserabile che sembrava, sapendo e sentendo tutto questo, provò dapprima un’agonia di mente che nessuna parola può descrivere, e camminò avanti e indietro nella piccola cella in cui era rinchiuso per la notte, quasi fuori di sé dal dolore.

Anche quando la violenza di queste emozioni si era in qualche modo placata, e lui stava cominciando a calmarsi, gli venne in mente un nuovo pensiero, la cui angoscia era a malapena inferiore. La bambina—la luminosa stella della vita di quel semplice ragazzo—lei, che tornava sempre a lui come un bel sogno—che aveva reso la parte più povera della sua esistenza, la più felice e migliore—che era sempre stata così gentile, premurosa e buona—se mai avesse dovuto sentire di questo, cosa avrebbe pensato! Mentre questa idea gli veniva in mente, le mura della prigione sembravano dissolversi, e il vecchio posto si rivelava al loro posto, come era solito essere nelle notti di inverno—il caminetto, il piccolo tavolo da cena, il cappello, il cappotto e il bastone del vecchio—la porta semiaperta, che conduceva alla sua piccola stanza—tutto era lì. E Nell stessa era lì, e lui—entrambi che ridevano di gusto come spesso facevano—e quando era arrivato a questo punto, Kit non poté andare oltre, ma si gettò sul suo povero letto e pianse.

Fu una lunga notte, che sembrava non dovesse mai finire; ma anche lui dormì, e sognò: sempre di essere libero, e di vagare, ora con una persona, ora con un’altra, ma sempre con un vago timore di essere richiamato in carcere; non quel carcere, ma uno che era in sé un’idea vaga, non di un luogo, ma di un’angoscia e di un dolore: di qualcosa di opprimente e sempre presente, eppure impossibile da definire. Alla fine, l’alba arrivò, e lì c’era la prigione stessa: fredda, nera, tetra, e molto reale.

Fu lasciato a se stesso, tuttavia, e in ciò c’era un conforto. Aveva la libertà di passeggiare in un piccolo cortile lastricato a una certa ora, e apprese dal secondino, che venne ad aprire la sua cella e a mostrargli dove lavarsi, che c’era un orario regolare per le visite, ogni giorno, e che se uno dei suoi amici fosse venuto a trovarlo, sarebbe stato portato giù alla grata. Dopo avergli dato queste informazioni, e un piattino di stagno contenente la sua colazione, l’uomo lo rinchiuse di nuovo; e si allontanò rumorosamente lungo il corridoio di pietra, aprendo e chiudendo molte altre porte, e sollevando innumerechi forti echi che risuonavano nell’edificio per un lungo time, come se fossero in prison anche loro, e non potessero uscire.

Questo custode gli aveva fatto capire che era alloggiato, come alcuni pochi altri in prigione, separato dalla massa dei prigionieri; perché non si riteneva del tutto depravato e irrecuperabile, e non aveva mai occupato appartamenti in quella dimora prima. Kit fu grato per questa indulgenza, e sedette a leggere il catechismo della chiesa con molta attenzione (sebbene lo conoscesse a memoria da quando era un piccolo bambino), finché non sentì la chiave nella serratura e l’uomo entrò di nuovo.

‘Allora,’ disse, ‘andiamo!’

«Dove andiamo, signore?» chiese Kit.

L’uomo si accontentò di rispondere brevemente: «Visitatori»; e prendendolo per il braccio esattamente nello stesso modo in cui l’agente aveva fatto il giorno prima, lo condusse, attraverso vari percorsi tortuosi e robusti cancelli, in un passaggio, dove lo mise davanti a una grata e si voltò sui tacchi. Oltre questa grata, a una distanza di circa quattro o cinque piedi, ce n’era un’altra esattamente uguale. Nello spazio tra le due, sedeva un secondino che leggeva un giornale, e al di là della grata più lontana, Kit vide, con un cuore palpitante, sua madre con il bambino tra le braccia; la madre di Barbara con il suo ombrello sempre presente; e il povero piccolo Jacob, che guardava dentro con tutta la sua forza, come se stesse cercando l’uccello o la bestia selvatica, e pensasse che gli uomini fossero semplici incidenti con cui le sbarre non avrebbero potuto avere alcuna possibile relazione.

Ma quando il piccolo Giacobbe vide suo fratello e, infilando le braccia tra le sbarre per abbracciarlo, si accorse che non si avvicinava, ma rimaneva lontano con la testa appoggiata al braccio con cui si aggrappava a una delle sbarre, cominciò a piangere pietosamente; a quel punto, la madre di Kit e la madre di Barbara, che si erano trattenute il più possibile, scoppiarono di nuovo in singhiozzi e lacrime. Povero Kit, non poté fare a meno di unirsi a loro, e nessuno di loro riusciva a dire una parola. Durante questa pausa malinconica, il secondino lesse il suo giornale con un’aria scherzosa (aveva evidentemente trovato i paragrafi faceti) finché, capitando di distogliere gli occhi per un istante, come se volesse arrivare, con la contemplazione, al midollo di qualche scherzo più profondo degli altri, gli sembrò di rendersi conto, per la prima volta, che qualcuno stava piangendo.

‘Now, ladies, ladies,’ he said, looking round with surprise, ‘I’d advise you not to waste time like this. It’s allowanced here, you know. You mustn’t let that child make that noise either. It’s against all rules.’

‘I’m his poor mother, sir,’—sobbed Mrs Nubbles, curtseying humbly, ‘and this is his brother, sir. Oh dear me, dear me!’

‘Well!’ replied the turnkey, folding his paper on his knee, so as to get with greater convenience at the top of the next column. ‘It can’t be helped you know. He ain’t the only one in the same fix. You mustn’t make a noise about it!’

With that he went on reading. The man was not unnaturally cruel or hard-hearted. He had come to look upon felony as a kind of disorder, like the scarlet fever or erysipelas: some people had it—some hadn’t—just as it might be.

‘Oh! my darling Kit,’ said his mother, whom Barbara’s mother had charitably relieved of the baby, ‘that I should see my poor boy here!’

‘You don’t believe that I did what they accuse me of, mother dear?’ cried Kit, in a choking voice.

‘I believe it!’ exclaimed the poor woman, ‘I that never knew you tell a lie, or do a bad action from your cradle—that have never had a moment’s sorrow on your account, except it was the poor meals that you have taken with such good humour and content, that I forgot how little there was, when I thought how kind and thoughtful you were, though you were but a child!—I believe it of the son that’s been a comfort to me from the hour of his birth until this time, and that I never laid down one night in anger with! I believe it of you Kit!—’

‘Why then, thank God!’ said Kit, clutching the bars with an earnestness that shook them, ‘and I can bear it, mother! Come what may, I shall always have one drop of happiness in my heart when I think that you said that.’

At this the poor woman fell a-crying again, and Barbara’s mother too. And little Jacob, whose disjointed thoughts had by this time resolved themselves into a pretty distinct impression that Kit couldn’t go out for a walk if he wanted, and that there were no birds, lions, tigers or other natural curiosities behind those bars—nothing indeed, but a caged brother—added his tears to theirs with as little noise as possible.

Kit’s mother, drying her eyes (and moistening them, poor soul, more than she dried them), now took from the ground a small basket, and submissively addressed herself to the turnkey, saying, would he please to listen to her for a minute? The turnkey, being in the very crisis and passion of a joke, motioned to her with his hand to keep silent one minute longer, for her life. Nor did he remove his hand into its former posture, but kept it in the same warning attitude until he had finished the paragraph, when he paused for a few seconds, with a smile upon his face, as who should say ‘this editor is a comical blade—a funny dog,’ and then asked her what she wanted.

‘I have brought him a little something to eat,’ said the good woman. ‘If you please, Sir, might he have it?’

‘Yes,—he may have it. There’s no rule against that. Give it to me when you go, and I’ll take care he has it.’

‘No, but if you please sir—don’t be angry with me sir—I am his mother, and you had a mother once—if I might only see him eat a little bit, I should go away, so much more satisfied that he was all comfortable.’

And again the tears of Kit’s mother burst forth, and of Barbara’s mother, and of little Jacob. As to the baby, it was crowing and laughing with its might—under the idea, apparently, that the whole scene had been invented and got up for its particular satisfaction.

The turnkey looked as if he thought the request a strange one and rather out of the common way, but nevertheless he laid down his paper, and coming round where Kit’s mother stood, took the basket from her, and after inspecting its contents, handed it to Kit, and went back to his place. It may be easily conceived that the prisoner had no great appetite, but he sat down on the ground, and ate as hard as he could, while, at every morsel he put into his mouth, his mother sobbed and wept afresh, though with a softened grief that bespoke the satisfaction the sight afforded her.

While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about his employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion concerning him; but all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself broken the intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and delicacy, late on the previous night, but had himself expressed no opinion of his innocence or guilt. Kit was on the point of mustering courage to ask Barbara’s mother about Barbara, when the turnkey who had conducted him, reappeared, a second turnkey appeared behind his visitors, and the third turnkey with the newspaper cried ‘Time’s up!’—adding in the same breath ‘Now for the next party!’ and then plunging deep into his newspaper again. Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from his mother, and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears. As he was crossing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the guidance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand.

‘This is Christopher Nubbles, isn’t it, that come in last night for felony?’ said the man.

His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question.

‘Then here’s your beer,’ said the other man to Christopher. ‘What are you looking at? There an’t a discharge in it.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Kit. ‘Who sent it me?’

‘Why, your friend,’ replied the man. ‘You’re to have it every day, he says. And so you will, if he pays for it.’

‘My friend!’ repeated Kit.

‘You’re all abroad, seemingly,’ returned the other man. ‘There’s his letter. Take hold!’

Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows.

‘Drink of this cup, you’ll find there’s a spell in its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality. Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen! HER cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and Co.’s).—If they ever send it in a flat state, complain to the Governor. Yours, R. S.’

‘R. S.!’ said Kit, after some consideration. ‘It must be Mr Richard Swiveller. Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him heartily.’

«Ora, signore, signore», disse, guardandosi intorno con sorpresa, «vi consiglierei di non sprecare tempo in questo modo. È regolamentare qui, sapete. Non dovete neanche lasciare che quel bambino faccia quel rumore. È contro tutte le regole.»

«Sono la sua povera madre, signore», singhiozzò la signora Nubbles, inchinandosi umilmente, «e questo è suo fratello, signore. Oh, caro me, caro me!»

«Bene!» rispose il secondino, piegando il suo giornale sulle ginocchia, in modo da poter raggiungere con maggiore comodità la parte superiore della colonna successiva. «Non si può fare nulla, lo sai. Non è l’unico nella stessa situazione. Non devi fare chiasso per questo!»

Detto questo, continuò a leggere. L’uomo non era crudelmente o di cuore duro. Aveva finito per considerare il crimine come una specie di malattia, come la scarlattina o l’artrite: alcune persone l’avevano, altre no, semplicemente.

“Oh! mio caro Kit”, disse sua madre, a cui la madre di Barbara aveva caritatevolmente tolto di mano il bambino, “che io debba vedere qui il mio povero ragazzo!”

«Non credete che io abbia fatto quello di cui mi accusano, cara mamma?» esclamò Kit con voce strozzata.

«Ci credo!» esclamò la povera donna, «io che non ti ho mai visto dire una bugia o fare una cattiva azione dalla tua culla, che non ho mai avuto un momento di dolore per te, se non fossero i poveri pasti che hai preso con così buon umore e contentezza, che dimenticavo quanto poco ci fosse, quando pensavo a quanto fossi gentile e premuroso, anche se eri solo un bambino! Ci credo del figlio che è stato un conforto per me dall’ora della sua nascita fino a questo momento, e con cui non ho mai passato una notte in collera! Ci credo di te, Kit!»

«Allora, grazie a Dio!» disse Kit, aggrappandosi alle sbarre con un’energia che le fece tremare, «e io posso sopportarlo, madre! Qualunque cosa accada, avrò sempre una goccia di felicità nel cuore quando penserò a quello che hai detto.»

A questo punto la povera donna ricominciò a piangere, e anche la madre di Barbara. E il piccolo Giacobbe, le cui idee confuse si erano intanto risolte in un’idea abbastanza chiara che Kit non poteva uscire a fare una passeggiata anche se lo voleva, e che dietro quelle sbarre non c’erano uccelli, leoni, tigri o altre curiosità naturali, ma solo un fratello in gabbia, aggiunse le sue lacrime a quelle degli altri il più silenziosamente possibile.

La madre di Kit, asciugandosi gli occhi (e bagnandoseli, povera anima, più di quanto li asciugasse), prese ora da terra un piccolo cesto e si rivolse con umiltà al secondino, dicendo se per favore poteva ascoltarla per un minuto? Il secondino, che era nel bel mezzo di una battuta, le fece cenno con la mano di tacere ancora un minuto, per amor del cielo. E non ritrasse la mano dalla sua posizione, ma la tenne nella stessa posizione ammonitrice finché non ebbe finito il paragrafo, quando si fermò per qualche secondo, con un sorriso sul volto, come a dire “questo editore è un tipo buffo, un cane esilarante”, e poi le chiese cosa volesse.

«Gli ho portato qualcosa da mangiare», disse la buona donna. «Se non le dispiace, signore, potrebbe averlo?»

«Sì,—può averlo. Non c’è regola contro. Dammelo quando te ne vai, e mi prenderò cura che lo abbia.»

«No, ma se le piace signore — non arrabbiarsi con me signore — sono sua madre, e anche lei ha avuto una madre una volta — se potessi solo vederlo mangiare un po’, me ne andrei molto più soddisfatta che sta bene.»

E ancora le lacrime della madre di Kit, della madre di Barbara e del piccolo Giacobbe sgorgarono. Quanto al bambino, stava strillando e ridendo a squarciagola, apparentemente convinto che l’intera scena fosse stata inventata e messa in scena per il suo particolare divertimento.

Il secondino sembrava pensare che la richiesta fosse strana e piuttosto insolita, ma tuttavia posò il suo giornale, si avvicinò dove stava la madre di Kit, le prese il cestino dalle mani, e dopo averne ispezionato il contenuto, lo consegnò a Kit, e tornò al suo posto. Si può facilmente immaginare che il prigioniero non avesse grande appetito, ma si sedette a terra e mangiò quanto più poteva, mentre, ad ogni boccone che metteva in bocca, sua madre singhiozzava e piangeva di nuovo, sebbene con un dolore attenuato che rivelava la soddisfazione che la vista le procurava.

Mentre Kit era così impegnato, fece alcune domande ansiose riguardo ai suoi dati di lavoro, e se avessero espresso qualche opinione su di lui; ma tutto ciò che poté apprendere fu che il signor Abel aveva lui stesso comunicato la notizia a sua madre, con grande gentilezza e delicatezza, tardi la sera precedente, ma non aveva espresso alcuna opinione sulla sua innocenza o colpevolezza. Kit stava per raccogliere il coraggio di chiedere alla madre di Barbara di Barbara, quando il secondino che lo aveva accompagnato, riapparve, un secondo secondino apparve dietro i suoi visitatori, e il terzo secondino con il giornale gridò ‘È ora!’—aggiungendo nello stesso respiro ‘Ora per il prossimo gruppo!’ e poi immergendosi di nuovo profondamente nel suo giornale. Kit fu portato via in un istante, con una benedizione da sua madre, e un urlo di piccolo Jacob, che gli risuonava nelle orecchie. Mentre stava attraversando il cortile successivo con il cesto in mano, sotto la guida del suo precedente accompagnatore, un altro ufficiale li chiamò per fermarsi, e si avvicinò con un boccale di birra in mano.

«Questo è Christopher Nubbles, non è così, che è entrato ieri sera per reato?» disse l’uomo.

Il suo compagno rispose che quello era il pollo in questione.

«Ecco la tua birra», disse l’altro uomo a Christopher. «Che cosa stai guardando? Non c’è nessuna schiuma».

“Mi scusi,” disse Kit. “Chi me l’ha mandato?”

«Perché, il suo amico», rispose l’uomo. «Dice che deve averlo ogni giorno. E così sarà, se lo paga lui.»

«Mio amico!» ripeté Kit.

‘Siete tutti fuori strada, a quanto pare’, rispose l’altro uomo. ‘Ecco la sua lettera. Prendetela!’

Kit lo prese e, quando fu di nuovo rinchiuso, lesse quanto segue.

«Bevi da questa coppa, scoprirai che c’è un incantesimo in ogni sua goccia contro le malattie della mortalità. Parlate del cordiale che brillava per Elena! LA sua coppa era una finzione, ma questa è realtà (Barclay e Co.). — Se mai la mandano in uno stato piatto, lamentatevi con il Governatore. Vostro, R. S.»

«R. S.!» disse Kit, dopo averci pensato un po’. «Deve essere il signor Richard Swiveller. Beh, è molto gentile da parte sua, e gliene sono davvero grato.»

CHAPTER 62

A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on Quilp’s wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog, as though it suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson Brass, as he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the excellent proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and probably waiting with his accustomed patience and sweetness of temper the fulfilment of the appointment which now brought Mr Brass within his fair domain.

‘A treacherous place to pick one’s steps in, of a dark night,’ muttered Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some stray lumber, and limped in pain. ‘I believe that boy strews the ground differently every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one; unless his master does it with his own hands, which is more than likely. I hate to come to this place without Sally. She’s more protection than a dozen men.’

As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr Brass came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and over his shoulder.

‘What’s he about, I wonder?’ murmured the lawyer, standing on tiptoe, and endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing inside, which at that distance was impossible—‘drinking, I suppose,—making himself more fiery and furious, and heating his malice and mischievousness till they boil. I’m always afraid to come here by myself, when his account’s a pretty large one. I don’t believe he’d mind throttling me, and dropping me softly into the river when the tide was at its strongest, any more than he’d mind killing a rat—indeed I don’t know whether he wouldn’t consider it a pleasant joke. Hark! Now he’s singing!’

Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous repetition of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long stress upon the last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar. Nor did the burden of this performance bear any reference to love, or war, or wine, or loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of song, but to a subject not often set to music or generally known in ballads; the words being these:—‘The worthy magistrate, after remarking that the prisoner would find some difficulty in persuading a jury to believe his tale, committed him to take his trial at the approaching sessions; and directed the customary recognisances to be entered into for the pros-e-cu-tion.’

Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and began again.

‘He’s dreadfully imprudent,’ muttered Brass, after he had listened to two or three repetitions of the chant. ‘Horribly imprudent. I wish he was dumb. I wish he was deaf. I wish he was blind. Hang him,’ cried Brass, as the chant began again. ‘I wish he was dead!’

Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client, Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and waiting until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the wooden house, and knocked at the door.

‘Come in!’ cried the dwarf.

‘How do you do to-night sir?’ said Sampson, peeping in. ‘Ha ha ha! How do you do sir? Oh dear me, how very whimsical! Amazingly whimsical to be sure!’

‘Come in, you fool!’ returned the dwarf, ‘and don’t stand there shaking your head and showing your teeth. Come in, you false witness, you perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!’

‘He has the richest humour!’ cried Brass, shutting the door behind him; ‘the most amazing vein of comicality! But isn’t it rather injudicious, sir—?’

‘What?’ demanded Quilp. ‘What, Judas?’

‘Judas!’ cried Brass. ‘He has such extraordinary spirits! His humour is so extremely playful! Judas! Oh yes—dear me, how very good! Ha ha ha!’

All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the dwarf worshipped. A mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with a representation of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral; but, without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea-monster. Being originally much too large for the apartment which it was now employed to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the waist. Even in this state it reached from floor to ceiling; and thrusting itself forward, with that excessively wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive politeness, by which figure-heads are usually characterised, seemed to reduce everything else to mere pigmy proportions.

‘Do you know it?’ said the dwarf, watching Sampson’s eyes. ‘Do you see the likeness?’

‘Eh?’ said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a little back, as connoisseurs do. ‘Now I look at it again, I fancy I see a—yes, there certainly is something in the smile that reminds me of—and yet upon my word I—’

Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much perplexed; being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like himself, and had therefore bought it for a family portrait; or whether he was pleased to consider it as the likeness of some enemy. He was not very long in doubt; for, while he was surveying it with that knowing look which people assume when they are contemplating for the first time portraits which they ought to recognise but don’t, the dwarf threw down the newspaper from which he had been chanting the words already quoted, and seizing a rusty iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the figure such a stroke on the nose that it rocked again.

CAPITOLO 62

Una luce fioca, che tremolava dalla finestra della contabilità sul molo di Quilp, e che appariva infiammata e rossa attraverso la nebbia notturna, come se ne soffrisse come un occhio, preannunciò al signor Sampson Brass, mentre si avvicinava alla capanna di legno con passo cauto, che il proprietario eccellente, suo stimato cliente, era all’interno, e probabilmente attendeva con la sua abituale pazienza e dolcezza d’animo l’adempimento dell’appuntamento che ora portava il signor Brass nel suo bel dominio.

«Un luogo traditore in cui scegliere i propri passi, in una notte buia», borbottò Sampson, mentre inciampava per la ventesima volta in qualche pezzo di legname smarrito e zoppicava in dolore. «Credo che quel ragazzo spargesse la paglia in modo diverso ogni giorno, apposta per ferire e mutilare qualcuno; a meno che non sia il suo padrone a farlo con le proprie mani, il che è più che probabile. Odio venire in questo posto senza Sally. Lei è più protezione di una dozzina di uomini.»

Mentre rendeva questo complimento al merito della seducente assente, il signor Brass si fermò, guardando con aria dubbiosa verso la luce e dietro le spalle.

«Che cosa sta facendo, mi domando?» mormorò l’avvocato, in punta di piedi, cercando di dare un’occhiata a ciò che stava accadendo all’interno, cosa che a quella distanza era impossibile — «sta bevendo, immagino, — rendendosi più feroce e furioso, e riscaldando la sua malizia e malevolenza fino a farle bollire. Ho sempre paura di venire qui da solo, quando il suo conto è piuttosto alto. Non credo che gli importerebbe strozzarmi e gettarmi delicatamente nel fiume quando la marea è al suo apice, più di quanto gli importerebbe uccidere un ratto — anzi, non so se non lo considererebbe una piacevole battuta. Ascolta! Ora sta cantando!»

Il signor Quilp si stava certamente intrattenendo con un esercizio vocale, ma era piuttosto una specie di canto che una canzone; essendo una ripetizione monotona di una frase in modo molto rapido, con una lunga enfasi sull’ultima parola, che egli gonfiava in un ruggito lugubre. Né il tema di questa esibizione aveva alcun riferimento all’amore, o alla guerra, o al vino, o alla lealtà, o ad altri argomenti standard delle canzoni, ma a un soggetto non spesso messo in musica o generalmente noto nelle ballate; le parole erano queste:—‘Il degno magistrato, dopo aver osservato che il prigioniero avrebbe trovato qualche difficoltà a persuadere una giuria a credere la sua storia, lo ha rinviato a giudizio alle prossime udienze; e ha ordinato che venissero stipulate le consuete cauzioni per la pro-s-e-cu-zio-ne.’

Ogni volta che arrivava a questa parola conclusiva, e aveva esaurito tutte le possibili enfasi su di essa, Quilp scoppiava in una risata stridula e ricominciava.

«È terribilmente imprudente», borbottò Brass, dopo aver ascoltato due o tre ripetizioni del canto. «Orribilmente imprudente. Vorrei che fosse muto. Vorrei che fosse sordo. Vorrei che fosse cieco. Impiccatelo», gridò Brass, mentre il canto ricominciava. «Vorrei che fosse morto!»

Esprimendo queste amichevoli aspirazioni a favore del suo cliente, il signor Sampson compose il suo volto nel solito stato di liscia impassibilità, e aspettando che il grido tornasse e si spegnesse, si avvicinò alla casa di legno e bussò alla porta.

«Entra!» gridò il nanerottolo.

«Come sta questa sera, signore?» disse Sampson, sbirciando dentro. «Ah ah ah! Come sta, signore? Oh, che peccato, che capriccio! Davvero incredibilmente capriccioso!»

«Entra, tu stupido!», rispose il nanerottolo, «e non stare lì a scuotere la testa e a mostrare i denti. Entra, tu falso testimone, tu spergiuro, tu istigatore di false testimonianze, entra!»

«Ha il più ricco umorismo!» esclamò Brass, chiudendo la porta dietro di sé; «la vena più sorprendente di comicità! Ma non è piuttosto imprudente, signore—?»

‘Cosa?’ chiese Quilp. ‘Cosa, Giuda?’

«Giuda!» esclamò Brass. «Ha uno spirito così straordinario! Il suo umore è così estremamente giocoso! Giuda! Oh sì, caro me, che bravura! Ah ah ah!»

Tutto questo tempo, Sampson si strofinava le mani e fissava, con un’espressione di sorpresa e sgomento grottesca, una grande figura di prua con occhi sporgenti e naso schiacciato di una vecchia nave, che era appoggiata al muro in un angolo vicino alla stufa, e sembrava un goblin o un idolo mostruoso che il nanerottolo adorava. Una massa di legno sulla sua testa, intagliata a somiglianza di un cappello a tricorno, insieme a una rappresentazione di una stella sul petto sinistro e di spalline sulle spalle, indicavano che era intesa come l’effigie di un famoso ammiraglio; ma, senza questi indizi, qualsiasi osservatore avrebbe potuto supporre che fosse il ritratto autentico di un illustre uomo-pesce, o di un grande mostro marino. Essendo originariamente molto troppo grande per la stanza che ora era impiegata a decorare, era stata segata di netto alla vita. Anche in questo stato raggiungeva dal pavimento al soffitto; e spingendosi in avanti, con quell’aspetto estremamente vigile e quell’aria di cortesia un po’ invadente, che solitamente caratterizzano le figure di prua, sembrava ridurre tutto il resto a proporzioni di semplici pigmei.

«Lo conoscete?» disse il nanerottolo, osservando gli occhi di Sampson. «Vedete la somiglianza?»

«Eh?», disse Brass, inclinando la testa di lato e tirandola un po’ indietro, come fanno i conoscitori. «Ora che ci ripenso, mi sembra di vedere un, sì, c’è sicuramente qualcosa nel sorriso che mi ricorda, eppure, su parola d’onore, io, »

Ora, il fatto era che Sampson, non avendo mai visto nulla che somigliasse anche solo minimamente a questo sostanziale fantasma, era molto perplesso; non era sicuro se il signor Quilp lo considerasse simile a se stesso, e lo avesse quindi acquistato come ritratto di famiglia, o se preferisse considerarlo come l’effigie di qualche nemico. Non rimase a lungo in dubbio; infatti, mentre lo esaminava con quell’aria da intenditore che le persone assumono quando contemplano per la prima volta ritratti che dovrebbero riconoscere ma non riescono, il nanerottolo gettò il giornale da cui aveva appena recitato le parole già citate, e afferrando una sbarra di ferro arrugginita, che usava al posto del poker, assegnò alla figura un colpo così forte sul naso che la fece oscillare di nuovo.

‘Is it like Kit—is it his picture, his image, his very self?’ cried the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible countenance, and covering it with deep dimples. ‘Is it the exact model and counterpart of the dog—is it—is it—is it?’ And with every repetition of the question, he battered the great image, until the perspiration streamed down his face with the violence of the exercise.

Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from a secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable spectacle by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is better than a play to people who don’t live near it, there was something in the earnestness of Mr Quilp’s manner which made his legal adviser feel that the counting-house was a little too small, and a deal too lonely, for the complete enjoyment of these humours. Therefore, he stood as far off as he could, while the dwarf was thus engaged; whimpering out but feeble applause; and when Quilp left off and sat down again from pure exhaustion, approached with more obsequiousness than ever.

‘Excellent indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘He he! Oh, very good Sir. You know,’ said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised animal, ‘he’s quite a remarkable man—quite!’

‘Sit down,’ said the dwarf. ‘I bought the dog yesterday. I’ve been screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and cutting my name on him. I mean to burn him at last.’

‘Ha ha!’ cried Brass. ‘Extremely entertaining, indeed!’

‘Come here,’ said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near. ‘What’s injudicious, hey?’

‘Nothing Sir—nothing. Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I thought that song—admirably humorous in itself you know—was perhaps rather—’

‘Yes,’ said Quilp, ‘rather what?’

‘Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the confines of injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,’ returned Brass, looking timidly at the dwarf’s cunning eyes, which were turned towards the fire and reflected its red light.

‘Why?’ inquired Quilp, without looking up.

‘Why, you know, sir,’ returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar: ‘—the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings together, of friends, for objects in themselves extremely laudable, but which the law terms conspiracies, are—you take me, sir?—best kept snug and among friends, you know.’

‘Eh!’ said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!’ cried Brass, nodding his head. ‘Mum, sir, even here—my meaning, sir, exactly.’

‘YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,—what’s your meaning?’ retorted Quilp. ‘Why do you talk to me of combining together? Do I combine? Do I know anything about your combinings?’

‘No no, sir—certainly not; not by any means,’ returned Brass.

‘If you so wink and nod at me,’ said the dwarf, looking about him as if for his poker, ‘I’ll spoil the expression of your monkey’s face, I will.’

‘Don’t put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,’ rejoined Brass, checking himself with great alacrity. ‘You’re quite right, sir, quite right. I shouldn’t have mentioned the subject, sir. It’s much better not to. You’re quite right, sir. Let us change it, if you please. You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not returned, sir.’

‘No?’ said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching it to prevent its boiling over. ‘Why not?’

‘Why, sir,’ returned Brass, ‘he—dear me, Mr Quilp, sir—’

‘What’s the matter?’ said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of carrying the saucepan to his mouth.

‘You have forgotten the water, sir,’ said Brass. ‘And—excuse me, sir—but it’s burning hot.’

Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely. Having swallowed this gentle stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr Brass proceed.

‘But first,’ said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, ‘have a drop yourself—a nice drop—a good, warm, fiery drop.’

‘Why, sir,’ replied Brass, ‘if there was such a thing as a mouthful of water that could be got without trouble—’

‘There’s no such thing to be had here,’ cried the dwarf. ‘Water for lawyers! Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering pitch and tar—that’s the thing for them—eh, Brass, eh?’

‘Ha ha ha!’ laughed Mr Brass. ‘Oh very biting! and yet it’s like being tickled—there’s a pleasure in it too, sir!’

‘Drink that,’ said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more. ‘Toss it off, don’t leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy!’

The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form came rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the colour of his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a violent fit of coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard to declare, with the constancy of a martyr, that it was ‘beautiful indeed!’ While he was yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf renewed their conversation.

‘The lodger,’ said Quilp, ‘—what about him?’

‘He is still, sir,’ returned Brass, with intervals of coughing, ‘stopping with the Garland family. He has only been home once, Sir, since the day of the examination of that culprit. He informed Mr Richard, sir, that he couldn’t bear the house after what had taken place; that he was wretched in it; and that he looked upon himself as being in a certain kind of way the cause of the occurrence.—A very excellent lodger Sir. I hope we may not lose him.’

«È come Kit, è il suo ritratto, la sua immagine, il suo vero sé?» gridò il nanerottolo, scagliando una raffica di colpi sul volto insensibile e coprendolo di profondi solchi. «È l’esatto modello e la controparte del cane, è, è, è?» E ad ogni ripetizione della domanda, picchiava l’immagine gigantesca, finché il sudore gli scorreva a fiotti sul viso per la violenza dell’esercizio.

Anche se la scena poteva essere molto comica da osservare da una galleria sicura, come una corrida è considerata uno spettacolo confortevole da chi non è nell’arena, e una casa in fiamme è meglio di uno spettacolo teatrale per chi non vive nelle vicinanze, c’era qualcosa nella serietà del comportamento del signor Quilp che fece sentire al suo consulente legale che la bottega era un po’ troppo piccola e decisamente troppo isolata per il completo godimento di questi umori. Pertanto, rimase il più lontano possibile mentre il nanerottolo era così impegnato; esprimendo un applauso debole e lamentoso; e quando Quilp smise e si sedette di nuovo per pura stanchezza, si avvicinò con più ossequiosità che mai.

«Eccellente davvero!» esclamò Brass. «Ah ah! Oh, molto bene, signore. Sapete», disse Sampson, guardandosi intorno come se volesse appellarsi all’animale pesto, «è un uomo davvero notevole, davvero!»

«Sedetevi», disse il nanerottolo. «Ho comprato il cane ieri. Gli ho infilato dei giriavvoltoio e gli ho piantato dei forchette negli occhi, e mi sono tagliato il nome sopra. Alla fine intendo bruciarlo.»

“Ah ah!” esclamò Brass. “Davvero molto divertente!”

“Vieni qui”, disse Quilp, facendogli cenno di avvicinarsi. “Cosa c’è di sbagliato, eh?”

«Nulla, signore, nulla. A malapena degno di nota, signore; ma ho pensato che quella canzone - ammirevolmente umoristica in sé, sapete - fosse forse un po’, »

‘Sì,’ disse Quilp, ‘piuttosto cosa?’

«Forse solo al limite, o come si potrebbe dire lontanamente vicino, ai confini della sconsideratezza, Sir», rispose Brass, guardando timidamente gli occhi astuti del nanerottolo, che erano rivolti verso il fuoco e riflettevano la sua luce rossa.

«Perché?» chiese Quilp, senza alzare lo sguardo.

«Perché, sa, signore», rispose Brass, permettendosi di essere più confidenziale: «—il fatto è, signore, che ogni allusione a queste piccole combinazioni tra amici, per scopi in sé estremamente lodevoli, ma che la legge chiama cospirazioni, è—mi capisce, signore?—meglio tenerle nascoste e tra amici, sa.»

“Eh!” disse Quilp, alzando lo sguardo con un’espressione completamente vuota. “Cosa intendi?”

«Cautele, molte cautele, giusto e opportuno!» esclamò Brass, annuendo. «Silenzio, signore, anche qui, intendo dire, esattamente.»

«Il tuo esatto significato, tu spaventapasseri sfacciato, — qual è il tuo significato?» ribatté Quilp. «Perché mi parli di unirci? Mi unisco io? So qualcosa delle tue unioni?»

«No, no, signore, certo che no, per niente», rispose Brass.

«Se continui a strizzarmi l’occhio e a farmi cenni con la testa», disse il nanerottolo, guardandosi intorno come se stesse cercando il suo attizzatoio, «ti rovino l’espressione della tua faccia da scimmia, sì.»

«Non si disturbi, la prego, signore», rispose Brass, frenandosi con grande prontezza. «Ha perfettamente ragione, signore, perfettamente. Non avrei dovuto accennare all’argomento, signore. È molto meglio di no. Ha perfettamente ragione, signore. Cambiamo discorso, se non le dispiace. Mi diceva Sally che lei chiedeva del nostro inquilino. Non è ancora tornato, signore.»

«No?» disse Quilp, riscaldando un po’ di rum in una piccola casseruola e controllandolo per evitare che traboccasse. «Perché no?»

“Perché, signore,” rispose Brass, “lui, caro me, signor Quilp, signore, ”

«Che succede?», disse il nanerottolo, fermando la mano nel gesto di portare la pentola alla bocca.

«Avete dimenticato l’acqua, signore», disse Brass. «E—scusatemi, signore—ma è bollente.»

Non degnandosi di dare altra risposta che pratica a questo rimprovero, il signor Quilp portò alla bocca la pentolina calda e bevve deliberatamente tutto l’alcool che conteneva, che poteva essere in quantità di circa mezzo litro, e che era stato, solo un attimo prima, quando lo tolse dal fuoco, in ebollizione e sibilante furiosamente. Dopo aver ingoiato questo dolce stimolante e aver mostrato il pugno all’ammiraglio, chiese al signor Brass di procedere.

«Ma prima», disse Quilp con il suo solito ghigno, «bevete un sorso voi stesso, un bel sorso, un buon sorso caldo e forte».

«Perché, signore», rispose Brass, «se ci fosse una cosa come un boccone di acqua che si potesse ottenere senza fatica—»

«Non c’è niente del genere qui», gridò il nanerottolo. «Acqua per gli avvocati! Piombo fuso e zolfo, intendete, pece e catrame bollenti e ustionanti, ecco cosa serve a loro, eh, Brass, eh?»

«Ah ah ah!» rise il signor Brass. «Oh, molto pungente! Eppure è come essere solleticati: c’è anche un piacere in questo, signore!»

‘Bevi questo’, disse il nanerottolo, che nel frattempo aveva riscaldato altro. ‘Bevi tutto, non lasciare neanche una goccia, brucia la gola e sii felice!’

Il povero Sampson prese qualche breve sorso del liquore, che si distillò immediatamente in brucianti lacrime, e in quella forma rotolarono lungo le sue guance fino alla pentolina, trasformando il colore del suo viso e delle palpebre in un rosso intenso, e provocando un violento attacco di tosse, nel bel mezzo del quale si sentiva ancora dichiarare, con la costanza di un martire, che era ‘davvero bellissimo!’ Mentre era ancora in indicibili agonie, il nanerottolo riprese la loro conversazione.

“L’ospite,” disse Quilp, “e lui cosa ne pensa?”

«È ancora qui, signore», rispose Brass, con pause per tossire, «e alloggia dalla famiglia Garland. È tornato a casa una sola volta, signore, da quando è avvenuto l’interrogatorio di quel colpevole. Ha informato il signor Richard, signore, che non poteva sopportare la casa dopo quanto era accaduto; che era infelice in essa; e che si considerava in un certo senso la causa dell’accaduto. — Un inquilino davvero eccellente, signore. Spero che non lo perderemo.»

‘Yah!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Never thinking of anybody but yourself—why don’t you retrench then—scrape up, hoard, economise, eh?’

‘Why, sir,’ replied Brass, ‘upon my word I think Sarah’s as good an economiser as any going. I do indeed, Mr Quilp.’

‘Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink, man!’ cried the dwarf. ‘You took a clerk to oblige me.’

‘Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,’ replied Sampson. ‘Yes, Sir, I did.’

‘Then now you may discharge him,’ said Quilp. ‘There’s a means of retrenchment for you at once.’

‘Discharge Mr Richard, sir?’ cried Brass.

‘Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the question? Yes.’

‘Upon my word, Sir,’ said Brass, ‘I wasn’t prepared for this—’

‘How could you be?’ sneered the dwarf, ‘when I wasn’t? How often am I to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have my eye on him and know where he was—and that I had a plot, a scheme, a little quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very cream and essence was, that this old man and grandchild (who have sunk underground I think) should be, while he and his precious friend believed them rich, in reality as poor as frozen rats?’

‘I quite understood that, sir,’ rejoined Brass. ‘Thoroughly.’

‘Well, Sir,’ retorted Quilp, ‘and do you understand now, that they’re not poor—that they can’t be, if they have such men as your lodger searching for them, and scouring the country far and wide?’

‘Of course I do, Sir,’ said Sampson.

‘Of course you do,’ retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his words. ‘Of course do you understand then, that it’s no matter what comes of this fellow? of course do you understand that for any other purpose he’s no man for me, nor for you?’

‘I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,’ returned Brass, ‘that he was of no use at all in the business. You can’t put any confidence in him, sir. If you’ll believe me I’ve found that fellow, in the commonest little matters of the office that have been trusted to him, blurting out the truth, though expressly cautioned. The aggravation of that chap sir, has exceeded anything you can imagine, it has indeed. Nothing but the respect and obligation I owe to you, sir—’

As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue, unless he received a timely interruption, Mr Quilp politely tapped him on the crown of his head with the little saucepan, and requested that he would be so obliging as to hold his peace.

‘Practical, sir, practical,’ said Brass, rubbing the place and smiling; ‘but still extremely pleasant—immensely so!’

‘Hearken to me, will you?’ returned Quilp, ‘or I’ll be a little more pleasant, presently. There’s no chance of his comrade and friend returning. The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn, for some knavery, and has found his way abroad. Let him rot there.’

‘Certainly, sir. Quite proper.—Forcible!’ cried Brass, glancing at the admiral again, as if he made a third in company. ‘Extremely forcible!’

‘I hate him,’ said Quilp between his teeth, ‘and have always hated him, for family reasons. Besides, he was an intractable ruffian; otherwise he would have been of use. This fellow is pigeon-hearted and light-headed. I don’t want him any longer. Let him hang or drown—starve—go to the devil.’

‘By all means, sir,’ returned Brass. ‘When would you wish him, sir, to—ha, ha!—to make that little excursion?’

‘When this trial’s over,’ said Quilp. ‘As soon as that’s ended, send him about his business.’

‘It shall be done, sir,’ returned Brass; ‘by all means. It will be rather a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under control. Ah, Mr Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased Providence to bring you and Sarah together, in earlier life, what blessed results would have flowed from such a union! You never saw our dear father, sir?—A charming gentleman. Sarah was his pride and joy, sir. He would have closed his eyes in bliss, would Foxey, Mr Quilp, if he could have found her such a partner. You esteem her, sir?’

‘I love her,’ croaked the dwarf.

‘You’re very good, Sir,’ returned Brass, ‘I am sure. Is there any other order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little matter of Mr Richard?’

‘None,’ replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan. ‘Let us drink the lovely Sarah.’

‘If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn’t quite boiling,’ suggested Brass humbly, ‘perhaps it would be better. I think it will be more agreeable to Sarah’s feelings, when she comes to hear from me of the honour you have done her, if she learns it was in liquor rather cooler than the last, Sir.’

But to these remonstrances, Mr Quilp turned a deaf ear. Sampson Brass, who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled to take further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that, instead of at all contributing to his recovery, they had the novel effect of making the counting-house spin round and round with extreme velocity, and causing the floor and ceiling to heave in a very distressing manner. After a brief stupor, he awoke to a consciousness of being partly under the table and partly under the grate. This position not being the most comfortable one he could have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger to his feet, and, holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host.

Mr Brass’s first impression was, that his host was gone and had left him there alone—perhaps locked him in for the night. A strong smell of tobacco, however, suggested a new train of ideas, he looked upward, and saw that the dwarf was smoking in his hammock.

‘Good bye, Sir,’ cried Brass faintly. ‘Good bye, Sir.’

‘Won’t you stop all night?’ said the dwarf, peeping out. ‘Do stop all night!’

‘I couldn’t indeed, Sir,’ replied Brass, who was almost dead from nausea and the closeness of the room. ‘If you’d have the goodness to show me a light, so that I may see my way across the yard, sir—’

Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head first, or his arms first, but bodily—altogether.

‘To be sure,’ he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only light in the place. ‘Be careful how you go, my dear friend. Be sure to pick your way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are upwards. There’s a dog in the lane. He bit a man last night, and a woman the night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child—but that was in play. Don’t go too near him.’

‘Which side of the road is he, sir?’ asked Brass, in great dismay.

‘He lives on the right hand,’ said Quilp, ‘but sometimes he hides on the left, ready for a spring. He’s uncertain in that respect. Mind you take care of yourself. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t. There’s the light out—never mind—you know the way—straight on!’ Quilp had slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast, and now stood chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture of delight, as he heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now and then falling heavily down. At length, however, he got quit of the place, and was out of hearing.

The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his hammock.

«Eh!» gridò il nanerottolo. «Non pensi mai che a te stesso — allora perché non ti stringi la cinghia — accumuli, risparmi, fai economie, eh?»

«Perbacco, signore», rispose Brass, «a dire il vero penso che Sarah sia una brava economizzatrice, una delle migliori. Lo penso davvero, signor Quilp.»

‘Bagna la tua creta, bagna l’altro occhio, bevi, uomo!’ gridò il nanerottolo. ‘Hai preso un impiegato per farmi un favore.’

«Sono sicuro che sarei lieto, signore, in qualsiasi momento», rispose Sampson. «Sì, signore, l’ho fatto.»

«Allora ora potete licenziarlo», disse Quilp. «Ecco un modo di ridurre le spese che avete subito.»

«Congedare il signor Richard, signore?» esclamò Brass.

“Avete più di un impiegato, pappagallo, che fate questa domanda? Sì.”

‘Parola mia, signore,’ disse Brass, ‘non mi aspettavo questo—’

«Come potresti esserlo?» schernì il nanerottolo, «quando io non lo ero? Quante volte devo ripeterti che te lo ho portato perché potessi sempre tenere d’occhio lui e sapere dove fosse—e che avevo un piano, un progetto, un piccolo progetto di godimento in corso, di cui la vera crema e l’essenza era, che questo vecchio e il nipote (che credo siano scomparsi) dovessero essere, mentre lui e il suo prezioso amico li credevano ricchi, in realtà poveri come topi congelati?»

“Capisco perfettamente, signore”, rispose Brass. “Completamente.”

«Bene, signore», ribatté Quilp, «e ora capite che non sono poveri, che non possono esserlo, se hanno uomini come il vostro inquilino che li cercano e perlustrano il paese da cima a fondo?»

«Certo che lo faccio, signore», disse Sampson.

«Certo che capisci», ribatté il nanerottolo, ribadendo le sue parole con cattiveria. «Certo che capisci, allora, che non importa cosa succeda a questo tizio? Certo che capisci che, per qualsiasi altro scopo, lui non è un uomo per me, né per te?»

«Ho spesso detto a Sarah, signore», rispose Brass, «che lui non serviva a nulla in questo affare. Non si può avere fiducia in lui, signore. Se mi crede, ho scoperto che quel tizio, nelle più comuni faccende dell’ufficio che gli sono state affidate, sputa fuori la verità, anche se espressamente ammonito. L’aggravarsi di quel ragazzo, signore, ha superato qualsiasi cosa lei possa immaginare, è davvero così. Se non fosse per il rispetto e l’obbligo che ho verso di lei, signore—»

Poiché era evidente che Sampson era intenzionato a tenere un discorso di circostanza, a meno che non ricevesse un’interruzione tempestiva, il signor Quilp gli diede educatamente un colpetto sulla sommità del capo con la piccola pentolina e gli chiese di voler avere la cortesia di tacere.

«Pratico, signore, pratico», disse Brass, strofinandosi il punto e sorridendo; «ma comunque estremamente piacevole, immensamente!»

«Ascoltami, vuoi?» rispose Quilp, «o sarò un po’ più piacevole, tra poco. Non c’è possibilità che il suo compagno e amico torni. Il furfante è stato costretto a fuggire, come ho saputo, per qualche loschetto, ed è riuscito a mettersi in salvo all’estero. Che marcisca là.»

«Certamente, signore. Del tutto appropriato. — Efficace!» esclamò Brass, lanciando un’altra occhiata all’ammiraglio, come se questi fosse il terzo della compagnia. «Efficacissimo!»

«Lo odio», disse Quilp tra i denti, «e l’ho sempre odiato, per ragioni di famiglia. Inoltre, era un ruffiano intrattabile; altrimenti sarebbe stato utile. Questo tizio è codardo e testa vuota. Non lo voglio più. Che impicchino o anneghi, che muoia di fame, che vada al diavolo.»

«Certamente, signore», rispose Brass. «Quando vorrebbe che lui, signore, faccia, ah, ah!, quella piccola escursione?»

«Quando questo processo sarà finito», disse Quilp, «appena sarà finito, mandatelo via.»

«Sarà fatto, signore», rispose Brass; «senza dubbio. Sarà un colpo per Sarah, signore, ma lei ha tutti i suoi sentimenti sotto controllo. Ah, signor Quilp, spesso penso, signore, se solo avesse fatto piacere alla Provvidenza riunirvi con Sarah, in una vita precedente, quali beati risultati sarebbero derivati da una tale unione! Non avete mai visto nostro caro padre, signore? — Un gentiluomo incantevole. Sarah era il suo orgoglio e la sua gioia, signore. Avrebbe chiuso gli occhi in beatitudine, Foxey, signor Quilp, se avesse potuto trovare per lei un tale compagno. La stimatete, signore?»

«La amo», gracchiò il nanerottolo.

«Siete molto gentile, signore», rispose Brass, «sono sicuro. C’è qualche altro ordine, signore, che posso prendere nota, oltre a questa piccola questione del signor Richard?»

«Nessuno», rispose il nanerottolo, afferrando la pentola. «Beviamo alla bella Sarah.»

«Se potessimo farlo in qualcosa, signore, che non fosse proprio bollente», suggerì Brass umilmente, «forse sarebbe meglio. Penso che sarà più gradito ai sentimenti di Sarah, quando verrà a sapere da me dell’onore che le avete reso, se apprenderà che è stato in una bevanda piuttosto più fresca dell’ultima, signore.»

Ma a queste proteste, il signor Quilp voltò le spalle. Sampson Brass, che a quell’ora era tutt’altro che sobrio, costretto a prendere ulteriori sorsate della stessa bevanda forte, scoprì che, anziché contribuire in alcun modo al suo recupero, avevano l’effetto insolito di far girare la bottega a una velocità estrema, facendo sì che il pavimento e il soffitto si alzassero in modo molto sconcertante. Dopo un breve stupore, si risvegliò consapevole di trovarsi in parte sotto il tavolo e in parte sotto la grata. Questa posizione, non essendo la più comoda che avrebbe potuto scegliere per sé, riuscì a rialzarsi in piedi e, aggrappandosi all’ammiraglio, guardò in giro alla ricerca del suo ospite.

La prima impressione del signor Brass fu che il suo ospite se ne fosse andato e lo avesse lasciato lì solo—forse rinchiuso per la notte. Tuttavia, un forte odore di tabacco gli suggerì una nuova serie di idee, alzò lo sguardo e vide che il nanerottolo fumava nella sua amaca.

‘Addio, signore’, gridò debolmente Brass. ‘Addio, signore.’

«Non volete fermarvi per tutta la notte?» disse il nano, sbirciando fuori. «Fermatevi per tutta la notte!»

«Non potrei davvero, signore», rispose Brass, che era quasi morto per la nausea e l’afa della stanza. «Se avesse la bontà di mostrarmi una luce, così che io possa vedere la strada attraverso il cortile, signore, »

Quilp fu fuori in un istante; non con le gambe per prime, o la testa per prima, o le braccia per prime, ma tutto intero, tutto insieme.

«Certo», disse, prendendo una lanterna, che era ormai l’unica luce del posto. «Fai attenzione a dove vai, mio caro amico. Assicurati di fare attenzione tra il legname, perché tutti i chiodi arrugginiti sono rivolti verso l’alto. C’è un cane nel vicolo. Ha morso un uomo ieri notte, e una donna la notte prima, e martedì scorso ha ucciso un bambino—ma era solo per gioco. Non avvicinarti troppo a lui.»

«Di quale lato della strada si trova, signore?» chiese Brass, in grande disperazione.

«Vive a destra», disse Quilp, «ma a volte si nasconde a sinistra, pronto a dare un balzo. In questo è imprevedibile. Fai attenzione a te stesso. Non ti perdonerò mai se non lo fai. La luce si è spenta, non importa, conosci la strada, dritto!» Quilp aveva astutamente coperto la luce tenendola contro il petto, e ora stava ridacchiando e scuotendosi dalla testa ai piedi in un’estasi di gioia, mentre sentiva l’avvocato inciampare nel cortile, e di tanto in tanto cadere pesantemente. Alla fine, tuttavia, riuscì a liberarsi del posto e non si sentì più.

Il nanerottolo si rinchiuse di nuovo e saltò di nuovo nella sua amaca.

CHAPTER 63

The professional gentleman who had given Kit the consolatory piece of information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business at the Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon disposed of, turned out to be quite correct in his prognostications. In eight days’ time, the sessions commenced. In one day afterwards, the Grand Jury found a True Bill against Christopher Nubbles for felony; and in two days from that finding, the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called upon to plead Guilty or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the said Christopher did feloniously abstract and steal from the dwelling-house and office of one Sampson Brass, gentleman, one Bank Note for Five Pounds issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England; in contravention of the Statutes in that case made and provided, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity.

To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trembling voice, pleaded Not Guilty; and here, let those who are in the habit of forming hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had Christopher, if innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe, that confinement and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and that to one who has been close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing but stone walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a great hall filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling circumstance. To this, it must be added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair; and if, in addition to these considerations, there be taken into account Kit’s natural emotion on seeing the two Mr Garlands and the little Notary looking on with pale and anxious faces, it will perhaps seem matter of no very great wonder that he should have been rather out of sorts, and unable to make himself quite at home.

Although he had never seen either of the Mr Garlands, or Mr Witherden, since the time of his arrest, he had been given to understand that they had employed counsel for him. Therefore, when one of the gentlemen in wigs got up and said ‘I am for the prisoner, my Lord,’ Kit made him a bow; and when another gentleman in a wig got up and said ‘And I’m against him, my Lord,’ Kit trembled very much, and bowed to him too. And didn’t he hope in his own heart that his gentleman was a match for the other gentleman, and would make him ashamed of himself in no time!

The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury that if they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly undergo if they convicted that prisoner. And when he had told them all about the case, and that he had never known a worse case, he stopped a little while, like a man who had something terrible to tell them, and then said that he understood an attempt would be made by his learned friend (and here he looked sideways at Kit’s gentleman) to impeach the testimony of those immaculate witnesses whom he should call before them; but he did hope and trust that his learned friend would have a greater respect and veneration for the character of the prosecutor; than whom, as he well knew, there did not exist, and never had existed, a more honourable member of that most honourable profession to which he was attached. And then he said, did the jury know Bevis Marks? And if they did know Bevis Marks (as he trusted for their own character, they did) did they know the historical and elevating associations connected with that most remarkable spot? Did they believe that a man like Brass could reside in a place like Bevis Marks, and not be a virtuous and most upright character? And when he had said a great deal to them on this point, he remembered that it was an insult to their understandings to make any remarks on what they must have felt so strongly without him, and therefore called Sampson Brass into the witness-box, straightway.

Then up comes Mr Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to the judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him before, and who hopes he has been pretty well since their last meeting, folds his arms, and looks at his gentleman as much as to say ‘Here I am—full of evidence—Tap me!’ And the gentleman does tap him presently, and with great discretion too; drawing off the evidence by little and little, and making it run quite clear and bright in the eyes of all present. Then, Kit’s gentleman takes him in hand, but can make nothing of him; and after a great many very long questions and very short answers, Mr Sampson Brass goes down in glory.

To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by Mr Brass’s gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit’s. In short, Kit’s gentleman can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she has said before (only a little stronger this time, as against his client), and therefore lets her go, in some confusion. Then, Mr Brass’s gentleman calls Richard Swiveller, and Richard Swiveller appears accordingly.

Now, Mr Brass’s gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this witness is disposed to be friendly to the prisoner—which, to say the truth, he is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered to lie in what is familiarly termed badgering. Wherefore, he begins by requesting the officer to be quite sure that this witness kisses the book, then goes to work at him, tooth and nail.

‘Mr Swiveller,’ says this gentleman to Dick, when he had told his tale with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it: ‘Pray sir, where did you dine yesterday?’—‘Where did I dine yesterday?’—‘Aye, sir, where did you dine yesterday—was it near here, sir?’—‘Oh to be sure—yes—just over the way.’—‘To be sure. Yes. Just over the way,’ repeats Mr Brass’s gentleman, with a glance at the court.—‘Alone, sir?’—‘I beg your pardon,’ says Mr Swiveller, who has not caught the question—‘Alone, sir?’ repeats Mr Brass’s gentleman in a voice of thunder, ‘did you dine alone? Did you treat anybody, sir? Come!’—‘Oh yes, to be sure—yes, I did,’ says Mr Swiveller with a smile.—‘Have the goodness to banish a levity, sir, which is very ill-suited to the place in which you stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful that it’s only that place),’ says Mr Brass’s gentleman, with a nod of the head, insinuating that the dock is Mr Swiveller’s legitimate sphere of action; ‘and attend to me. You were waiting about here, yesterday, in expectation that this trial was coming on. You dined over the way. You treated somebody. Now, was that somebody brother to the prisoner at the bar?’—Mr Swiveller is proceeding to explain—‘Yes or No, sir,’ cries Mr Brass’s gentleman—‘But will you allow me—’—‘Yes or No, sir’—‘Yes it was, but—’—‘Yes it was,’ cries the gentleman, taking him up short. ‘And a very pretty witness YOU are!’

CAPITOLO 63

Il gentiluomo professionista che aveva dato a Kit il confortante pezzo di informazione relativo alla risoluzione della sua piccola questione all’Old Bailey, e alla probabilità che sarebbe stata risolta molto presto, si rivelò del tutto corretto nelle sue previsioni. In otto giorni, le sessioni ebbero inizio. Un giorno dopo, la Grande Giuria emise un vero atto d’accusa contro Christopher Nubbles per reato; e due giorni dopo tale emendamento, il sopra nominato Christopher Nubbles fu chiamato a dichiararsi colpevole o non colpevole di un’accusa per aver egli, il suddetto Christopher, furtivamente sottratto e rubato dalla casa e dall’ufficio di un Sampson Brass, gentiluomo, una banconota da cinque sterline emessa dal Governatore e dalla Compagnia della Banca d’Inghilterra; in violazione delle leggi in tal caso fatte e previste, e contro la pace del nostro Sovrano Signore il Re, la sua corona e dignità.

A questo capo d’accusa, Christopher Nubbles, con voce bassa e tremante, si dichiarò non colpevole; e qui, che coloro che sono abituati a formare giudizi affrettati dalle apparenze, e che avrebbero voluto che Christopher, se innocente, parlasse molto forte e con voce potente, osservino che la reclusione e l’ansia possono domare i cuori più forti; e che per uno che è stato rinchiuso, anche se solo per dieci o undici giorni, vedendo solo mura di pietra e pochissimi volti di pietra, l’improvvisa entrata in un grande salone pieno di vita è una circostanza piuttosto sconcertante e sorprendente. A questo, si deve aggiungere che la vita rappresentata da una parrucca è per una grande classe di persone molto più terrificante e impressionante della vita con la propria chioma; e se, oltre a queste considerazioni, si tiene conto dell’emozione naturale di Kit nel vedere i due signori Garland e il piccolo notaio che osservano con volti pallidi e ansiosi, forse non sembrerà una cosa di grande meraviglia che sia stato un po’ fuori di sé e incapace di sentirsi del tutto a casa.

Anche se non aveva mai più visto nessuno dei signori Garland, né il signor Witherden, dall’epoca del suo arresto, gli era stato fatto capire che avevano assunto un avvocato per lui. Pertanto, quando uno dei signori in parrucca si alzò e disse «Io rappresento il prigioniero, mio signore», Kit gli fece un inchino; e quando un altro signore in parrucca si alzò e disse «E io rappresento l’accusa, mio signore», Kit tremò molto, e fece un inchino anche a lui. E non sperava forse nel suo cuore che il suo signore fosse all’altezza dell’altro signore, e lo avrebbe messo a dura prova in un attimo!

Il gentiluomo che si opponeva a lui doveva parlare per primo, e dato che era in uno stato d’animo terribilmente ottimista (perché nell’ultimo processo aveva quasi ottenuto l’assoluzione di un giovane gentiluomo che aveva avuto la sfortuna di uccidere suo padre), è certo che prese la parola; dicendo alla giuria che se avessero assolto questo imputato, avrebbero dovuto aspettarsi di soffrire non meno dolori e agonie di quelli che aveva detto all’altra giuria di dover certamente subire se avessero condannato quell’imputato. E quando ebbe raccontato loro tutto il caso, e che non ne aveva mai conosciuto uno peggiore, si fermò un momento, come un uomo che aveva qualcosa di terribile da raccontare loro, e poi disse che aveva capito che il suo stimato collega (e qui guardò di traverso il gentiluomo di Kit) avrebbe tentato di contestare la testimonianza di quei testimoni immacolati che avrebbe chiamato davanti a loro; ma lui sperava e confidava che il suo stimato collega avrebbe avuto un maggiore rispetto e venerazione per il carattere dell’accusatore; di cui, come lui bene sapeva, non esisteva, e non era mai esistito, un membro più onorevole di quella professione così onorevole a cui era legato. E poi disse, la giuria conosceva Bevis Marks? E se conosceva Bevis Marks (come lui sperava, per il loro stesso carattere, che conoscesse) conosceva le associazioni storiche ed edificanti collegate a quel luogo così straordinario? Credeva che un uomo come Brass potesse risiedere in un posto come Bevis Marks, e non essere un personaggio virtuoso e molto retto? E quando ebbe detto loro molto su questo punto, si ricordò che era un insulto alla loro intelligenza fare osservazioni su ciò che dovevano aver sentito così fortemente senza di lui, e quindi chiamò Sampson Brass al banco dei testimoni, subito.

Poi arriva il signor Brass, molto vivace e fresco; e, dopo essersi inchinato al giudice, come un uomo che ha avuto il piacere di vederlo prima, e che spera che sia stato abbastanza bene da quando si sono visti l’ultima volta, si incrocia le braccia e guarda il suo gentiluomo come per dire: “Eccomi qui, pieno di prove, toccami!” E il gentiluomo lo tocca infatti, e con grande discrezione; facendo emergere le prove poco a poco, e facendole apparire chiare e luminose agli occhi di tutti i presenti. Poi, il gentiluomo di Kit lo prende in mano, ma non riesce a cavare nulla da lui; e dopo molte domande molto lunghe e risposte molto brevi, il signor Sampson Brass esce in gloria.

A lei succede Sarah, che allo stesso modo è facile da gestire per il signorino di Mr Brass, ma molto ostinata con quello di Kit. In breve, il signorino di Kit non riesce a cavare da lei altro che una ripetizione di ciò che ha già detto (solo un po’ più forte questa volta, contro il suo cliente), e quindi la lascia andare, un po’ confuso. Poi, il signorino di Mr Brass chiama Richard Swiveller, e Richard Swiveller appare di conseguenza.

Ora, il gentiluomo del signor Brass gli sussurra all’orecchio che questo testimone è disposto a essere amichevole con l’imputato, il che, per dire la verità, lo fa piuttosto felice di sentire, poiché la sua forza è considerata risiedere in ciò che è comunemente chiamato “persecuzione”. Pertanto, inizia chiedendo all’ufficiale di assicurarsi che questo testimone baci il libro, poi si mette al lavoro con lui, con tutte le sue forze.

«Signor Swiveller», dice questo signore a Dick, quando questi ebbe raccontato la sua storia con evidente riluttanza e un desiderio di farla apparire nel modo migliore: «La prego, signore, dove ha cenato ieri?»—«Dove ho cenato ieri?»—«Sì, signore, dove ha cenato ieri—era vicino qui, signore?»—«Oh, certo—sì—proprio di fronte.»—«Certo. Sì. Proprio di fronte», ripete il signore di Mr Brass, con uno sguardo al tribunale.—«Da solo, signore?»—«La prego di ripetere», dice il signor Swiveller, che non ha capito la domanda—«Da solo, signore?» ripete il signore di Mr Brass con voce di tuono, «ha cenato da solo? Ha offerto da mangiare a qualcuno, signore? Avanti!»—«Oh sì, certo—sì, l’ho fatto», dice il signor Swiveller con un sorriso.—«Faccia la cortesia di abbandonare una leggerezza, signore, che è molto inadatta al luogo in cui si trova (anche se forse ha motivo di essere grato che sia solo questo luogo)», dice il signore di Mr Brass con un cenno del capo, insinuando che il banco degli imputati è la sfera d’azione legittima del signor Swiveller; «e presti attenzione a me. Lei era in attesa qui ieri, nella speranza che questo processo stesse per iniziare. Ha cenato di fronte. Ha offerto da mangiare a qualcuno. Ora, quel qualcuno era fratello del prigioniero al banco degli imputati?»—Il signor Swiveller sta per spiegare—«Sì o no, signore», grida il signore di Mr Brass—«Ma mi permette di—»—«Sì o no, signore»—«Sì, ma—»—«Sì», grida il signore, interrompendolo bruscamente. «E che testimone PREZIOSO è lei!»

Down sits Mr Brass’s gentleman. Kit’s gentleman, not knowing how the matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject. Richard Swiveller retires abashed. Judge, jury and spectators have visions of his lounging about, with an ill-looking, large-whiskered, dissolute young fellow of six feet high. The reality is, little Jacob, with the calves of his legs exposed to the open air, and himself tied up in a shawl. Nobody knows the truth; everybody believes a falsehood; and all because of the ingenuity of Mr Brass’s gentleman.

Then come the witnesses to character, and here Mr Brass’s gentleman shines again. It turns out that Mr Garland has had no character with Kit, no recommendation of him but from his own mother, and that he was suddenly dismissed by his former master for unknown reasons. ‘Really Mr Garland,’ says Mr Brass’s gentleman, ‘for a person who has arrived at your time of life, you are, to say the least of it, singularly indiscreet, I think.’ The jury think so too, and find Kit guilty. He is taken off, humbly protesting his innocence. The spectators settle themselves in their places with renewed attention, for there are several female witnesses to be examined in the next case, and it has been rumoured that Mr Brass’s gentleman will make great fun in cross-examining them for the prisoner.

Kit’s mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs, accompanied by Barbara’s mother (who, honest soul! never does anything but cry, and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues. The newspaper-reading turnkey has told them all. He don’t think it will be transportation for life, because there’s time to prove the good character yet, and that is sure to serve him. He wonders what he did it for. ‘He never did it!’ cries Kit’s mother. ‘Well,’ says the turnkey, ‘I won’t contradict you. It’s all one, now, whether he did it or not.’

Kit’s mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it— God, and those to whom he has given such tenderness, only know in how much agony. Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under pretence of having the children lifted up to kiss him, prays Barbara’s mother in a whisper to take her home.

‘Some friend will rise up for us, mother,’ cried Kit, ‘I am sure. If not now, before long. My innocence will come out, mother, and I shall be brought back again; I feel confidence in that. You must teach little Jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they thought I had ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to understand, it would break my heart to know it, if I was thousands of miles away.—Oh! is there no good gentleman here, who will take care of her!’

The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon the earth, insensible. Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows the bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in one arm after the manner of theatrical ravishers, and, nodding to Kit, and commanding Barbara’s mother to follow, for he has a coach waiting, bears her swiftly off.

Well; Richard took her home. And what astonishing absurdities in the way of quotation from song and poem he perpetrated on the road, no man knows. He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered; and, having no money to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis Marks, bidding the driver (for it was Saturday night) wait at the door while he went in for ‘change.’

‘Mr Richard, sir,’ said Brass cheerfully, ‘Good evening!’

Monstrous as Kit’s tale had appeared, at first, Mr Richard did, that night, half suspect his affable employer of some deep villany. Perhaps it was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his careless nature this impulse; but, be that as it may, it was very strong upon him, and he said in as few words as possible, what he wanted.

‘Money?’ cried Brass, taking out his purse. ‘Ha ha! To be sure, Mr Richard, to be sure, sir. All men must live. You haven’t change for a five-pound note, have you sir?’

‘No,’ returned Dick, shortly.

‘Oh!’ said Brass, ‘here’s the very sum. That saves trouble. You’re very welcome I’m sure.—Mr Richard, sir—’

Dick, who had by this time reached the door, turned round.

‘You needn’t,’ said Brass, ‘trouble yourself to come back any more, Sir.’

‘Eh?’

‘You see, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, thrusting his hands in his pockets, and rocking himself to and fro on his stool, ‘the fact is, that a man of your abilities is lost, Sir, quite lost, in our dry and mouldy line. It’s terrible drudgery—shocking. I should say, now, that the stage, or the—or the army, Mr Richard—or something very superior in the licensed victualling way—was the kind of thing that would call out the genius of such a man as you. I hope you’ll look in to see us now and then. Sally, Sir, will be delighted I’m sure. She’s extremely sorry to lose you, Mr Richard, but a sense of her duty to society reconciles her. An amazing creature that, sir! You’ll find the money quite correct, I think. There’s a cracked window sir, but I’ve not made any deduction on that account. Whenever we part with friends, Mr Richard, let us part liberally. A delightful sentiment, sir!’

To all these rambling observations, Mr Swiveller answered not one word, but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight round ball: looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some intention of bowling him down with it. He only took it under his arm, however, and marched out of the office in profound silence. When he had closed the door, he re-opened it, stared in again for a few moments with the same portentous gravity, and nodding his head once, in a slow and ghost-like manner, vanished.

He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with great designs for the comforting of Kit’s mother and the aid of Kit himself.

But the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard Swiveller, are extremely precarious. The spiritual excitement of the last fortnight, working upon a system affected in no slight degree by the spirituous excitement of some years, proved a little too much for him. That very night, Mr Richard was seized with an alarming illness, and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a raging fever.

Il gentiluomo del signor Brass si siede. Il gentiluomo di Kit, non sapendo come stiano realmente le cose, teme di continuare a parlare dell’argomento. Richard Swiveller si ritira confuso. Giudice, giuria e spettatori si immaginano un giovane dissoluto di sei piedi di altezza, con baffi spioventi e un aspetto poco raccomandabile, che se ne sta in giro. La realtà è che si tratta del piccolo Jacob, con le gambe nude esposte all’aria aperta e avvolto in uno scialle. Nessuno conosce la verità; tutti credono a una falsità; e tutto per l’ingegnosità del gentiluomo del signor Brass.

Poi arrivano i testimoni del carattere, e qui il gentiluomo del signor Brass brilla di nuovo. Si scopre che il signor Garland non ha avuto alcun carattere con Kit, nessuna raccomandazione se non da sua madre, e che è stato improvvisamente licenziato dal suo precedente datore di lavoro per ragioni sconosciute. ‘Davvero signor Garland,’ dice il gentiluomo del signor Brass, ‘per una persona che ha raggiunto la sua età di vita, siete, per usare un eufemismo, singolarmente indiscreto, credo.’ Anche la giuria la pensa così, e trova Kit colpevole. Viene portato via, protestando umilmente la sua innocenza. Gli spettatori si sistemano nei loro posti con rinnovata attenzione, perché ci sono diverse testimoni femminili da esaminare nel prossimo caso, e si è sparsa la voce che il gentiluomo del signor Brass farà grandi cose nel contro-interrogarle per il prigioniero.

La madre di Kit, povera donna, sta aspettando al cancello al piano terra, accompagnata dalla madre di Barbara (che, povera anima! non fa altro che piangere e tenere in braccio il bambino), e ne segue un triste colloquio. Il secondino che legge il giornale gli ha detto tutto. Non pensa che sarà deportazione a vita, perché c’è ancora tempo per provare la buona condotta, e questo di sicuro gli servirà. Si chiede perché l’abbia fatto. ‘Non l’ha fatto!’ grida la madre di Kit. ‘Beh,’ dice il secondino, ‘non ti contraddico. Ora non fa più differenza se l’ha fatto o no.’

La madre di Kit può raggiungere la sua mano attraverso le sbarre, e la stringe — Dio, e coloro a cui ha concesso tanta tenerezza, sanno quanto in agonia. Kit le chiede di tenere alto il morale, e, fingendo di voler far sollevare i bambini per baciarlo, sussurra alla madre di Barbara di portarla a casa.

«Qualche amico si leverà per noi, madre», esclamò Kit, «ne sono sicuro. Se non ora, presto. La mia innocenza verrà fuori, madre, e io sarò riportato indietro; ne ho la certezza. Devi insegnare a piccolo Giacobbe e al bambino come sono andate le cose, perché se pensassero che sono mai stato disonesto, quando saranno abbastanza grandi da capire, mi spezzerebbe il cuore saperlo, anche se fossi a migliaia di miglia di distanza.—Oh! Non c’è qui nessun buon gentiluomo che si prenda cura di lei!»

La mano gli scivola via, perché la povera creatura cade a terra, priva di sensi. Richard Swiveller si avvicina di corsa, spinge via i curiosi con i gomiti, la prende (dopo qualche difficoltà) in un braccio, come fanno i rapitori nei teatri, e, facendo cenno a Kit e ordinando alla madre di Barbara di seguirlo, perché ha una carrozza in attesa, la porta via rapidamente.

Bene; Richard la portò a casa. E quali stupefacenti assurdità, citando canzoni e poesie, commise lungo la strada, nessuno lo sa. La portò a casa e rimase finché non si fu ripresa; e, non avendo soldi per pagare la carrozza, tornò in grande stile a Bevis Marks, dicendo al cocchiere (perché era sabato sera) di aspettare alla porta mentre lui entrava a prendere il “cambio”.

«Signor Richard, signore», disse Brass allegramente, «buonasera!»

Per quanto mostruosa fosse apparsa la storia di Kit, all’inizio, il signor Richard quella notte sospettò addirittura che il suo affabile datore di lavoro fosse coinvolto in qualche oscuro crimine. Forse fu solo la miseria che aveva appena visto che diede a quel suo carattere spensierato questa spinta; ma, comunque sia, fu molto forte su di lui, e disse in pochissime parole ciò che voleva.

«Denaro?» esclamò Brass, tirando fuori il portafoglio. «Ah ah! Certo, signor Richard, certo, signore. Tutti gli uomini devono vivere. Non avete il resto per una banconota da cinque sterline, vero, signore?»

«No», rispose Dick, seccamente.

«Oh!» disse Brass «Ecco la somma esatta. Questo ci risparmia tante seccature. Siete davvero gentile, ne sono sicuro. — Signor Richard, signore —»

Dick, che in quel momento aveva raggiunto la porta, si voltò.

“Non è necessario”, disse Brass, “che si disturbi a tornare ancora, signore.”

‘Eh?’

«Vedete, signor Richard,» disse Brass, infilando le mani nelle tasche e dondolandosi avanti e indietro sullo sgabello, «il fatto è che un uomo delle vostre capacità è perduto, signore, completamente perduto, in questo nostro mestiere secco e polveroso. È una fatica terribile, spaventosa. Direi, ora, che il palcoscenico, o l’—o l’esercito, signor Richard—o qualcosa di molto superiore nel campo della ristorazione—sarebbe la cosa giusta per far emergere il genio di un uomo come voi. Spero che ci farete visita di tanto in tanto. Sally, signore, ne sarà certamente felice. Le dispiace molto perderla, signor Richard, ma un senso del dovere verso la società la riconcilia. Una creatura straordinaria, signore! Penso che troverà il denaro esatto. C’è una finestra rotta, signore, ma non ho fatto alcuna deduzione per questo. Quando ci separiamo dagli amici, signor Richard, dobbiamo separarci generosamente. Un pensiero delizioso, signore!»

A tutte queste osservazioni vaghe, il signor Swiveller non rispose con una sola parola, ma, tornando per la giacca impermeabile, la arrotolò in una palla stretta e rotonda: guardando intanto con fermezza Brass come se avesse l’intenzione di abbatterlo con essa. La prese solo sotto il braccio, tuttavia, e uscì dall’ufficio in profondo silenzio. Quando ebbe chiuso la porta, la riaprì, scrutò di nuovo per alcuni momenti con la stessa gravità portentosa, e annuendo una volta, in modo lento e fantasma-simile, scomparve.

Pagò il cocchiere e voltò le spalle a Bevis Marks, con in mente grandi progetti per consolare la madre di Kit e per aiutare lo stesso Kit.

Ma la vita di signori dediti a piaceri come quelli di Richard Swiveller è estremamente precaria. L’agitazione spirituale delle ultime due settimane, che aveva agito su un sistema già compromesso in non lieve misura dall’ebbrezza alcolica di alcuni anni, si rivelò un po’ troppo per lui. Proprio quella sera, il signor Richard fu colpito da una malattia allarmante e, in ventiquattro ore, fu stroncato da una febbre furiosa.

CHAPTER 64

Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce thirst which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change of posture, a moment’s peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through deserts of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or sound suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull eternal weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his miserable body, and the weary wandering of his mind, constant still to one ever-present anxiety—to a sense of something left undone, of some fearful obstacle to be surmounted, of some carking care that would not be driven away, and which haunted the distempered brain, now in this form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but recognisable for the same phantom in every shape it took: darkening every vision like an evil conscience, and making slumber horrible—in these slow tortures of his dread disease, the unfortunate Richard lay wasting and consuming inch by inch, until, at last, when he seemed to fight and struggle to rise up, and to be held down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and dreamed no more.

He awoke. With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than sleep itself, he began gradually to remember something of these sufferings, and to think what a long night it had been, and whether he had not been delirious twice or thrice. Happening, in the midst of these cogitations, to raise his hand, he was astonished to find how heavy it seemed, and yet how thin and light it really was. Still, he felt indifferent and happy; and having no curiosity to pursue the subject, remained in the same waking slumber until his attention was attracted by a cough. This made him doubt whether he had locked his door last night, and feel a little surprised at having a companion in the room. Still, he lacked energy to follow up this train of thought; and unconsciously fell, in a luxury of repose, to staring at some green stripes on the bed-furniture, and associating them strangely with patches of fresh turf, while the yellow ground between made gravel-walks, and so helped out a long perspective of trim gardens.

He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite lost himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more. The walks shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising himself a little in the bed, and holding the curtain open with one hand, he looked out.

The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but with what unbounded astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins, and articles of linen airing by the fire, and such-like furniture of a sick chamber—all very clean and neat, but all quite different from anything he had left there, when he went to bed! The atmosphere, too, filled with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar; the floor newly sprinkled; the—the what? The Marchioness?

Yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table. There she sat, intent upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as if she feared to disturb him—shuffling the cards, cutting, dealing, playing, counting, pegging—going through all the mysteries of cribbage as if she had been in full practice from her cradle! Mr Swiveller contemplated these things for a short time, and suffering the curtain to fall into its former position, laid his head on the pillow again.

‘I’m dreaming,’ thought Richard, ‘that’s clear. When I went to bed, my hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see through ‘em. If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake, in an Arabian Night, instead of a London one. But I have no doubt I’m asleep. Not the least.’

Here the small servant had another cough.

‘Very remarkable!’ thought Mr Swiveller. ‘I never dreamt such a real cough as that before. I don’t know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either a cough or a sneeze. Perhaps it’s part of the philosophy of dreams that one never does. There’s another—and another—I say!—I’m dreaming rather fast!’

For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr Swiveller, after some reflection, pinched himself in the arm.

‘Queerer still!’ he thought. ‘I came to bed rather plump than otherwise, and now there’s nothing to lay hold of. I’ll take another survey.’

The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr Swiveller that the objects by which he was surrounded were real, and that he saw them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes.

‘It’s an Arabian Night; that’s what it is,’ said Richard. ‘I’m in Damascus or Grand Cairo. The Marchioness is a Genie, and having had a wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young man alive, and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of China, has brought me away, room and all, to compare us together. Perhaps,’ said Mr Swiveller, turning languidly round on his pillow, and looking on that side of his bed which was next the wall, ‘the Princess may be still—No, she’s gone.’

Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking it to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and doubt, Mr Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take the first favourable opportunity of addressing his companion. An occasion presented itself. The Marchioness dealt, turned up a knave, and omitted to take the usual advantage; upon which Mr Swiveller called out as loud as he could—‘Two for his heels!’

The Marchioness jumped up quickly and clapped her hands. ‘Arabian Night, certainly,’ thought Mr Swiveller; ‘they always clap their hands instead of ringing the bell. Now for the two thousand black slaves, with jars of jewels on their heads!’

It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy; for directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry; declaring, not in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was ‘so glad, she didn’t know what to do.’

CAPITOLO 64

Agitandosi avanti e indietro sul suo caldo e inquieto letto; tormentato da una feroce sete che nulla poteva placare; incapace di trovare, in qualsiasi cambiamento di posizione, un momento di pace o di sollievo; e vagando, sempre, attraverso deserti di pensiero dove non c’era luogo di riposo, nessuna vista o suono che suggerisse ristoro o riposo, nulla se non una noiosa eterna stanchezza, senza cambiamento se non i riposati movimenti del suo misero corpo, e il stanco vagare della sua mente, costante ancora a un’ansia sempre presente—a un senso di qualcosa lasciato incompiuto, di qualche terribile ostacolo da superare, di qualche preoccupazione che non voleva essere allontanata, e che perseguitava il cervello malato, ora in questa forma, ora in quella, sempre ombrosa e sfocata, ma riconoscibile come lo stesso fantasma in ogni forma che assumeva: oscurando ogni visione come una cattiva coscienza, e rendendo il sonno orribile—in queste lente torture della sua terribile malattia, l’infortunato Richard giaceva consumandosi e consumandosi pollice a pollice, fino a quando, alla fine, quando sembrava combattere e lottare per alzarsi, e veniva tenuto giù dai diavoli, sprofondò in un profondo sonno, e non sognò più.

Si svegliò. Con una sensazione di riposo estremamente beato, migliore dello stesso sonno, cominciò gradualmente a ricordare qualcosa di quelle sofferenze, e a pensare che lunga notte fosse stata, e se non fosse stato delirante due o tre volte. Mentre, nel mezzo di queste riflessioni, alzava la mano, fu sorpreso di trovarla così pesante, eppure così magra e leggera. Tuttavia, si sentiva indifferente e felice; e non avendo alcuna curiosità di approfondire l’argomento, rimase nello stesso stato di veglia dormiente fino a quando la sua attenzione fu attirata da una tosse. Questo lo fece dubitare se avesse chiuso a chiave la porta la scorsa notte, e si sentì un po’ sorpreso di avere un compagno nella stanza. Tuttavia, gli mancava l’energia per seguire questo filo di pensiero; e, inconsciamente, cadde, in un lusso di riposo, a fissare alcune strisce verdi sulle coperte del letto, associandole stranamente a pezzi di terreno fresco, mentre il terreno giallo in mezzo faceva da vialetto di ghiaia, e così contribuiva a creare una lunga prospettiva di giardini curati.

Era perso in fantasia su questi terrazzamenti, e si era davvero completamente smarrito tra di essi, quando udì di nuovo la tosse. I viali si ridussero di nuovo a strisce al suono, e alzandosi un po’ nel letto, e tenendo aperta la tenda con una mano, guardò fuori.

La stessa stanza, certamente, e ancora illuminata a lume di candela; ma con quale incommensurabile stupore vide tutte quelle bottiglie, e bacinelle, e indumenti di lino ad asciugare vicino al fuoco, e simili arredi di una camera di malato — tutti molto puliti e ordinati, ma tutti del tutto diversi da qualsiasi cosa avesse lasciato lì quando andò a letto! L’atmosfera, inoltre, era impregnata di un fresco odore di erbe e aceto; il pavimento era stato appena spolverato; il — il che? La Marchioness?

Sì; giocava a cribbage da sola al tavolo. Lì seduta, intenta al suo gioco, tossiva di tanto in tanto in modo soffocato come se temesse di disturbarlo, mescolando le carte, tagliando, distribuendo, giocando, contando, segnando punti, svolgendo tutti i misteri del cribbage come se fosse stata in piena pratica fin dalla culla! Il signor Swiveller contemplò queste cose per un breve periodo, e facendo cadere la tenda nella sua posizione precedente, appoggiò di nuovo la testa sul cuscino.

‘Sto sognando’, pensò Richard, ‘è chiaro. Quando sono andato a letto, le mie mani non erano fatte di gusci d’uovo; e ora riesco quasi a vedere attraverso di esse. Se questo non è un sogno, mi sono svegliato per errore in una Notte araba, invece che in una londinese. Ma non ho il minimo dubbio di essere addormentato. Proprio nessuno.’

Qui il piccolo domestico tossì di nuovo.

«Molto straordinario!» pensò il signor Swiveller. «Non avevo mai sognato una tosse così reale prima. In effetti, non so nemmeno se ho mai sognato una tosse o uno starnuto. Forse fa parte della filosofia dei sogni che non si faccia mai. Ecco un altro, e un altro ancora, dico io! Sto sognando piuttosto velocemente!»

Per testare la sua reale condizione, dopo averci riflettuto un po’, il signor Swiveller si pizzicò il braccio.

«Ancora più strano!» pensò. «Sono andato a letto piuttosto robusto, e ora non c’è più nulla da afferrare. Farò un altro giro di perlustrazione.»

Il risultato di questo esame supplementare fu di convincere il signor Swiveller che gli oggetti che lo circondavano erano reali, e che li vedeva, senza ombra di dubbio, con i suoi occhi da sveglio.

«È una notte araba; ecco cos’è», disse Richard. «Mi trovo a Damasco o al Cairo. La marchesa è un genio, e avendo fatto una scommessa con un altro genio su chi fosse il più bel giovane in vita, e il più degno di essere il marito della Principessa della Cina, mi ha portato via, insieme alla stanza, per confrontarci. Forse», disse il signor Swiveller, girandosi languidamente sul cuscino e guardando il lato del suo letto che era vicino al muro, «la Principessa potrebbe essere ancora. No, se n’è andata.»

Non sentendosi del tutto soddisfatto di questa spiegazione, poiché, anche ammettendo che fosse corretta, essa implicava ancora un po’ di mistero e dubbio, il signor Swiveller sollevò di nuovo la tenda, deciso a cogliere la prima occasione favorevole per rivolgersi al suo compagno. Si presentò un’occasione. La Marchioness distribuì le carte, ne girò una di seme falso e non approfittò del solito vantaggio; a questo punto il signor Swiveller gridò a squarciagola: “Due per i suoi talloni!”.

La marchesa si alzò rapidamente e batté le mani. «Notte araba, certamente», pensò il signor Swiveller; «battono sempre le mani invece di suonare il campanello. Ora tocca ai duemila schiavi neri, con vasi di gioielli in testa!»

Tuttavia, sembrava che avesse battuto le mani per la gioia; infatti, subito dopo, cominciò a ridere, e poi a piangere; dichiarando, non in arabo raffinato ma in inglese familiare, che era «così contenta, non sapeva cosa fare».

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully, ‘be pleased to draw nearer. First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me where I shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my flesh?’

The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again; whereupon Mr Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected likewise.

‘I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appearances, Marchioness,’ said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a trembling lip, ‘that I have been ill.’

‘You just have!’ replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. ‘And haven’t you been a talking nonsense!’

‘Oh!’ said Dick. ‘Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?’

‘Dead, all but,’ replied the small servant. ‘I never thought you’d get better. Thank Heaven you have!’

Mr Swiveller was silent for a long while. By and bye, he began to talk again, inquiring how long he had been there.

‘Three weeks to-morrow,’ replied the servant.

‘Three what?’ said Dick.

‘Weeks,’ returned the Marchioness emphatically; ‘three long, slow weeks.’

The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard to fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his full length. The Marchioness, having arranged the bed-clothes more comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool—a discovery that filled her with delight—cried a little more, and then applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast.

While she was thus engaged, Mr Swiveller looked on with a grateful heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally Brass, whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough. When the Marchioness had finished her toasting, she spread a clean cloth on a tray, and brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak tea, with which (she said) the doctor had left word he might refresh himself when he awoke. She propped him up with pillows, if not as skilfully as if she had been a professional nurse all her life, at least as tenderly; and looked on with unutterable satisfaction while the patient—stopping every now and then to shake her by the hand—took his poor meal with an appetite and relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under any other circumstances, would have failed to provoke. Having cleared away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down at the table to take her own tea.

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘how’s Sally?’

The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.

‘What, haven’t you seen her lately?’ said Dick.

‘Seen her!’ cried the small servant. ‘Bless you, I’ve run away!’

Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so remained for about five minutes. By slow degrees he resumed his sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:

‘And where do you live, Marchioness?’

‘Live!’ cried the small servant. ‘Here!’

‘Oh!’ said Mr Swiveller.

And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been shot. Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had finished her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth; when he motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and, being propped up again, opened a farther conversation.

‘And so,’ said Dick, ‘you have run away?’

‘Yes,’ said the Marchioness, ‘and they’ve been a tizing of me.’

‘Been—I beg your pardon,’ said Dick—‘what have they been doing?’

‘Been a tizing of me—tizing you know—in the newspapers,’ rejoined the Marchioness.

‘Aye, aye,’ said Dick, ‘advertising?’

The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were so red with waking and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater consistency. And so Dick felt.

‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘how it was that you thought of coming here.’

‘Why, you see,’ returned the Marchioness, ‘when you was gone, I hadn’t any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn’t know where either him or you was to be found, you know. But one morning, when I was—’

‘Was near a keyhole?’ suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she faltered.

‘Well then,’ said the small servant, nodding; ‘when I was near the office keyhole—as you see me through, you know—I heard somebody saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at, and that you was took very bad, and wouldn’t nobody come and take care of you. Mr Brass, he says, “It’s no business of mine,” he says; and Miss Sally, she says, “He’s a funny chap, but it’s no business of mine;” and the lady went away, and slammed the door to, when she went out, I can tell you. So I run away that night, and come here, and told ‘em you was my brother, and they believed me, and I’ve been here ever since.’

‘This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death!’ cried Dick.

‘No I haven’t,’ she returned, ‘not a bit of it. Don’t you mind about me. I like sitting up, and I’ve often had a sleep, bless you, in one of them chairs. But if you could have seen how you tried to jump out o’ winder, and if you could have heard how you used to keep on singing and making speeches, you wouldn’t have believed it—I’m so glad you’re better, Mr Liverer.’

‘Liverer indeed!’ said Dick thoughtfully. ‘It’s well I am a liverer. I strongly suspect I should have died, Marchioness, but for you.’

At this point, Mr Swiveller took the small servant’s hand in his again, and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling to express his thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that she quickly changed the theme by making him lie down, and urging him to keep very quiet.

‘The doctor,’ she told him, ‘said you was to be kept quite still, and there was to be no noise nor nothing. Now, take a rest, and then we’ll talk again. I’ll sit by you, you know. If you shut your eyes, perhaps you’ll go to sleep. You’ll be all the better for it, if you do.’

«Marchesa,» disse il signor Swiveller, pensieroso, «si accomodi più vicino. Prima di tutto, vuole avere la gentilezza di dirmi dove posso trovare la mia voce; e in secondo luogo, che fine ha fatto la mia carne?»

La marchesa scosse semplicemente la testa con tristezza e riprese a piangere; allora il signor Swiveller (che era molto debole) sentì che anche i suoi occhi erano colpiti.

«Comincio a dedurre, dal suo comportamento e da questi segni, Marchesa», disse Richard dopo una pausa, sorridendo con labbra tremanti, «che sono stato malato.»

«Appunto!» rispose la piccola cameriera, asciugandosi gli occhi. «E non ha forse parlato di cose senza senso!»

«Oh!» disse Dick. «Sono stato molto malato, marchesa?»

«Morto, quasi», rispose il piccolo domestico. «Non ho mai pensato che ti saresti ripreso. Grazie al cielo l’hai fatto!»

Mr Swiveller rimase in silenzio per un bel po’. Dopo un po’, riprese a parlare, chiedendo da quanto tempo si trovasse lì.

«Tra tre settimane da domani», rispose il domestico.

«Tre cosa?» disse Dick.

«Settimane», rispose la Marchioness con enfasi; «tre lunghe, lente settimane».

Il solo pensiero di essere stato in una tale estremità, fece cadere Richard in un altro silenzio, e lo fece distendere di nuovo, completamente. La Marchioness, avendo sistemato le coperte del letto più comodamente, e sentito che le sue mani e la fronte erano abbastanza fresche—una scoperta che la riempì di gioia—piange un po’ di più, e poi si applicò a preparare il tè, e a fare un po’ di pane tostato sottile e secco.

Mentre era così impegnata, il signor Swiveller la osservava con un cuore grato, molto sorpreso nel vedere quanto si sentisse a suo agio, e attribuiva questa attenzione, nella sua origine, a Sally Brass, a cui, nella sua mente, non poteva essere grato abbastanza. Quando la Marchioness ebbe finito di preparare il tè, stese un tovagliolo pulito su un vassoio e gli portò alcune fette croccanti e una grande ciotola di tè debole, con cui (disse) il dottore aveva lasciato detto che poteva rinfrescarsi quando si fosse svegliato. Lo sistemò con i cuscini, se non con la stessa abilità di una infermiera professionista, almeno con altrettanta tenerezza; e osservò con inesprimibile soddisfazione mentre il paziente, fermandosi di tanto in tanto per stringerle la mano, consumava il suo povero pasto con un appetito e un gusto che le più grandi prelibatezze della terra, in qualsiasi altra circostanza, non avrebbero potuto provocare. Dopo aver sparecchiato e sistemato tutto comodamente intorno a lui, si sedette al tavolo per prendere il suo tè.

«Marchioness,» disse il signor Swiveller, «come sta Sally?»

La piccola domestica contorse il viso in un’espressione di astuzia intricata al massimo grado e scosse la testa.

«Che, non l’hai vista ultimamente?» disse Dick.

‘L’ho vista!’ gridò il piccolo domestico. ‘Dio ti benedica, sono scappato!’

Il signor Swiveller si sdraiò immediatamente di nuovo del tutto disteso, e così rimase per circa cinque minuti. A poco a poco riprese la sua posizione seduta dopo quel lasso di tempo, e chiese:

«E dove abitate, marchesa?»

“Vivo!” gridò il piccolo servitore. “Eccomi!”

«Oh!» disse il signor Swiveller.

E con ciò cadde di nuovo a terra, all’improvviso come se fosse stato colpito da un proiettile. Così rimase, immobile e privo di parola, finché lei non ebbe terminato il suo pasto, messo tutto al suo posto e spazzato il focolare; quando le fece cenno di portare una sedia al capezzale, e, essendo di nuovo sostenuto, aprì un’altra conversazione.

E così, disse Dick, sei scappata?

“Sì,” disse la Marchioness, “e sono stati una punizione per me.”

“Scusatemi,” disse Dick, “cosa hanno fatto?”

‘C’è stata una marchesa—marchesa sapete—nei giornali,’ rispose la Marchesa.

“Sì, sì”, disse Dick, “pubblicità?”

La piccola serva annuì e strizzò l’occhio. Gli occhi erano così arrossati dal non aver dormito e dal pianto che la Musa Tragica avrebbe potuto strizzare l’occhio con maggiore coerenza. E così sentiva Dick.

Dimmi, disse, come hai pensato di venire qui.

«Perché, vede,» rispose la Marchioness, «quando lei se n’è andato, non avevo nessun amico, perché l’inquilino non è mai tornato, e non sapevo dove trovarla né lei né lui, sa. Ma una mattina, quando ero—»

«Era vicino a una toppa di chiave?» suggerì il signor Swiveller, notando che lei esitava.

«Bene allora», disse il piccolo servitore, annuendo; «quando ero vicino alla toppa della porta dell’ufficio — dato che mi vedete attraverso, sapete — ho sentito qualcuno che diceva che lei viveva lì, ed era la signora presso la quale voi alloggiavate, e che voi eravate molto male, e che nessuno sarebbe venuto a prendersi cura di voi. Il signor Brass, lui dice, “Non è affar mio”, dice; e la signorina Sally, lei dice, “È un tipo strano, ma non è affar mio”; e la signora se ne andò, e sbatté la porta, quando uscì, ve lo posso dire. Così quella notte sono scappato, e sono venuto qui, e ho detto loro che eravate mio fratello, e mi hanno creduto, e sono stato qui da allora.»

«Questa povera piccola marchesa si sta consumando fino alla morte!», esclamò Dick.

«No, non l’ho fatto», rispose, «neanche un po’. Non ti preoccupare per me. Mi piace stare seduta, e spesso ho fatto un sonnellino, benedetto, in una di quelle sedie. Ma se avessi potuto vedere come hai cercato di saltare fuori dalla finestra, e se avessi potuto sentire come continuavi a cantare e fare discorsi, non ci avresti creduto, sono così contenta che tu stia meglio, signor Liverer.»

«Liverer davvero!» disse Dick pensieroso. «È bene che io sia un liverer. Sospetto fortemente che sarei morto, marchesa, senza di voi.»

A questo punto, il signor Swiveller riprese la mano della piccola cameriera e, essendo, come abbiamo visto, in cattive condizioni, avrebbe potuto, nel tentativo di esprimere la sua gratitudine, rendere i suoi occhi rossi come i suoi, se non avesse rapidamente cambiato argomento facendolo sdraiare e insistendo affinché stesse molto tranquillo.

«Il dottore», gli disse, «ha detto che dovevi stare ben fermo e che non doveva esserci rumore né niente. Ora riposati, e poi parleremo ancora. Io starò seduta vicino a te, lo sai. Se chiudi gli occhi, forse andrai a dormire. Ti farà solo bene, se ci riesci.»

The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to the bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the concoction of some cooling drink, with the address of a score of chemists. Richard Swiveller being indeed fatigued, fell into a slumber, and waking in about half an hour, inquired what time it was.

‘Just gone half after six,’ replied his small friend, helping him to sit up again.

‘Marchioness,’ said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead and turning suddenly round, as though the subject but that moment flashed upon him, ‘what has become of Kit?’

He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she said.

‘Has he gone?’ asked Dick—‘his mother—how is she,—what has become of her?’

His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about them. ‘But, if I thought,’ said she, very slowly, ‘that you’d keep quiet, and not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you—but I won’t now.’

‘Yes, do,’ said Dick. ‘It will amuse me.’

‘Oh! would it though!’ rejoined the small servant, with a horrified look. ‘I know better than that. Wait till you’re better and then I’ll tell you.’

Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes, being large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so much, that she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think any more about it. What had already fallen from her, however, had not only piqued his curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore he urged her to tell him the worst at once.

‘Oh there’s no worst in it,’ said the small servant. ‘It hasn’t anything to do with you.’

‘Has it anything to do with—is it anything you heard through chinks or keyholes—and that you were not intended to hear?’ asked Dick, in a breathless state.

‘Yes,’ replied the small servant.

‘In—in Bevis Marks?’ pursued Dick hastily. ‘Conversations between Brass and Sally?’

‘Yes,’ cried the small servant again.

Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her by the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being wholly unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation. She, seeing that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of postponing her revelation might be much more injurious than any that were likely to ensue from its being made at once, promised compliance, on condition that the patient kept himself perfectly quiet, and abstained from starting up or tossing about.

‘But if you begin to do that,’ said the small servant, ‘I’ll leave off. And so I tell you.’

‘You can’t leave off, till you have gone on,’ said Dick. ‘And do go on, there’s a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say. Oh tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you!’

Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:

‘Well! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen—where we played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the candle and rake out the fire. When she had done that, she left me to go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in her pocket again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the morning—very early I can tell you—and let me out. I was terrible afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought they might forget me and only take care of themselves you know. So, whenever I see an old rusty key anywhere, I picked it up and tried if it would fit the door, and at last I found in the dust cellar a key that did fit it.’

Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But the small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to proceed.

‘They kept me very short,’ said the small servant. ‘Oh! you can’t think how short they kept me! So I used to come out at night after they’d gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or sangwitches that you’d left in the office, or even pieces of orange peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine. Did you ever taste orange peel and water?’

Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative.

‘If you make believe very much, it’s quite nice,’ said the small servant, ‘but if you don’t, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come out after they’d gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or two nights before there was all that precious noise in the office—when the young man was took, I mean—I come upstairs while Mr Brass and Miss Sally was a-sittin’ at the office fire; and I tell you the truth, that I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.’

Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the utmost concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up her finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not.

‘There was him and her,’ said the small servant, ‘a-sittin’ by the fire, and talking softly together. Mr Brass says to Miss Sally, “Upon my word,” he says “it’s a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a world of trouble, and I don’t half like it.” She says—you know her way—she says, “You’re the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I ever see, and I think,” she says, “that I ought to have been the brother, and you the sister. Isn’t Quilp,” she says, “our principal support?” “He certainly is,” says Mr Brass, “And an’t we,” she says, “constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?” “We certainly are,” says Mr Brass. “Then does it signify,” she says, “about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires it?” “It certainly does not signify,” says Mr Brass. Then they whispered and laughed for a long time about there being no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass pulls out his pocket-book, and says, “Well,” he says, “here it is—Quilp’s own five-pound note. We’ll agree that way, then,” he says. “Kit’s coming to-morrow morning, I know. While he’s up-stairs, you’ll get out of the way, and I’ll clear off Mr Richard. Having Kit alone, I’ll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat. I’ll manage so, besides,” he says, “that Mr Richard shall find it there, and be the evidence. And if that don’t get Christopher out of Mr Quilp’s way, and satisfy Mr Quilp’s grudges,” he says, “the Devil’s in it.” Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went down-stairs again.—There!’

La marchesa, pronunciando queste parole, portò un tavolino accanto al letto, vi si sedette e si mise a preparare una bevanda rinfrescante con la destrezza di una dozzina di chimici. Richard Swiveller, che era davvero stanco, si addormentò e, svegliandosi dopo circa mezz’ora, chiese che ora fosse.

«Sono appena passate le sei e mezza», rispose il suo piccolo amico, aiutandolo a rialzarsi.

«Marchesa,» disse Richard, passandosi la mano sulla fronte e voltandosi improvvisamente, come se l’argomento gli fosse appena balenato in mente, «che fine ha fatto Kit?»

Era stato condannato al confino per molti anni, disse.

‘Se n’è andato?’ chiese Dick. ‘Sua madre, come sta, che ne è stato di lei?’

La sua balia scosse la testa e rispose che non ne sapeva nulla. «Ma se pensassi», disse molto lentamente, «che starai tranquillo e non ti farai venire un’altra febbre, potrei dirtelo, ma non lo farò ora.»

“Sì, fallo”, disse Dick. “Mi divertirà.”

«Oh! se lo fosse!» rispose il piccolo servitore, con uno sguardo atterrito. «Lo so meglio di così. Aspetta di stare meglio e poi te lo dirò.»

Dick guardò molto seriamente la sua piccola amica: e i suoi occhi, essendo grandi e infossati per la malattia, esaltavano l’espressione al punto che lei ne fu spaventata e lo pregò di non pensarci più. Tuttavia, ciò che lei aveva già detto non solo aveva suscitato la sua curiosità, ma lo aveva seriamente allarmato, per cui la esortò a dirgli subito il peggio.

“Non c’è niente di peggio,” disse il piccolo servitore. “Non ha nulla a che fare con te.”

«Ha a che fare con, è qualcosa che hai sentito attraverso fessure o serrature, e che non eri destinato a sentire?» chiese Dick, senza fiato.

«Sì», rispose il piccolo servitore.

«A—a Bevis Marks?» chiese Dick in fretta. «Conversazioni tra Brass e Sally?»

«Sì», gridò di nuovo il piccolo domestico.

Richard Swiveller fece uscire il suo braccio magro dal letto, la afferrò per il polso e, attirandola vicino a sé, le disse di sputare il rospo, e senza peli sulla lingua, altrimenti non avrebbe risposto delle conseguenze; non era infatti in grado di sopportare lo stato di eccitazione e aspettativa. Lei, vedendo che era molto agitato e che gli effetti del rimandare la sua rivelazione potevano essere molto più dannosi di qualsiasi conseguenza che ne sarebbe derivata se l’avesse fatta subito, promise di acconsentire, a condizione che il paziente rimanesse perfettamente tranquillo e si astenesse dal saltare su o agitarsi.

«Ma se cominciate a fare così», disse il piccolo domestico, «io smetto. E ve lo dico chiaro.»

«Non potete smettere, finché non avrete continuato», disse Dick. «E continuate, ve ne prego. Parlate, sorella, parlate. Bella Polly, dite. Oh, ditemi quando, e ditemi dove, vi prego, marchesa, ve ne supplico!»

Non potendo resistere a queste fervide esortazioni, che Richard Swiveller proferiva con la stessa passione come se fossero state di natura più solenne e terribile, il suo compagno parlò così:

«Ebbene! Prima che io scappassi, dormivo in cucina, dove giocavamo a carte, sapete. La signorina Sally teneva la chiave della porta della cucina in tasca, e scendeva sempre la notte a portar via la candela e a smorzare il fuoco. Quando aveva fatto questo, mi lasciava andare a letto al buio, chiudeva la porta dall’esterno, rimetteva la chiave in tasca e mi teneva chiuso dentro finché non scendeva al mattino - molto presto, ve lo posso dire - e mi faceva uscire. Avevo una paura terribile di essere tenuto in questo modo, perché se c’era un incendio, pensavo che potevano dimenticarmi e pensare solo a salvare se stessi, sapete. Così, ogni volta che vedevo una vecchia chiave arrugginita da qualche parte, la raccoglievo e provavo se poteva andare bene per la porta, e alla fine trovai nella cantina del polvere una chiave che andava bene».

Qui il signor Swiveller fece una violenta dimostrazione con le gambe. Ma la piccola servetta, interrompendosi subito nel suo discorso, egli si calmò di nuovo, e, adducendo un momentaneo dimenticanza del loro patto, la pregò di continuare.

«Mi davano pochissimo da mangiare», disse il piccolo domestico, «Oh! non potete immaginare quanto poco mi davano! Così ero solito uscire di notte dopo che erano andati a letto, e cercare al buio pezzi di biscotti, o panini che avevate lasciato in ufficio, o anche pezzi di buccia d’arancia da mettere in acqua fredda e fingere che fosse vino. Avete mai assaggiato buccia d’arancia e acqua?»

Il signor Swiveller rispose che non aveva mai assaggiato quella bevanda ardente; e ancora una volta esortò la sua amica a riprendere il filo del suo racconto.

«Se ci si mette veramente d’impegno, è piuttosto bello», disse il piccolo domestico, «ma se non ci si mette, sapete, sembra che manchi un po’ di condimento, certo. Beh, a volte uscivo dopo che erano andati a letto, e a volte prima, sapete; e una o due notti prima che ci fosse tutto quel prezioso rumore in ufficio — quando il giovane fu preso, intendo — salii al piano di sopra mentre il signor Brass e la signorina Sally erano seduti davanti al fuoco dell’ufficio; e vi dico la verità, che salii per ascoltare di nuovo, riguardo la chiave della cassaforte.»

Il signor Swiveller si rannicchiò le ginocchia in modo da formare un grande cono con le coperte, e assunse un’espressione di estrema preoccupazione. Ma la piccola domestica si fermò e alzò un dito, e il cono scomparve dolcemente, sebbene l’espressione preoccupata rimanesse.

«C’era lui e lei», disse il piccolo domestico, «seduti accanto al fuoco, a parlare sottovoce. Il signor Brass dice alla signorina Sally: “Sul mio onore”, dice, “è una cosa pericolosa, potrebbe metterci nei guai, e non mi piace per niente”. Lei dice, sapete com’è, “Sei l’uomo più codardo, più debole, più vigliacco che io abbia mai visto, e penso”, dice, “che avrei dovuto essere io il fratello e tu la sorella. Non è forse Quilp”, dice, “il nostro principale sostegno?” “Certamente”, dice il signor Brass. “E non stiamo”, dice, “costantemente rovinando qualcuno in fatto di affari?” “Certamente”, dice il signor Brass. “Allora che importa”, dice, “rovinare questo Kit se lo desidera Quilp?” “Certamente non importa”, dice il signor Brass. Poi hanno bisbigliato e riso a lungo, dicendo che non c’era pericolo se la cosa era fatta bene, e poi il signor Brass tira fuori il portafoglio e dice: “Bene”, dice, “ecco qua: la banconota da cinque sterline di Quilp. Stabilirà così”, dice. “Kit verrà domattina, lo so. Mentre è di sopra, tu ti toglierai di mezzo, e io sistemerò il signor Richard. Avendo Kit solo, lo terrò impegnato in conversazione e metterò questa proprietà nel suo cappello. Farò in modo”, dice, “che il signor Richard la trovi lì e ne sia la testimonianza. E se questo non toglie Christopher di torno al signor Quilp e non soddisfa i rancori del signor Quilp”, dice, “allora ci deve essere il diavolo dentro”. La signorina Sally rise e disse che era il piano, e dato che sembravano voler andarsene, e io avevo paura di fermarmi più a lungo, sono tornato di sotto. —Ecco!»

The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to anybody.

‘How could it be?’ replied his nurse. ‘I was almost afraid to think about it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I heard ‘em say they had found him guilty of what he didn’t do, you was gone, and so was the lodger—though I think I should have been frightened to tell him, even if he’d been there. Ever since I come here, you’ve been out of your senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then?’

‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and flinging it to the other end of the room; ‘if you’ll do me the favour to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I’ll get up.’

‘You mustn’t think of such a thing,’ cried his nurse.

‘I must indeed,’ said the patient, looking round the room. ‘Whereabouts are my clothes?’

‘Oh, I’m so glad—you haven’t got any,’ replied the Marchioness.

‘Ma’am!’ said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.

‘I’ve been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was ordered for you. But don’t take on about that,’ urged the Marchioness, as Dick fell back upon his pillow. ‘You’re too weak to stand, indeed.’

‘I am afraid,’ said Richard dolefully, ‘that you’re right. What ought I to do! what is to be done!’

It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the first step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr Garlands instantly. It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet left the office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of father and son, which would enable her to recognise either, without difficulty; and a special caution to be shy of Mr Chuckster, in consequence of that gentleman’s known antipathy to Kit. Armed with these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either old Mr Garland or Mr Abel, bodily, to that apartment.

‘I suppose,’ said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, ‘I suppose there’s nothing left—not so much as a waistcoat even?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘It’s embarrassing,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘in case of fire—even an umbrella would be something—but you did quite right, dear Marchioness. I should have died without you!’

La piccola domestica si era gradualmente agitata quanto il signor Swiveller, e quindi non fece alcuno sforzo per trattenerlo quando si alzò a sedere sul letto e chiese in tutta fretta se questa storia fosse stata raccontata a qualcuno.

«Come sarebbe potuto essere?» rispose la sua balia. «Avevo quasi paura di pensarci e speravo che il giovane sarebbe stato assolto. Quando ho sentito dire che lo avevano dichiarato colpevole di qualcosa che non aveva fatto, eri già andato via, e così era il pensionante, anche se credo che avrei avuto paura di dirglielo, anche se fosse stato lì. Da quando sono arrivata qui, sei stato fuori di te, e a che sarebbe servito dirtelo allora?»

«Marchesa,» disse il signor Swiveller, strappandosi via il berretto da notte e lanciandolo dall’altra parte della stanza; «se mi vuole fare il favore di ritirarsi per qualche minuto e vedere che tipo di notte è, mi alzerò.»

«Non dovete pensare a una cosa del genere», esclamò la sua balia.

“Devo proprio,” disse il paziente, guardandosi intorno nella stanza. “Dove sono i miei vestiti?”

«Oh, sono così contenta, non ne hai», rispose la Marchioness.

«Signora!» esclamò il signor Swiveller, con grande stupore.

«Sono stato costretto a venderli, tutti quanti, per procurarmi le cose che erano state ordinate per te. Ma non ti agitare per questo», esortò la Marchioness, mentre Dick ricadeva sul cuscino. «Sei troppo debole per alzarti, davvero.»

«Temo», disse Richard con tristezza, «che abbiate ragione. Cosa dovrei fare! cosa si può fare!»

Naturalmente, dopo averci riflettuto solo un po’, gli venne in mente che il primo passo da compiere sarebbe stato quello di mettersi subito in contatto con uno dei signori Garland. Era molto probabile che il signor Abel non avesse ancora lasciato l’ufficio. In un tempo brevissimo, la piccola serva aveva l’indirizzo scritto a matita su un pezzo di carta; una descrizione verbale di padre e figlio, che le avrebbe permesso di riconoscere l’uno o l’altro senza difficoltà; e un avvertimento speciale di stare alla larga dal signor Chuckster, a causa della nota antipatia di quel gentiluomo per Kit. Armata di questi modesti poteri, si affrettò a partire, incaricata di portare fisicamente in quell’appartamento il vecchio signor Garland o il signor Abel.

«Suppongo», disse Dick mentre lei chiudeva la porta lentamente e sbirciava di nuovo nella stanza per assicurarsi che fosse comodo, «suppongo che non sia rimasto nulla, nemmeno un panciotto?»

‘No, niente.’

«È imbarazzante», disse il signor Swiveller, «in caso di incendio — anche un ombrello sarebbe qualcosa — ma hai fatto benissimo, cara marchesa. Sarei morto senza di te!»

CHAPTER 65

It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme authority over her person. Not unmindful of the risk she ran, however, the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she dived into the first dark by-way that presented itself, and, without any present reference to the point to which her journey tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.

When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course for the notary’s office, to which—shrewdly inquiring of apple-women and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice—she easily procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was bound.

She had no bonnet—nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses was, as we have seen, peculiar—and her speed was rather retarded than assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing, squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out and exhausted, and could not refrain from tears.

But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as there were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore some hope that she was not too late. So the Marchioness dried her eyes with the backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the steps, peeped in through the glass door.

Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down his wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck more gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers by the aid of a little triangular bit of looking glass. Before the ashes of the fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly judged to be the notary, and the other (who was buttoning his great-coat and was evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel Garland.

Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out, as there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr Chuckster, and less difficulty in delivering her message. With this purpose she slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down upon a door-step just opposite.

She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns, a pony. This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in it; but neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the least, as he reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or stood still again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the smallest reference to them—just as the fancy seized him, and as if he were the freest animal in creation. When they came to the notary’s door, the man called out in a very respectful manner, ‘Woa then’—intimating that if he might venture to express a wish, it would be that they stopped there. The pony made a moment’s pause; but, as if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required might be to establish an inconvenient and dangerous precedent, he immediately started off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street corner, wheeled round, came back, and then stopped of his own accord.

‘Oh! you’re a precious creatur!’ said the man—who didn’t venture by the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the pavement. ‘I wish I had the rewarding of you—I do.’

‘What has he been doing?’ said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his neck as he came down the steps.

‘He’s enough to fret a man’s heart out,’ replied the hostler. ‘He is the most wicious rascal—Woa then, will you?’

‘He’ll never stand still, if you call him names,’ said Mr Abel, getting in, and taking the reins. ‘He’s a very good fellow if you know how to manage him. This is the first time he has been out, this long while, for he has lost his old driver and wouldn’t stir for anybody else, till this morning. The lamps are right, are they? That’s well. Be here to take him to-morrow, if you please. Good night!’

And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention, the pony yielded to Mr Abel’s mildness, and trotted gently off.

All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the small servant had been afraid to approach. She had nothing for it now, therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel to stop. Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was unable to make him hear. The case was desperate; for the pony was quickening his pace. The Marchioness hung on behind for a few moments, and, feeling that she could go no farther, and must soon yield, clambered by a vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in so doing lost one of the shoes for ever.

Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite enough to do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without looking round: little dreaming of the strange figure that was close behind him, until the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered her breath, and the loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her position, uttered close into his ear, the words—‘I say, Sir’—

He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony, cried, with some trepidation, ‘God bless me, what is this!’

‘Don’t be frightened, Sir,’ replied the still panting messenger. ‘Oh I’ve run such a way after you!’

‘What do you want with me?’ said Mr Abel. ‘How did you come here?’

‘I got in behind,’ replied the Marchioness. ‘Oh please drive on, sir—don’t stop—and go towards the City, will you? And oh do please make haste, because it’s of consequence. There’s somebody wants to see you there. He sent me to say would you come directly, and that he knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove his innocence.’

‘What do you tell me, child?’

‘The truth, upon my word and honour I do. But please to drive on— quick, please! I’ve been such a time gone, he’ll think I’m lost.’

Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward. The pony, impelled by some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great pace, and neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric performances, until they arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller’s lodging, where, marvellous to relate, he consented to stop when Mr Abel checked him.

‘See! It’s the room up there,’ said the Marchioness, pointing to one where there was a faint light. ‘Come!’

Mr Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated; for he had heard of people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and murdered, under circumstances very like the present, and, for anything he knew to the contrary, by guides very like the Marchioness. His regard for Kit, however, overcame every other consideration. So, entrusting Whisker to the charge of a man who was lingering hard by in expectation of the job, he suffered his companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the dark and narrow stairs.

He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in bed.

‘An’t it nice to see him lying there so quiet?’ said his guide, in an earnest whisper. ‘Oh! you’d say it was, if you had only seen him two or three days ago.’

Mr Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from the bed and very near the door. His guide, who appeared to understand his reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her hand, approached the bed. As she did so, the sleeper started up, and he recognised in the wasted face the features of Richard Swiveller.

‘Why, how is this?’ said Mr Abel kindly, as he hurried towards him. ‘You have been ill?’

‘Very,’ replied Dick. ‘Nearly dead. You might have chanced to hear of your Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to fetch you. Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please. Sit down, Sir.’

Mr Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his guide, and took a chair by the bedside.

‘I have sent for you, Sir,’ said Dick—‘but she told you on what account?’

‘She did. I am quite bewildered by all this. I really don’t know what to say or think,’ replied Mr Abel.

‘You’ll say that presently,’ retorted Dick. ‘Marchioness, take a seat on the bed, will you? Now, tell this gentleman all that you told me; and be particular. Don’t you speak another word, Sir.’

The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as before, without any deviation or omission. Richard Swiveller kept his eyes fixed on his visitor during its narration, and directly it was concluded, took the word again.

‘You have heard it all, and you’ll not forget it. I’m too giddy and too queer to suggest anything; but you and your friends will know what to do. After this long delay, every minute is an age. If ever you went home fast in your life, go home fast to-night. Don’t stop to say one word to me, but go. She will be found here, whenever she’s wanted; and as to me, you’re pretty sure to find me at home, for a week or two. There are more reasons than one for that. Marchioness, a light! If you lose another minute in looking at me, sir, I’ll never forgive you!’

Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion. He was gone in an instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him down-stairs, reported that the pony, without any preliminary objection whatever, had dashed away at full gallop.

‘That’s right!’ said Dick; ‘and hearty of him; and I honour him from this time. But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am sure you must be tired. Do have a mug of beer. It will do me as much good to see you take it as if I might drink it myself.’

Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small nurse to indulge in such a luxury. Having eaten and drunk to Mr Swiveller’s extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put everything in neat order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug before the fire.

Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, ‘Strew then, oh strew, a bed of rushes. Here will we stay, till morning blushes. Good night, Marchioness!’

CHAPTER 66

On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by slow degrees, of whispering voices in his room. Looking out between the curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary, and the single gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and talking to her with great earnestness but in very subdued tones—fearing, no doubt, to disturb him. He lost no time in letting them know that this precaution was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen directly approached his bedside. Old Mr Garland was the first to stretch out his hand, and inquire how he felt.

Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as weak as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside and pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their interference, set his breakfast before him, and insisted on his taking it before he underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being spoken to. Mr Swiveller, who was perfectly ravenous, and had had, all night, amazingly distinct and consistent dreams of mutton chops, double stout, and similar delicacies, felt even the weak tea and dry toast such irresistible temptations, that he consented to eat and drink on one condition.

‘And that is,’ said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland’s hand, ‘that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit or drop. Is it too late?’

‘For completing the work you began so well last night?’ returned the old gentleman. ‘No. Set your mind at rest on that point. It is not, I assure you.’

Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his food with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest in the eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat. The manner of this meal was this:—Mr Swiveller, holding the slice of toast or cup of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or drink, as the case might be, constantly kept, in his right, one palm of the Marchioness tight locked; and to shake, or even to kiss this imprisoned hand, he would stop every now and then, in the very act of swallowing, with perfect seriousness of intention, and the utmost gravity. As often as he put anything into his mouth, whether for eating or drinking, the face of the Marchioness lighted up beyond all description; but whenever he gave her one or other of these tokens of recognition, her countenance became overshadowed, and she began to sob. Now, whether she was in her laughing joy, or in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help turning to the visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say, ‘You see this fellow—can I help this?’—and they, being thus made, as it were, parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look, ‘No. Certainly not.’ This dumb-show, taking place during the whole time of the invalid’s breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was spoken from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in themselves so slight and unimportant.

At length—and to say the truth before very long—Mr Swiveller had despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his recovery it was discreet to let him have. But the cares of the Marchioness did not stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and presently returning with a basin of fair water, she laved his face and hands, brushed his hair, and in short made him as spruce and smart as anybody under such circumstances could be made; and all this, in as brisk and business-like a manner, as if he were a very little boy, and she his grown-up nurse. To these various attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in a kind of grateful astonishment beyond the reach of language. When they were at last brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn into a distant corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by that time), he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook hands heartily with the air.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and turning round again, ‘you’ll excuse me. Men who have been brought so low as I have been, are easily fatigued. I am fresh again now, and fit for talking. We’re short of chairs here, among other trifles, but if you’ll do me the favour to sit upon the bed—’

‘What can we do for you?’ said Mr Garland, kindly.

‘If you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real, sober earnest,’ returned Dick, ‘I’d thank you to get it done off-hand. But as you can’t, and as the question is not what you will do for me, but what you will do for somebody else who has a better claim upon you, pray sir let me know what you intend doing.’

‘It’s chiefly on that account that we have come just now,’ said the single gentleman, ‘for you will have another visitor presently. We feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what steps we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we stirred in the matter.’

‘Gentlemen,’ returned Dick, ‘I thank you. Anybody in the helpless state that you see me in, is naturally anxious. Don’t let me interrupt you, sir.’

‘Then, you see, my good fellow,’ said the single gentleman, ‘that while we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure, which has so providentially come to light—’

‘Meaning hers?’ said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.

‘—Meaning hers, of course. While we have no doubt of that, or that a proper use of it would procure the poor lad’s immediate pardon and liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany. I should tell you that this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in this short space of time, to take upon the subject. You’ll agree with us, that to give him even the most distant chance of escape, if we could help it, would be monstrous. You say with us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.’

CAPITOLO 66

Al risveglio del mattino, Richard Swiveller divenne consapevole, a poco a poco, di voci sussurrate nella sua stanza. Guardando tra le tende, scorse il signor Garland, il signor Abel, il notaio e il gentiluomo singolo, radunati intorno alla Marchioness e che le parlavano con grande serietà ma in toni molto sommessi, temendo, senza dubbio, di disturbarlo. Non perse tempo a far loro sapere che tale precauzione era inutile, e tutti e quattro gli signori si avvicinarono subito al suo letto. Il vecchio signor Garland fu il primo a tendere la mano e a chiedergli come si sentiva.

Dick stava per rispondere che si sentiva molto meglio, sebbene ancora debole come era necessario, quando la sua piccola infermiera, spingendo da parte i visitatori e avvicinandosi al suo cuscino come se fosse in gelosia per la loro interferenza, gli mise davanti la colazione e insistette affinché la consumasse prima di affrontare la fatica di parlare o di essere ascoltato. Il signor Swiveller, che era perfettamente affamato, e aveva avuto, per tutta la notte, sogni incredibilmente distinti e coerenti di bistecca di agnello, birra doppia e simili delizie, sentì che anche il tè debole e il pane tostato rappresentavano tentazioni irresistibili, tanto che accettò di mangiare e bere a una condizione.

«E questa è», disse Dick, restituendo la pressione della mano del signor Garland, «che mi rispondiate sinceramente a questa domanda, prima che io prenda un boccone o beva una goccia. È troppo tardi?»

«Per completare il lavoro che hai iniziato così bene ieri sera?» rispose il vecchio signore. «No. Tranquillizzati su questo punto. Non è così, te lo assicuro.»

Consolato da questa notizia, il paziente si dedicò al suo cibo con un appetito vivace, sebbene evidentemente non con un gusto maggiore nel mangiare rispetto a quello che la sua infermiera sembrava avere nel vederlo mangiare. Il modo di questo pasto era questo:—Mr Swiveller, tenendo il pezzo di toast o la tazza di tè nella sua mano sinistra, e prendendo un morso o un sorso, a seconda dei casi, manteneva costantemente, nella sua destra, una mano della Marchioness stretta saldamente; e per scuotere, o anche per baciare questa mano imprigionata, si fermava di tanto in tanto, nel bel mezzo dell’atto di inghiottire, con perfetta serietà di intenti e la massima gravità. Ogni volta che metteva qualcosa in bocca, sia per mangiare che per bere, il volto della Marchioness si illuminava oltre ogni descrizione; ma ogni volta che le dava uno di questi segni di riconoscimento, il suo volto si offuscava, e lei iniziava a singhiozzare. Ora, che fosse nella sua gioia ridanciana, o in quella piangente, la Marchioness non poteva fare a meno di rivolgersi ai visitatori con uno sguardo di appello, che sembrava dire: ‘Vedete questo tizio—posso fare qualcosa?’—e loro, essendo così, per così dire, coinvolti nella scena, rispondevano regolarmente con un altro sguardo: ‘No. Certo che no.’ Questo mimo, che aveva luogo durante tutto il tempo della colazione dell’invalido, e l’invalido stesso, pallido ed emaciato, che svolgeva una parte non piccola nella stessa, può essere giustamente messo in dubbio se in qualche pasto, dove non una parola, buona o cattiva, veniva pronunciata dall’inizio alla fine, tanto fosse espresso da gesti in sé così lievi e insignificanti.

Alla fine — e per dire la verità non molto tempo dopo — il signor Swiveller aveva consumato una quantità di pane tostato e tè che, in quella fase della sua convalescenza, era prudente lasciargli avere. Ma le cure della Marchioness non si fermavano qui; infatti, scomparendo per un istante e tornando poco dopo con una bacinella d’acqua pulita, gli lavò il viso e le mani, gli spazzolò i capelli e, in breve, lo mise in ordine e lo fece apparire il più elegante e presentabile che si potesse sotto tali circostanze; e tutto ciò con una vivacità e una serietà d’affari, come se lui fosse un bambino molto piccolo e lei la sua balia ormai cresciuta. A queste varie attenzioni, il signor Swiveller si sottomise in una specie di gratitudine e stupore al di là di ogni espressione. Quando queste furono finalmente terminate e la Marchioness si ritirò in un angolo lontano per fare la sua povera colazione (fredda ormai a quell’ora), egli volse il viso altrove per alcuni istanti e strinse calorosamente la mano all’aria.

«Signori», disse Dick, riprendendosi da questa pausa e girandosi di nuovo, «mi scuserete. Gli uomini che sono stati ridotti così in basso come me, si stancano facilmente. Ora sono di nuovo fresco e pronto a parlare. Qui ci mancano le sedie, tra le altre piccole cose, ma se vorrete farmi il favore di sedervi sul letto, »

«Cosa possiamo fare per voi?» disse gentilmente il signor Garland.

«Se poteste trasformare la marchesa là in una vera e propria marchesa,» rispose Dick, «vi sarei grato se lo facessero subito. Ma poiché non potete, e poiché la questione non è cosa farete per me, ma cosa farete per qualcun altro che ha un diritto maggiore su di voi, per favore, signore, fatemi sapere cosa intendete fare.»

«È principalmente per questo motivo che siamo venuti proprio ora», disse l’uomo solo, «perché fra poco avrete un altro visitatore. Ci preoccupava che poteste essere ansiosi se non aveste saputo da noi quali provvedimenti intendevamo prendere, e per questo siamo venuti da voi prima di muoverci in proposito.»

«Signori», rispose Dick, «vi ringrazio. Chiunque si trovi in uno stato di impotenza come quello in cui mi vedete, è naturalmente ansioso. Non fate che vi interrompa, signore».

«Allora, vede, mio buon amico», disse il signore da solo, «che mentre non abbiamo alcun dubbio sulla verità di questa rivelazione, che è venuta a galla così provvidenzialmente—»

«Vuol dire la sua?» disse Dick, indicando la marchesa.

«—Intendiamo la sua, naturalmente. Mentre non abbiamo alcun dubbio al riguardo, né che un uso appropriato di essa procurerebbe la immediata grazia e liberazione del povero ragazzo, abbiamo un grande dubbio se ciò, da solo, ci permetterebbe di raggiungere Quilp, il principale responsabile di questa infamia. Dovrei dirvi che questo dubbio è stato confermato in qualcosa di molto vicino alla certezza dalle migliori opinioni che siamo stati in grado, in questo breve lasso di tempo, di raccogliere sull’argomento. Siete d’accordo con noi, che dare anche la più remota possibilità di fuga, se potessimo evitarlo, sarebbe mostruoso. Siete d’accordo con noi, senza dubbio, se qualcuno deve scappare, che sia chiunque tranne lui.»

‘Yes,’ returned Dick, ‘certainly. That is if somebody must—but upon my word, I’m unwilling that anybody should. Since laws were made for every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me—and so forth you know—doesn’t it strike you in that light?’

The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller had put the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem in the first instance; and that their design was to endeavour to extort a confession from the gentle Sarah.

‘When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,’ he said, ‘and that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without strong hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the other two effectually. If we could do that, she might go scot-free for aught I cared.’

Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner, representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing, that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to manage than Quilp himself—that, for any tampering, terrifying, or cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject—that she was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape—in short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally defeated. But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other course. The single gentleman has been described as explaining their joint intentions, but it should have been written that they all spoke together; that if any one of them by chance held his peace for a moment, he stood gasping and panting for an opportunity to strike in again: in a word, that they had reached that pitch of impatience and anxiety where men can neither be persuaded nor reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to turn the most impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to reconsider their determination. So, after telling Mr Swiveller how they had not lost sight of Kit’s mother and the children; how they had never once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they had been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his guilt, and their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller, might keep his mind at rest, for everything should be happily adjusted between that time and night;—after telling him all this, and adding a great many kind and cordial expressions, personal to himself, which it is unnecessary to recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single gentleman, took their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard Swiveller must assuredly have been driven into another fever, whereof the results might have been fatal.

Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and coffee, and wine, and rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls ready trussed for boiling, and calves’-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and sago, and other delicate restoratives, that the small servant, who had never thought it possible that such things could be, except in shops, stood rooted to the spot in her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power of speech quite gone. But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man who emptied the hamper, big as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the nice old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about on tiptoe and without noise—now here, now there, now everywhere at once—began to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to cut them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses of wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat could be prepared for her refreshment. The whole of which appearances were so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller, when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the strong man walk off with the empty basket, plainly leaving all that abundance for his use and benefit, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer inability to entertain such wonders in his mind.

Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland, repaired to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and sent a letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious and brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to consult her, with her company there, as speedily as possible. The communication performed its errand so well, that within ten minutes of the messenger’s return and report of its delivery, Miss Brass herself was announced.

‘Pray ma’am,’ said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the room, ‘take a chair.’

Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and seemed—as indeed she was—not a little astonished to find that the lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person.

‘You did not expect to see me?’ said the single gentleman.

‘I didn’t think much about it,’ returned the beauty. ‘I supposed it was business of some kind or other. If it’s about the apartments, of course you’ll give my brother regular notice, you know—or money. That’s very easily settled. You’re a responsible party, and in such a case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty much the same.’

«Sì», rispose Dick, «certamente. A meno che qualcuno debba—ma, a dire il vero, non voglio che nessuno lo faccia. Poiché le leggi sono state fatte per ogni grado, per frenare il vizio negli altri così come in me—e così via, sapete—non vi sembra che sia così?»

Il signore scapolo sorrise come se la luce in cui il signor Swiveller aveva posto la domanda non fosse la più chiara del mondo, e proseguì spiegando che intendevano procedere per stratagemma in un primo momento; e che il loro piano era di cercare di estorcere una confessione dalla gentile Sarah.

«Quando scoprirà quanto sappiamo, e come lo sappiamo», disse, «e che è già chiaramente compromessa, non siamo senza forti speranze che possiamo essere messi in grado, attraverso i suoi mezzi, di punire efficacemente gli altri due. Se potessimo farlo, lei potrebbe andarsene senza pagare nulla, per quanto mi riguarda.»

Dick accolse il progetto in modo tutt’altro che cortese, sostenendo con tutto l’entusiasmo di cui era capace che avrebbero trovato la vecchia capra (intendendo Sarah) più difficile da gestire di Quilp in persona, che per quanto riguardava manipolazioni, intimidazioni o blandizie, lei era un soggetto davvero poco promettente e irremovibile, che era fatta di un genere di ottone non facile da fondere o modellare, insomma che non erano all’altezza di lei e sarebbero stati sconfitti in modo clamoroso. Ma fu inutile cercare di convincerli a seguire un altro piano. Il signorino è stato descritto mentre spiegava le loro intenzioni comuni, ma avrebbe dovuto essere scritto che parlavano tutti insieme, che se per caso uno di loro taceva per un momento, stava ansimando e cercando disperatamente un’occasione per intervenire di nuovo: insomma, avevano raggiunto un livello di impazienza e ansia tale che non si poteva né persuaderli né ragionare con loro, e sarebbe stato altrettanto facile deviare il più impetuoso vento che mai soffiò, quanto convincerli a riconsiderare la loro decisione. Così, dopo aver detto a Mr Swiveller come non avessero perso di vista la madre di Kit e i bambini, come non avessero mai perso di vista nemmeno Kit stesso, ma avessero fatto ogni sforzo per ottenere una riduzione della sua pena, come fossero stati completamente disorientati tra le prove schiaccianti della sua colpevolezza e le loro speranze sempre più deboli della sua innocenza, e come lui, Richard Swiveller, potesse stare tranquillo perché tutto si sarebbe risolto felicemente tra quel momento e sera; dopo avergli detto tutto questo, e aggiunto molte altre espressioni gentili e cordiali, personali nei suoi confronti, che non è necessario riportare, Mr Garland, il notaio e il signorino presero congedo in un momento davvero critico, altrimenti Richard Swiveller sarebbe stato sicuramente costretto in un’altra febbre, i cui risultati avrebbero potuto essere fatali.

Il signor Abel rimase indietro, guardando spesso l’orologio e la porta della stanza, finché il signor Swiveller fu svegliato da un breve pisolino dal posizionamento su un luogo esterno, come sulle spalle di un facchino, di un carico gigantesco, che sembrò scuotere la casa e fece tintinnare di nuovo le piccole bottiglie di medicina sullo scaffale del caminetto. Non appena questo suono raggiunse le sue orecchie, il signor Abel si alzò di scatto, zoppicò fino alla porta e la aprì; ed ecco! c’era un uomo robusto con un enorme cesto, che, una volta trascinato nella stanza e subito svuotato, riversò tesori come tè, caffè, vino, biscotti, arance, uva, polli già spennati per bollire, gelatina di piede di vitello, fecola di maranta, sago e altri delicati rinforzi, che la piccola serva, che non aveva mai pensato che tali cose potessero esistere, se non nei negozi, rimase radicata al posto con un solo scarpa, con la bocca e gli occhi che le colavano all’unisono, e la capacità di parlare completamente persa. Ma non così il signor Abel; o l’uomo robusto che svuotò il cesto, grande com’era, in un attimo; e nemmeno la gentile vecchia signora, che apparve così all’improvviso che avrebbe potuto uscire anche lei dal cesto (era abbastanza grande), e che, affaccendandosi in punta di piedi e senza fare rumore—ora qui, ora là, ora dappertutto contemporaneamente—cominciò a riempire le tazze da tè con la gelatina, a fare brodo di pollo in piccole pentole, a sbucciare arance per l’uomo malato e a tagliarle a pezzetti, e a offrire alla piccola serva bicchieri di vino e bocconi prelibati di tutto finché non si potesse preparare per lei un pasto più sostanzioso. Tutte queste apparizioni erano così inaspettate e sconcertanti, che il signor Swiveller, dopo aver preso due arance e un po’ di gelatina, e aver visto l’uomo robusto andarsene con il cesto vuoto, lasciando chiaramente tutta quell’abbondanza per il suo uso e beneficio, fu costretto a sdraiarsi e a riaddormentarsi, per pura incapacità di accogliere tali meraviglie nella sua mente.

Nel frattempo, il signore single, il notaio e il signor Garland si recarono in un certo caffè e da quel luogo scrissero e inviarono una lettera a Miss Sally Brass, chiedendole, in termini misteriosi e brevi, di favorire un amico sconosciuto che desiderava consultarla, con la sua compagnia lì, il più rapidamente possibile. La comunicazione svolse il suo compito così bene, che entro dieci minuti dal ritorno del messaggero e dalla notizia della sua consegna, fu annunciata la stessa Miss Brass.

«Per favore, signora», disse l’unico gentiluomo, che lei trovò solo nella stanza, «si prega di prendere una sedia.»

La signorina Brass si sedette, in uno stato di grande rigidità e freddezza, e sembrò - come infatti era - non poco sorpresa di scoprire che l’inquilino e il suo misterioso corrispondente erano una sola e stessa persona.

«Non vi aspettavate di vedermi?» disse il signore.

«Non ci ho pensato molto», rispose la bellezza. «Supponevo che fosse una faccenda di qualche tipo. Se riguarda gli appartamenti, naturalmente darai a mio fratello un preavviso regolare, lo sai, oppure dei soldi. È una cosa molto facile da risolvere. Sei una persona responsabile, e in un caso del genere il denaro legale e il preavviso legale sono praticamente la stessa cosa.»

‘I am obliged to you for your good opinion,’ retorted the single gentleman, ‘and quite concur in these sentiments. But that is not the subject on which I wish to speak with you.’

‘Oh!’ said Sally. ‘Then just state the particulars, will you? I suppose it’s professional business?’

‘Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.’

‘Very well,’ returned Miss Brass. ‘My brother and I are just the same. I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.’

‘As there are other parties interested besides myself,’ said the single gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, ‘we had better confer together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.’

Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and, drawing up two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into a corner. Her brother Sampson under such circumstances would certainly have evinced some confusion or anxiety, but she—all composure—pulled out the tin box, and calmly took a pinch of snuff.

‘Miss Brass,’ said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, ‘we professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can say what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a runaway servant, the other day?’

‘Well,’ returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her features, ‘what of that?’

‘She is found, ma’am,’ said the Notary, pulling out his pocket-handkerchief with a flourish. ‘She is found.’

‘Who found her?’ demanded Sarah hastily.

‘We did, ma’am—we three. Only last night, or you would have heard from us before.’

‘And now I have heard from you,’ said Miss Brass, folding her arms as though she were about to deny something to the death, ‘what have you got to say? Something you have got into your heads about her, of course. Prove it, will you—that’s all. Prove it. You have found her, you say. I can tell you (if you don’t know it) that you have found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was ever born.—Have you got her here?’ she added, looking sharply round.

‘No, she is not here at present,’ returned the Notary. ‘But she is quite safe.’

‘Ha!’ cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the small servant’s nose; ‘she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant you.’

‘I hope so,’ replied the Notary. ‘Did it occur to you for the first time, when you found she had run away, that there were two keys to your kitchen door?’

Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side, looked at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but with a cunning aspect of immense expression.

‘Two keys,’ repeated the Notary; ‘one of which gave her the opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you supposed her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential consultations—among others, that particular conference, to be described to-day before a justice, which you will have an opportunity of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and innocent young man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of which I will only say that it may be characterised by the epithets which you have applied to this wretched little witness, and by a few stronger ones besides.’

Sally took another pinch. Although her face was wonderfully composed, it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise, and that what she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with her small servant, was something very different from this.

‘Come, come, Miss Brass,’ said the Notary, ‘you have great command of feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never entered your imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of its plotters must be brought to justice. Now, you know the pains and penalties you are liable to, and so I need not dilate upon them, but I have a proposal to make to you. You have the honour of being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I may venture to say so to a lady, you are in every respect quite worthy of him. But connected with you two is a third party, a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either. For his sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history of this affair. Let me remind you that your doing so, at our instance, will place you in a safe and comfortable position—your present one is not desirable—and cannot injure your brother; for against him and you we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear) already. I will not say to you that we suggest this course in mercy (for, to tell you the truth, we do not entertain any regard for you), but it is a necessity to which we are reduced, and I recommend it to you as a matter of the very best policy. Time,’ said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, ‘in a business like this, is exceedingly precious. Favour us with your decision as speedily as possible, ma’am.’

With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by turns, Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and having by this time very little left, travelled round and round the box with her forefinger and thumb, scraping up another. Having disposed of this likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket, she said,—

‘I am to accept or reject at once, am I?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Witherden.

The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust into the room.

‘Excuse me,’ said the gentleman hastily. ‘Wait a bit!’

So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.

«Sono in debito con voi per la vostra buona opinione», ribatté il gentiluomo scapolo, «e concordo pienamente con questi sentimenti. Ma questo non è l’argomento di cui desidero parlare con voi.»

«Oh!» disse Sally. «Allora dica pure i particolari, per favore. Immagino che si tratti di una faccenda professionale?»

‘Beh, è collegato alla legge, certamente.’

«Molto bene», rispose Miss Brass. «Mio fratello ed io siamo esattamente uguali. Posso ricevere istruzioni o darle consigli.»

«Poiché ci sono altri interessati oltre a me», disse il signore scapolo, alzandosi e aprendo la porta di una stanza interna, «è meglio che ci consultiamo insieme. La signorina Brass è qui, signori.»

Il signor Garland e il notaio entrarono, con un’aria molto grave; e, avvicinando due sedie, una per parte del signore solo, formarono una specie di recinto intorno alla gentile Sarah, e la spinsero in un angolo. Suo fratello Sampson in circostanze simili avrebbe certamente mostrato un po’ di confusione o ansia, ma lei — tutta calma — tirò fuori la scatola di latta e prese tranquillamente un pizzico di tabacco da fiuto.

«Signorina Brass», disse il notaio, prendendo la parola in quel momento, «noi professionisti ci intendiamo e, quando vogliamo, possiamo dire ciò che abbiamo da dire in pochissime parole. Avete dato un annuncio per una serva fuggita, l’altro giorno?»

«Beh,» rispose Miss Sally, con un’improvvisa vampata di rossore che le si diffuse sul viso, «che c’è di male?»

«È stata trovata, signora», disse il notaio, tirando fuori il fazzoletto con un gesto teatrale. «È stata trovata.»

«Chi l’ha trovata?» chiese Sarah in fretta.

«L’abbiamo fatto, signora, noi tre. Proprio la scorsa notte, altrimenti avrebbe già ricevuto nostre notizie.»

«E ora ho sentito quello che avete da dire», disse Miss Brass, incrociando le braccia come se fosse sul punto di negare qualcosa fino alla morte, «e allora, che cosa avete da dire? Qualcosa che vi siete messi in testa riguardo a lei, naturalmente. Provatele, allora — questo è tutto. Provatele. Dite di averla trovata. Posso dirvi (se non lo sapete) che avete trovato la più astuta, bugiarda, furtiva, diabolica piccola sgualdrina che sia mai nata. — L’avete portata qui?», aggiunse, guardandosi intorno con attenzione.

“No, al momento non è qui,” rispose il notaio. “Ma sta benissimo.”

«Ah!» esclamò Sally, tirando fuori un pizzico di tabacco da fiuto dalla sua scatola, con la stessa cattiveria con cui avrebbe potuto staccare il naso alla piccola servetta; «da questo momento starà al sicuro, ve lo garantisco.»

«Lo spero,» rispose il notaio. «Le è venuto in mente per la prima volta, quando ha scoperto che era fuggita, che c’erano due chiavi della porta della sua cucina?»

Miss Sally prese un’altra presa e, inclinando la testa da un lato, guardò chi le faceva la domanda, con una specie di spasmo curioso intorno alla bocca, ma con un’aria astuta di immensa espressività.

«Due chiavi», ripeté il notaio, «di cui una le dava la possibilità di girare per la casa di notte, quando lei pensava che fosse chiusa a chiave, e di ascoltare conversazioni riservate, tra cui quella particolare riunione che oggi sarà descritta davanti a un giudice, e che lei avrà l’opportunità di sentirla raccontare; quella riunione che lei e il signor Brass avete tenuto insieme la notte prima che quel giovane così sfortunato e innocente venisse accusato di furto, a causa di un orribile stratagemma di cui dirò solo che può essere descritto con gli stessi epiteti che lei ha applicato a questo misero piccolo testimone, e con alcuni altri ancora più forti».

Sally prese un’altra presa. Anche se il suo viso era meravigliosamente composto, era evidente che era stata completamente colta di sorpresa, e che ciò che si aspettava di dover ammettere, in relazione alla sua piccola serva, era qualcosa di molto diverso da questo.

«Dai, dai, Miss Brass», disse il notaio, «avete un grande controllo delle vostre espressioni, ma vedo che sentite che, per un caso che non avreste mai immaginato, questo vile piano è stato svelato e due dei suoi artefici devono essere portati davanti alla giustizia. Ora, conoscete le pene e le sanzioni a cui siete soggetta, quindi non è necessario che mi dilunghi su di esse, ma ho una proposta da farvi. Avete l’onore di essere la sorella di uno dei più grandi furfanti non ancora impiccati; e, se posso permettermi di dirlo a una signora, siete in ogni aspetto del tutto degna di lui. Ma legati a voi due c’è una terza persona, un villano di nome Quilp, il principale artefice di tutto questo diabolico piano, che credo sia peggiore di entrambi. Per il suo bene, Miss Brass, fateci il favore di rivelare tutta la storia di questa faccenda. Lasciate che vi ricordi che farlo, su nostra istanza, vi metterà in una posizione sicura e confortevole - la vostra attuale non è desiderabile - e non potrà nuocere a vostro fratello; poiché contro di lui e voi abbiamo già prove più che sufficienti (come sentite). Non vi dirò che suggeriamo questa linea d’azione per pietà (perché, per dirvi la verità, non nutriamo alcun riguardo per voi), ma è una necessità a cui siamo ridotti, e ve la raccomando come la cosa più saggia da fare. Il tempo», disse il signor Witherden, tirando fuori il suo orologio, «in una faccenda come questa, è estremamente prezioso. Ci fate l’onore di comunicarci la vostra decisione il più rapidamente possibile, signora».

Con un sorriso sul volto e guardando a turno ciascuno dei tre, Miss Brass prese altri due o tre pizzichi di tabacco da fiuto, e avendo ormai poco da spremere, viaggiò intorno e intorno alla scatola con il pollice e l’indice, raccogliendo un altro pizzico. Dopo averlo consumato anche questo e riposto con cura la scatola in tasca, disse:

‘Devo accettare o rifiutare subito, vero?’

«Sì», disse il signor Witherden.

La graziosa creatura stava aprendo le labbra per rispondere, quando la porta si aprì di scatto e la testa di Sampson Brass fu spinta dentro la stanza.

“Scusatemi”, disse l’uomo in fretta. “Aspettate un attimo!”

Detto ciò, e del tutto indifferente allo stupore che la sua presenza provocava, si insinuò dentro, chiuse la porta, baciò il suo guanto unto con la stessa servilità con cui avrebbe baciato la polvere, e fece un inchino davvero abietto.

‘Sarah,’ said Brass, ‘hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak. Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to see three such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of sentiment, I think you would hardly believe me. But though I am unfortunate—nay, gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh expressions in a company like this—still, I have my feelings like other men. I have heard of a poet, who remarked that feelings were the common lot of all. If he could have been a pig, gentlemen, and have uttered that sentiment, he would still have been immortal.’

‘If you’re not an idiot,’ said Miss Brass harshly, ‘hold your peace.’

‘Sarah, my dear,’ returned her brother, ‘thank you. But I know what I am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing myself accordingly. Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is hanging out of your pocket—would you allow me to—,

As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk from him with an air of disgust. Brass, who over and above his usual prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade over one eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and looked round with a pitiful smile.

‘He shuns me,’ said Sampson, ‘even when I would, as I may say, heap coals of fire upon his head. Well! Ah! But I am a falling house, and the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me! Gentlemen—regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see my sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going to, and being—may I venture to say?—naturally of a suspicious turn, followed her. Since then, I have been listening.’

‘If you’re not mad,’ interposed Miss Sally, ‘stop there, and say no more.’

‘Sarah, my dear,’ rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, ‘I thank you kindly, but will still proceed. Mr Witherden, sir, as we have the honour to be members of the same profession—to say nothing of that other gentleman having been my lodger, and having partaken, as one may say, of the hospitality of my roof—I think you might have given me the refusal of this offer in the first instance. I do indeed. Now, my dear Sir,’ cried Brass, seeing that the Notary was about to interrupt him, ‘suffer me to speak, I beg.’

Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.

‘If you will do me the favour,’ he said, holding up the green shade, and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, ‘to look at this, you will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get it. If you look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could have been the cause of all these scratches. And if from them to my hat, how it came into the state in which you see it. Gentlemen,’ said Brass, striking the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, ‘to all these questions I answer—Quilp!’

The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.

‘I say,’ pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he were talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling malignity, in violent contrast to his usual smoothness, ‘that I answer to all these questions,—Quilp—Quilp, who deludes me into his infernal den, and takes a delight in looking on and chuckling while I scorch, and burn, and bruise, and maim myself—Quilp, who never once, no never once, in all our communications together, has treated me otherwise than as a dog—Quilp, whom I have always hated with my whole heart, but never so much as lately. He gives me the cold shoulder on this very matter as if he had had nothing to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it. I can’t trust him. In one of his howling, raving, blazing humours, I believe he’d let it out, if it was murder, and never think of himself so long as he could terrify me. Now,’ said Brass, picking up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually crouching down, in the excess of his servility, ‘what does all this lead to?—what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?—could you guess at all near the mark?’

Nobody spoke. Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he had propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:

‘To be short with you, then, it leads me to this. If the truth has come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there’s no standing up against—and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen, in its way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as thunder-storms and that, we’re not always over and above glad to see it—I had better turn upon this man than let this man turn upon me. It’s clear to me that I am done for. Therefore, if anybody is to split, I had better be the person and have the advantage of it. Sarah, my dear, comparatively speaking you’re safe. I relate these circumstances for my own profit.’

With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story; bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though subject—he acknowledged—to human weaknesses. He concluded thus:

‘Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves. Being in for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound. You must do with me what you please, and take me where you please. If you wish to have this in writing, we’ll reduce it into manuscript immediately. You will be tender with me, I am sure. I am quite confident you will be tender with me. You are men of honour, and have feeling hearts. I yielded from necessity to Quilp, for though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers. I yield to you from necessity too; from policy besides; and because of feelings that have been a pretty long time working within me. Punish Quilp, gentlemen. Weigh heavily upon him. Grind him down. Tread him under foot. He has done as much by me, for many and many a day.’

«Sarah», disse Brass, «tieni la lingua a freno, se non ti dispiace, e lascia parlare me. Signori, se potessi esprimere il piacere che mi dà vedere tre uomini come voi in una felice unità di sentimenti e concordia di pensiero, credo che a malapena mi credereste. Ma sebbene io sia sfortunato - anzi, signori, criminale, se dobbiamo usare espressioni dure in una compagnia come questa - tuttavia, ho i miei sentimenti come tutti gli altri. Ho sentito parlare di un poeta, che osservava che i sentimenti sono il comune destino di tutti. Se avesse potuto essere un maiale, signori, e aver espresso quel pensiero, sarebbe stato comunque immortale.»

“Se non sei un idiota,” disse bruscamente Miss Brass, “tieni la bocca chiusa.”

«Sarah, mia cara», rispose suo fratello, «grazie. Ma so quel che faccio, mia cara, e mi prenderò la libertà di esprimermi di conseguenza. Signor Witherden, la sua sciarpa le sta uscendo di tasca — mi permette di —,

Mentre il signor Brass si avvicinava per rimediare a questo incidente, il notaio si ritrasse da lui con aria di disgusto. Brass, che oltre alle sue solite qualità pregevoli, aveva il viso graffiato, un occhio coperto da una benda verde e un cappello gravemente schiacciato, si fermò di colpo e guardò intorno con un sorriso pietoso.

«Mi evita», disse Sampson, «anche quando io vorrei, come si suol dire, accumulare carboni di fuoco sulla sua testa. Bene! Ah! Ma io sono una casa in rovina, e i topi (se mi è consentito usare questa espressione parlando di un gentiluomo che io rispetto e amo più di ogni altra cosa) mi abbandonano! Signori, riguardo alla vostra conversazione di poco fa, mi è capitato di vedere mia sorella mentre veniva qui, e, chiedendomi dove potesse andare, e essendo io, se posso permettermi di dirlo, di natura sospettosa, l’ho seguita. Da allora, ho ascoltato.»

“Se non sei pazza,” intervenne Miss Sally, “fermati qui e non dire altro.”

«Sarah, mia cara», riprese Brass con la stessa cortesia, «ti ringrazio moltissimo, ma continuerò. Signor Witherden, signore, poiché abbiamo l’onore di essere membri della stessa professione—per non parlare del fatto che quell’altro signore è stato mio inquilino e ha goduto, come si suol dire, dell’ospitalità del mio tetto—credo che avreste potuto darmi la possibilità di rifiutare questa offerta in prima istanza. Lo credo davvero. Ora, mio caro signore», esclamò Brass, vedendo che il notaio stava per interromperlo, «permettetemi di parlare, ve ne prego.»

Il signor Witherden rimase in silenzio, e Brass continuò.

«Se vorrete farmi il favore», disse, alzando la visiera verde e rivelando un occhio terribilmente ammaccato, «di dare un’occhiata a questo, vi verrà naturalmente da chiedervi, tra voi, come l’ho preso. Se poi guardate da quello al mio viso, vi chiederete quale possa essere stata la causa di tutti questi graffi. E se poi dai graffi al mio cappello, come sia finito nello stato in cui lo vedete. Signori», disse Brass, colpendo il cappello con violenza con la mano chiusa a pugno, «a tutte queste domande io rispondo: Quilp!»

I tre signori si guardarono l’un l’altro, ma non dissero nulla.

«Voglio dire», continuò Brass, lanciando un’occhiata di lato a sua sorella, come se stesse parlando per informarla, e con una malignità ringhiosa, in violento contrasto con la sua solita dolcezza, «che rispondo a tutte queste domande,—Quilp—Quilp, che mi inganna nel suo infernale covo, e si diverte a guardare e a ridere mentre mi scotto, e brucio, e mi ferisco, e mi mutilo—Quilp, che mai una volta, no mai una volta, in tutte le nostre comunicazioni insieme, mi ha trattato diversamente che come un cane—Quilp, che ho sempre odiato con tutto il cuore, ma mai tanto come di recente. Mi dà il freddo spalla su questa stessa faccenda come se non ci avesse avuto nulla a che fare, invece di essere il primo a proporla. Non posso fidarmi di lui. In uno dei suoi umori urlanti, rabbiosi, ardenti, credo che lo farebbe uscire, se fosse un omicidio, e non penserebbe a se stesso finché potesse terrorizzarmi. Ora», disse Brass, raccogliendo di nuovo il cappello e riposizionando l’ombra sul suo occhio, e addirittura accovacciandosi, nell’eccesso della sua servilità, «a cosa porta tutto questo?—a cosa pensate che mi porti, signori?—potreste indovinare anche solo lontanamente?»

Nessuno parlò. Brass rimase lì a sogghignare per un po’, come se avesse proposto un indovinello davvero raffinato; e poi disse:

«Per essere breve con voi, allora, mi porta a questo. Se la verità è venuta fuori, come è chiaramente successo in un modo che non c’è modo di resistere—e la Verità è una cosa molto sublime e grandiosa, signori, a suo modo, anche se come altre cose sublime e grandiose, come i temporali e cose del genere, non siamo sempre felici di vederla—è meglio che io mi rivolti contro quest’uomo piuttosto che lasciare che quest’uomo si rivolti contro di me. È chiaro a me che sono spacciato. Pertanto, se qualcuno deve tradire, è meglio che sia io a farlo e trarne vantaggio. Sarah, mia cara, relativamente parlando sei al sicuro. Racconto queste circostanze per il mio profitto.»

Con ciò, il signor Brass, in gran fretta, rivelò tutta la storia, caricando il più possibile il suo amabile datore di lavoro, e dipingendosi come un personaggio piuttosto santo e pio, sebbene soggetto — ammise — a debolezze umane. Concluse così:

«Ora, signori, non sono un uomo che faccia le cose a metà. Essendo entrato per un penny, sono pronto, come si suol dire, a entrare per una sterlina. Dovete fare con me ciò che vi piace, e portarmi dove vi piace. Se desiderate avere questo per iscritto, lo ridurremo in manoscritto immediatamente. Sarà tenero con me, ne sono sicuro. Sono del tutto fiducioso che sarete teneri con me. Siete uomini di onore, e avete cuori sensibili. Ho ceduto per necessità a Quilp, perché sebbene la necessità non abbia legge, ha i suoi avvocati. Cedo anche a voi per necessità; per politica inoltre; e a causa di sentimenti che sono stati a lungo tempo a lavorare dentro di me. Punite Quilp, signori. Pesate pesantemente su di lui. Schiacciatelo. Calpestatelo. Ha fatto altrettanto con me, per molti e molti giorni.»

Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson checked the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and smiled as only parasites and cowards can.

‘And this,’ said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to foot with a bitter sneer, ‘this is my brother, is it! This is my brother, that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have had something of the man in him!’

‘Sarah, my dear,’ returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; ‘you disturb our friends. Besides you—you’re disappointed, Sarah, and, not knowing what you say, expose yourself.’

‘Yes, you pitiful dastard,’ retorted the lovely damsel, ‘I understand you. You feared that I should be beforehand with you. But do you think that I would have been enticed to say a word! I’d have scorned it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty years.’

‘He he!’ simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark of manliness he might have possessed. ‘You think so, Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good fellow. You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey—our revered father, gentlemen—“Always suspect everybody.” That’s the maxim to go through life with! If you were not actually about to purchase your own safety when I showed myself, I suspect you’d have done it by this time. And therefore I’ve done it myself, and spared you the trouble as well as the shame. The shame, gentlemen,’ added Brass, allowing himself to be slightly overcome, ‘if there is any, is mine. It’s better that a female should be spared it.’

With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more particularly to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted, with humility, whether the elevating principle laid down by the latter gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is always a prudent one, or attended in practice with the desired results. This is, beyond question, a bold and presumptuous doubt, inasmuch as many distinguished characters, called men of the world, long-headed customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands at business, and the like, have made, and do daily make, this axiom their polar star and compass. Still, the doubt may be gently insinuated. And in illustration it may be observed, that if Mr Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without prying and listening, left his sister to manage the conference on their joint behalf, or prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much better off in the end. Thus, it will always happen that these men of the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from quite as much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and absurdity of mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of wearing a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions.

The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments. At the end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary pointed to the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr Brass that if he wished to make any statement in writing, he had the opportunity of doing so. At the same time he felt bound to tell him that they would require his attendance, presently, before a justice of the peace, and that in what he did or said, he was guided entirely by his own discretion.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in spirit upon the ground before them, ‘I will justify the tenderness with which I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness, I should, now that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst position of the three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean breast. Mr Witherden, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits—if you would do me the favour to ring the bell and order up a glass of something warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what has passed, have a melancholy pleasure in drinking your good health. I had hoped,’ said Brass, looking round with a mournful smile, ‘to have seen you three gentlemen, one day or another, with your legs under the mahogany in my humble parlour in the Marks. But hopes are fleeting. Dear me!’

Mr Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that he could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived. Having partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state, he sat down to write.

The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands clasped behind her, paced the room with manly strides while her brother was thus employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her snuff-box and bite the lid. She continued to pace up and down until she was quite tired, and then fell asleep on a chair near the door.

It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was a sham or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the dusk of the afternoon. Whether this was an intentional and waking departure, or a somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her sleep, may remain a subject of contention; but, on one point (and indeed the main one) all parties are agreed. In whatever state she walked away, she certainly did not walk back again.

Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be inferred that Mr Brass’s task occupied some time in the completion. It was not finished until evening; but, being done at last, that worthy person and the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to the private office of a justice, who, giving Mr Brass a warm reception and detaining him in a secure place that he might insure to himself the pleasure of seeing him on the morrow, dismissed the others with the cheering assurance that a warrant could not fail to be granted next day for the apprehension of Mr Quilp, and that a proper application and statement of all the circumstances to the secretary of state (who was fortunately in town), would no doubt procure Kit’s free pardon and liberation without delay.

Avendo ora raggiunto la conclusione del suo discorso, Sampson frenò la corrente della sua ira, baciò di nuovo il guanto e sorrise come possono fare solo i parassiti e i codardi.

«E questo», disse Miss Brass, alzando la testa, che fino a quel momento aveva appoggiato sulle mani, e scrutandolo dalla testa ai piedi con un ghigno amaro, «questo è mio fratello, dunque! Questo è mio fratello, per il quale ho lavorato e mi sono affaticata, e per il quale credevo che ci fosse qualcosa di umano in lui!»

«Sarah, mia cara», rispose Sampson, strofinandosi le mani debolmente; «disturbi i nostri amici. Inoltre tu—sei delusa, Sarah, e, non sapendo quello che dici, ti esponi».

«Sì, voi povero codardo», ribatté la donna incantevole, «vi ho capito. Voi temevate che io vi precedessi. Ma pensate che mi sarei lasciata indurre a dire una parola! L’avrei disprezzata, se avessero provato e tentato per vent’anni.»

«Ah ah!» sghignazzò Brass, che, nella sua profonda degenerazione, sembrava davvero aver scambiato sesso con sua sorella, e averle ceduto qualsiasi scintilla di virilità potesse aver posseduto. «Tu lo pensi, Sarah, forse lo pensi; ma avresti agito in modo completamente diverso, mio buon amico. Non avrai dimenticato che era un massimo di Foxey — nostro riverito padre, signori — “Sospetta sempre tutti.” Questo è il massimo con cui affrontare la vita! Se non fossi stato sul punto di acquistare la tua stessa sicurezza quando mi sono mostrato, sospetto che l’avresti fatto entro questo tempo. E quindi l’ho fatto io stesso, e ti ho risparmiato la fatica così bene come la vergogna. La vergogna, signori,» aggiunse Brass, permettendosi di essere leggermente sopraffatto, «se c’è, è mia. È meglio che una donna ne sia risparmiata.»

Con tutto il rispetto per l’opinione più fondata del signor Brass, e più particolarmente per l’autorità del suo Grande Antenato, si può dubitare, con umiltà, se il principio elevante stabilito da quest’ultimo gentiluomo, e messo in pratica dal suo discendente, sia sempre prudente, o se in pratica porti ai risultati desiderati. Questo è, senza dubbio, un dubbio audace e presuntuoso, in quanto molti personaggi distinti, chiamati uomini del mondo, clienti lungimiranti, cani astuti, individui perspicaci, mani eccellenti negli affari e simili, hanno fatto, e fanno quotidianamente, di questo assioma la loro stella polare e bussola. Tuttavia, il dubbio può essere insinuato con delicatezza. E a illustrazione di ciò si può osservare che se il signor Brass, non essendo eccessivamente sospettoso, avesse lasciato sua sorella a gestire la conferenza per conto loro, senza spiare e ascoltare, o avesse spiato e ascoltato, non sarebbe stato così terribilmente ansioso di anticiparla (il che non avrebbe fatto, se non per il suo sospetto e gelosia), probabilmente si sarebbe trovato molto meglio alla fine. Così, accadrà sempre che questi uomini del mondo, che attraversano la vita in armatura, si difendano da tanto bene quanto male; per non parlare dell’inconveniente e dell’assurdità di fare la guardia con un microscopio in ogni momento, e di indossare una cotta di maglia nelle occasioni più innocenti.

I tre signori parlarono insieme in disparte per qualche minuto. Al termine della loro consultazione, che fu molto breve, il notaio indicò i materiali per scrivere sul tavolo e informò il signor Brass che, se avesse voluto fare una dichiarazione scritta, avrebbe avuto l’opportunità di farlo. Allo stesso tempo si sentì in dovere di dirgli che avrebbero richiesto la sua presenza, in breve, davanti a un giudice di pace e che in ciò che faceva o diceva, era guidato interamente dalla sua stessa discrezione.

«Signori», disse Brass, togliendosi il guanto e strisciando in spirito sul terreno davanti a loro, «giustificherò la tenerezza con cui so di essere trattato; e poiché, senza tenerezza, ora che questa scoperta è stata fatta, mi troverei nella peggiore delle tre posizioni, potete star certi che mi confesserò. Signor Witherden, una specie di debolezza mi assale lo spirito—se vorreste farmi il favore di suonare il campanello e ordinare un bicchiere di qualcosa di caldo e speziato, avrò, nonostante quanto è accaduto, un malinconico piacere nel brindare alla vostra salute. Avevo sperato», disse Brass, guardandosi intorno con un sorriso malinconico, «di vedervi un giorno o l’altro, voi tre signori, con le gambe sotto il tavolo nel mio umile salotto ai Marks. Ma le speranze sono fugaci. Caro me!»

Il signor Brass si trovò così profondamente commosso, a questo punto, che non poté dire o fare altro finché non arrivò qualche rinfresco. Dopo averne fatto abbondante uso, considerato il suo stato di agitazione, si sedette per scrivere.

La graziosa Sarah, ora con le braccia incrociate, ora con le mani intrecciate dietro la schiena, percorreva la stanza a passi mascolini mentre suo fratello era così occupato, e talvolta si fermava per estrarre il tabacchiera e mordere il coperchio. Continuò a camminare avanti e indietro finché non fu completamente stanca, e poi si addormentò su una sedia vicino alla porta.

Si è supposto da allora, con qualche ragione, che questo sonno fosse una finzione, poiché riuscì a svignarsela inosservata nel crepuscolo del pomeriggio. Che si trattasse di una partenza intenzionale e in piena coscienza, o di un congedo sonnambulico e di una passeggiata nel suo sonno, può rimanere un argomento di contesa; ma, su un punto (e anzi il principale) tutti gli interessati sono d’accordo. In qualunque stato se ne sia andata, certo non è tornata indietro.

Avendo menzionato il crepuscolo del pomeriggio, si potrà dedurre che il compito del signor Brass richiese un po’ di tempo per essere completato. Non fu finito prima della sera; ma, una volta concluso, quel degno personaggio e i tre amici si recarono in una carrozza pubblica nell’ufficio privato di un giudice, il quale, dando al signor Brass un caloroso benvenuto e trattenendolo in un luogo sicuro per assicurarsi il piacere di rivederlo il giorno dopo, congedò gli altri con l’assicurazione rincuorante che il giorno successivo non avrebbe mancato di essere emesso un mandato per l’arresto del signor Quilp, e che una corretta domanda e una dichiarazione di tutte le circostanze al segretario di stato (che per fortuna si trovava in città) non avrebbe dubbio procurato la grazia e la liberazione immediata di Kit.

And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp’s malignant career was drawing to a close, and that retribution, which often travels slowly—especially when heaviest—had tracked his footsteps with a sure and certain scent and was gaining on him fast. Unmindful of her stealthy tread, her victim holds his course in fancied triumph. Still at his heels she comes, and once afoot, is never turned aside!

Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the lodgings of Mr Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favourably in his recovery as to have been able to sit up for half an hour, and to have conversed with cheerfulness. Mrs Garland had gone home some time since, but Mr Abel was still sitting with him. After telling him all they had done, the two Mr Garlands and the single gentleman, as if by some previous understanding, took their leaves for the night, leaving the invalid alone with the Notary and the small servant.

‘As you are so much better,’ said Mr Witherden, sitting down at the bedside, ‘I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which has come to me professionally.’

The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman connected with legal matters, appeared to afford Richard any-thing but a pleasing anticipation. Perhaps he connected it in his own mind with one or two outstanding accounts, in reference to which he had already received divers threatening letters. His countenance fell as he replied,

‘Certainly, sir. I hope it’s not anything of a very disagreeable nature, though?’

‘If I thought it so, I should choose some better time for communicating it,’ replied the Notary. ‘Let me tell you, first, that my friends who have been here to-day, know nothing of it, and that their kindness to you has been quite spontaneous and with no hope of return. It may do a thoughtless, careless man, good, to know that.’

Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would.

‘I have been making some inquiries about you,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘little thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as those which have brought us together. You are the nephew of Rebecca Swiveller, spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire.’

‘Deceased!’ cried Dick.

‘Deceased. If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have come into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to doubt it) of five-and-twenty thousand pounds. As it is, you have fallen into an annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but I think I may congratulate you even upon that.’

‘Sir,’ said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, ‘you may. For, please God, we’ll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet! And she shall walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I never rise from this bed again!’

E ora, davvero, sembrava che la carriera maligna di Quilp stesse volgendo al termine, e che la punizione, che spesso viaggia lentamente, specialmente quando è più grave, avesse seguito le sue orme con un fiuto sicuro e certo e lo stesse raggiungendo rapidamente. Ignaro del suo passo furtivo, la vittima prosegue il suo cammino in un trionfo immaginario. Ancora alle sue calcagna, lei arriva, e una volta in piedi, non si lascia mai distogliere!

Conclusi gli affari, i tre signori si affrettarono a tornare all’alloggio del signor Swiveller, che trovarono in un avanzato stato di guarigione, tanto da essere stato in grado di stare seduto per mezz’ora e di intrattenersi con allegria. La signora Garland era tornata a casa da qualche tempo, ma il signor Abel era ancora seduto con lui. Dopo avergli raccontato tutto ciò che avevano fatto, i due Garland e il signorino, come se fosse stato stabilito in precedenza, presero i loro congedi per la sera, lasciando l’infermo solo con il notaio e il piccolo domestico.

«Poiché vi sentite così meglio», disse il signor Witherden, sedendosi accanto al letto, «posso permettermi di comunicarvi una notizia che mi è giunta professionalmente.»

L’idea di ricevere informazioni professionali da un gentiluomo legato a questioni legali, sembrava offrire a Richard qualsiasi cosa tranne una piacevole anticipazione. Forse egli la collegava nella sua mente a uno o due conti in sospeso, riguardo ai quali aveva già ricevuto diverse lettere minacciose. Il suo volto si rabbuiò mentre rispondeva,

«Certamente, signore. Spero che non sia qualcosa di molto sgradevole, però?»

«Se lo pensassi, sceglierei un momento migliore per comunicarlo», rispose il notaio. «Prima di tutto, lasciatemi dire che i miei amici che sono stati qui oggi non ne sanno nulla, e che la loro gentilezza nei vostri confronti è stata del tutto spontanea e senza alcuna speranza di ricompensa. Può essere utile che un uomo sconsiderato e negligente lo sappia.»

Dick lo ringraziò e disse che sperava che fosse così.

«Ho fatto alcune indagini su di lei», disse il signor Witherden, «pensando poco che l’avrei trovata in circostanze come quelle che ci hanno riuniti. Lei è il nipote di Rebecca Swiveller, nubile, defunta, di Cheselbourne nel Dorsetshire.»

«Deceduto!» esclamò Dick.

«Defunto. Se tu fossi stato un altro tipo di nipote, saresti entrato in possesso (così recita il testamento, e non vedo motivo di dubitare di esso) di venticinquemila sterline. Com’è, sei caduto in un’annualità di centocinquanta sterline all’anno; ma credo che possa congratularmi anche per questo.»

«Signore», disse Dick, singhiozzando e ridendo insieme, «potete. Perché, con l’aiuto di Dio, faremo uno studioso della povera marchesa ancora! E camminerà in abiti di seta, e avrà denaro da spendere, o che io non mi alzi mai più da questo letto!»

CHAPTER 67

Unconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last chapter, and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung beneath him (for, to the end that he should have no warning of the business a-foot, the profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole transaction), Mr Quilp remained shut up in his hermitage, undisturbed by any suspicion, and extremely well satisfied with the result of his machinations. Being engaged in the adjustment of some accounts—an occupation to which the silence and solitude of his retreat were very favourable—he had not strayed from his den for two whole days. The third day of his devotion to this pursuit found him still hard at work, and little disposed to stir abroad.

It was the day next after Mr Brass’s confession, and consequently, that which threatened the restriction of Mr Quilp’s liberty, and the abrupt communication to him of some very unpleasant and unwelcome facts. Having no intuitive perception of the cloud which lowered upon his house, the dwarf was in his ordinary state of cheerfulness; and, when he found he was becoming too much engrossed by business with a due regard to his health and spirits, he varied its monotonous routine with a little screeching, or howling, or some other innocent relaxation of that nature.

He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the fire after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his master’s back was turned, imitating his grimaces with a fearful exactness. The figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained in its old place. The face, horribly seared by the frequent application of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the insertion, in the tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled blandly in its less lacerated parts, and seemed, like a sturdy martyr, to provoke its tormentor to the commission of new outrages and insults.

The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of the town, was damp, dark, cold and gloomy. In that low and marshy spot, the fog filled every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud. Every object was obscure at one or two yards’ distance. The warning lights and fires upon the river were powerless beneath this pall, and, but for a raw and piercing chillness in the air, and now and then the cry of some bewildered boatman as he rested on his oars and tried to make out where he was, the river itself might have been miles away.

The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly searching kind. No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out. It seemed to penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking wayfarers, and to rack them with cold and pains. Everything was wet and clammy to the touch. The warm blaze alone defied it, and leaped and sparkled merrily. It was a day to be at home, crowding about the fire, telling stories of travellers who had lost their way in such weather on heaths and moors; and to love a warm hearth more than ever.

The dwarf’s humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself; and when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone. By no means insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he ordered Tom Scott to pile the little stove with coals, and, dismissing his work for that day, determined to be jovial.

To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on the fire; and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself in somewhat of a savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great bowl of hot punch, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the evening.

At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his attention. When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly opened the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who was there.

‘Only me, Quilp,’ replied a woman’s voice.

‘Only you!’ cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better view of his visitor. ‘And what brings you here, you jade? How dare you approach the ogre’s castle, eh?’

‘I have come with some news,’ rejoined his spouse. ‘Don’t be angry with me.’

‘Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap his fingers?’ said the dwarf. ‘Is the dear old lady dead?’

‘I don’t know what news it is, or whether it’s good or bad,’ rejoined his wife.

‘Then she’s alive,’ said Quilp, ‘and there’s nothing the matter with her. Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home!’

‘I have brought a letter,’ cried the meek little woman.

‘Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,’ said Quilp, interrupting her, ‘or I’ll come out and scratch you.’

‘No, but please, Quilp—do hear me speak,’ urged his submissive wife, in tears. ‘Please do!’

‘Speak then,’ growled the dwarf with a malicious grin. ‘Be quick and short about it. Speak, will you?’

‘It was left at our house this afternoon,’ said Mrs Quilp, trembling, ‘by a boy who said he didn’t know from whom it came, but that it was given to him to leave, and that he was told to say it must be brought on to you directly, for it was of the very greatest consequence.—But please,’ she added, as her husband stretched out his hand for it, ‘please let me in. You don’t know how wet and cold I am, or how many times I have lost my way in coming here through this thick fog. Let me dry myself at the fire for five minutes. I’ll go away directly you tell me to, Quilp. Upon my word I will.’

Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments; but, bethinking himself that the letter might require some answer, of which she could be the bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade her enter. Mrs Quilp obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down before the fire to warm her hands, delivered into his a little packet.

CAPITOLO 67

Ignaro dei fatti fedelmente narrati nel capitolo precedente, e lontano dal sospettare la mina che gli era stata fatta esplodere sotto i piedi (perché, affinché non avesse alcun preavviso dell’operazione in corso, la massima segretezza era stata osservata in tutta la transazione), il signor Quilp rimase rinchiuso nel suo eremo, indisturbato da qualsiasi sospetto, e estremamente bene soddisfatto del risultato delle sue macchinazioni. Essendo impegnato nell’aggiustamento di alcuni conti—un’occupazione a cui il silenzio e la solitudine del suo rifugio erano molto favorevoli—non si era allontanato dalla sua tana per due giorni interi. Il terzo giorno della sua dedizione a questo compito lo trovò ancora al lavoro, e poco incline a uscire.

Era il giorno successivo alla confessione di Mr Brass, e di conseguenza quello che minacciava di restringere la libertà di Mr Quilp e di comunicargli in modo brusco alcuni fatti molto spiacevoli e indesiderati. Non avendo alcuna percezione intuitiva della nuvola che si addensava sulla sua casa, il nanerottolo era nel suo solito stato di allegria; e, quando si accorgeva di essere troppo assorbito dagli affari, con un giusto riguardo per la sua salute e il suo umore, variava la sua monotona routine con un po’ di strilli, o ululati, o qualche altra innocente distrazione di quel genere.

Come al solito, lo assisteva Tom Scott, che stava accovacciato sul fuoco come una rana, e, di tanto in tanto, quando il padrone si voltava, imitava le sue smorfie con una precisione spaventosa. La figura di prua non era ancora scomparsa, ma rimaneva al suo posto. Il volto, orribilmente segnato dalle frequenti applicazioni del poker rovente, e ulteriormente abbellito dall’inserimento, sulla punta del naso, di un chiodo da dieci penny, sorrideva ancora blandamente nelle sue parti meno lacerate, e sembrava, come un robusto martire, provocare il suo tormentatore a commettere nuove offese e insulti.

Il giorno, nei quartieri più alti e luminosi della città, era umido, buio, freddo e tetto. In quel luogo basso e paludoso, la nebbia riempiva ogni angolo con una spessa nuvola densa. Ogni oggetto era oscuro a una o due iarde di distanza. Le luci e i fuochi di avvertimento sul fiume erano impotenti sotto questo sudario, e, se non fosse stato per un freddo crudo e penetrante nell’aria, e di tanto in tanto il grido di qualche barcaiolo disorientato mentre si fermava sui remi e cercava di capire dove si trovasse, il fiume stesso avrebbe potuto trovarsi a miglia di distanza.

La nebbia, sebbene lenta e riluttante a muoversi, era di un genere penetrante. Nessun avvolgimento in pellicce e panni pesanti riusciva a tenerla fuori. Sembrava penetrare fino alle ossa dei viandanti rabbrividenti, e tormentarli con freddo e dolori. Tutto era umido e viscido al tatto. Solo la calda fiamma sola la sfidava, e danzava e scintillava allegra. Era una giornata da passare a casa, accalcati attorno al fuoco, raccontando storie di viaggiatori che si erano persi in simili condizioni su brughiere e paludi; e da amare un camino caldo più che mai.

L’nanerottolo aveva, come sappiamo, l’abitudine di stare da solo accanto al caminetto; e quando aveva voglia di fare baldoria, si divertiva da solo. Non era insensibile al piacere di stare al chiuso, ordinò a Tom Scott di riempire la piccola stufa di carbone, e, licenziando i suoi operai per quella giornata, decise di essere gioviale.

A tal fine, accese candele nuove e aggiunse altro combustibile al fuoco; e dopo essersi cibato di una bistecca, che cucinò lui stesso in un modo piuttosto selvaggio e cannibalesco, preparò una grande ciotola di punch caldo, si accese la pipa e si sedette per trascorrere la serata.

In quel momento, un lieve bussare alla porta della cabina attirò la sua attenzione. Quando fu ripetuto due o tre volte, aprì dolcemente la piccola finestra, e sporgendosi, chiese chi fosse.

«Solo io, Quilp», rispose una voce di donna.

«Solo tu!» gridò il nanerottolo, allungando il collo per ottenere una migliore vista del suo visitatore. «E cosa ti porta qui, tu strega? Come osi avvicinarti al castello dell’orco, eh?»

«Sono venuta a portare delle novità», rispose la moglie. «Non arrabbiarti con me.»

«È una buona notizia, una notizia piacevole, una notizia che fa saltare e schioccare le dita?» disse il nanerottolo. «È morta la cara vecchia signora?»

«Non so quale sia questa notizia, né se sia buona o cattiva», replicò la moglie.

«Allora è viva», disse Quilp, «e non c’è niente che non va con lei. Torna a casa, uccello di cattivo presagio, torna a casa!»

«Ho portato una lettera», esclamò la piccola donna mite.

«Lanciala dal finestra qui, e vattene,» disse Quilp, interrompendola, «o esco e ti graffio.»

«No, ma per favore, Quilp, ascoltami», implorò sua moglie sottomessa, in lacrime. «Ti prego, fallo!»

«Parla dunque», ringhiò il nanerottolo con un ghigno malizioso. «Sii rapido e conciso. Parla, vuoi?»

«È stato lasciato alla nostra casa questa sera», disse la signora Quilp, tremando, «da un ragazzo che ha detto di non sapere da chi provenisse, ma che gli era stato dato di lasciare, e che gli era stato detto di dire che doveva essere portato immediatamente a voi, perché era di importanza capitale.—Ma prego», aggiunse, mentre suo marito tendeva la mano per prenderlo, «prego, lasciatemi entrare. Non sapete quanto sono bagnata e fredda, o quante volte mi sono persa venendo qui attraverso questa fitta nebbia. Lasciatemi asciugarmi al fuoco per cinque minuti. Me ne andrò non appena mi direte di farlo, Quilp. Lo giuro.»

Il suo amabile marito esitò per qualche istante; ma, riflettendo che la lettera potesse richiedere una risposta, di cui lei poteva essere la portatrice, chiuse la finestra, aprì la porta e le disse di entrare. La signora Quilp obbedì con grande piacere e, inginocchiandosi davanti al fuoco per riscaldarsi le mani, gli consegnò un piccolo pacchetto.

‘I’m glad you’re wet,’ said Quilp, snatching it, and squinting at her. ‘I’m glad you’re cold. I’m glad you lost your way. I’m glad your eyes are red with crying. It does my heart good to see your little nose so pinched and frosty.’

‘Oh Quilp!’ sobbed his wife. ‘How cruel it is of you!’

‘Did she think I was dead?’ said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a most extraordinary series of grimaces. ‘Did she think she was going to have all the money, and to marry somebody she liked? Ha ha ha! Did she?’

These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who remained on her knees, warming her hands, and sobbing, to Mr Quilp’s great delight. But, just as he was contemplating her, and chuckling excessively, he happened to observe that Tom Scott was delighted too; wherefore, that he might have no presumptuous partner in his glee, the dwarf instantly collared him, dragged him to the door, and after a short scuffle, kicked him into the yard. In return for this mark of attention, Tom immediately walked upon his hands to the window, and—if the expression be allowable—looked in with his shoes: besides rattling his feet upon the glass like a Banshee upside down. As a matter of course, Mr Quilp lost no time in resorting to the infallible poker, with which, after some dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his young friend one or two such unequivocal compliments that he vanished precipitately, and left him in quiet possession of the field.

‘So! That little job being disposed of,’ said the dwarf, coolly, ‘I’ll read my letter. Humph!’ he muttered, looking at the direction. ‘I ought to know this writing. Beautiful Sally!’

Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows:

‘Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence. It has all come out. You had better not be in the way, for strangers are going to call upon you. They have been very quiet as yet, because they mean to surprise you. Don’t lose time. I didn’t. I am not to be found anywhere. If I was you, I wouldn’t either. S. B., late of B. M.’

To describe the changes that passed over Quilp’s face, as he read this letter half-a-dozen times, would require some new language: such, for power of expression, as was never written, read, or spoken. For a long time he did not utter one word; but, after a considerable interval, during which Mrs Quilp was almost paralysed with the alarm his looks engendered, he contrived to gasp out,

‘If I had him here. If I only had him here—’

‘Oh Quilp!’ said his wife, ‘what’s the matter? Who are you angry with?’

‘—I should drown him,’ said the dwarf, not heeding her. ‘Too easy a death, too short, too quick—but the river runs close at hand. Oh! if I had him here! just to take him to the brink coaxingly and pleasantly,—holding him by the button-hole—joking with him,—and, with a sudden push, to send him splashing down! Drowning men come to the surface three times they say. Ah! To see him those three times, and mock him as his face came bobbing up,—oh, what a rich treat that would be!’

‘Quilp!’ stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch him on the shoulder: ‘what has gone wrong?’

She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this pleasure to himself that she could scarcely make herself intelligible.

‘Such a bloodless cur!’ said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly, and pressing them tight together. ‘I thought his cowardice and servility were the best guarantee for his keeping silence. Oh Brass, Brass—my dear, good, affectionate, faithful, complimentary, charming friend—if I only had you here!’

His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak, when he hurried to the door, and called Tom Scott, who, remembering his late gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear immediately.

‘There!’ said the dwarf, pulling him in. ‘Take her home. Don’t come here to-morrow, for this place will be shut up. Come back no more till you hear from me or see me. Do you mind?’

Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs Quilp to lead the way.

‘As for you,’ said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, ‘ask no questions about me, make no search for me, say nothing concerning me. I shall not be dead, mistress, and that’ll comfort you. He’ll take care of you.’

‘But, Quilp? What is the matter? Where are you going? Do say something more?’

‘I’ll say that,’ said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, ‘and do that too, which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you go directly.’

‘Has anything happened?’ cried his wife. ‘Oh! Do tell me that?’

‘Yes,’ snarled the dwarf. ‘No. What matter which? I have told you what to do. Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me by a hair’s breadth. Will you go!’

‘I am going, I’ll go directly; but,’ faltered his wife, ‘answer me one question first. Has this letter any connexion with dear little Nell? I must ask you that—I must indeed, Quilp. You cannot think what days and nights of sorrow I have had through having once deceived that child. I don’t know what harm I may have brought about, but, great or little, I did it for you, Quilp. My conscience misgave me when I did it. Do answer me this question, if you please?’

The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and caught up his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott dragged his charge away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could. It was well he did so, for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage, pursued them to the neighbouring lane, and might have prolonged the chase but for the dense mist which obscured them from his view and appeared to thicken every moment.

‘It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,’ he said, as he returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run. ‘Stay. We may look better here. This is too hospitable and free.’

«Sono contento che tu sia bagnata», disse Quilp, strappandoglielo di mano e guardandola di traverso. «Sono contento che tu abbia freddo. Sono contento che ti sia persa. Sono contento che tu abbia gli occhi rossi dal pianto. Mi fa piacere vedere il tuo piccolo nasino così arrossato e gelato.»

“Oh Quilp!” singhiozzò sua moglie. “Come puoi essere così crudele!”

«Pensava che fossi morto?» disse Quilp, contorcendo il viso in una serie di smorfie straordinarie. «Pensava che avrebbe avuto tutti i soldi e che si sarebbe sposata con qualcuno che le piaceva? Ha ha ha! Pensava questo?»

Questi sarcasmi non suscitarono alcuna risposta dalla povera donna, che rimase in ginocchio, riscaldandosi le mani e singhiozzando, grande soddisfazione del signor Quilp. Ma proprio mentre la stava osservando e ridacchiava in modo eccessivo, si accorse che anche Tom Scott era divertito; per cui, affinché non avesse un presuntuoso compagno nella sua gioia, il nanerottolo lo afferrò immediatamente per il collo, lo trascinò alla porta e, dopo una breve lotta, lo calciò nel cortile. In cambio di questo segno di attenzione, Tom si mise immediatamente a camminare sulle mani fino alla finestra, e—se l’espressione è ammissibile—guardò dentro con le scarpe: oltre a far tintinnare i piedi sul vetro come una Banshee sottosopra. Come è ovvio, il signor Quilp non perse tempo nel ricorrere al suo infallibile attizzatoio, con il quale, dopo qualche schivata e agguato, fece al suo giovane amico uno o due complimenti così inequivocabili che questi sparì precipitosamente, lasciandolo in tranquilla possesso del campo.

«Ecco! Ora che quel piccolo lavoro è stato sbrigato», disse il nanerottolo, con calma, «leggerò la mia lettera. Humph!», borbottò, guardando l’indirizzo. «Dovrei conoscere questa scrittura. Bella Sally!»

Aprì il documento e lesse, in una bella calligrafia rotonda e legale, quanto segue:

«Sammy è stato ingannato e ha tradito la fiducia. Tutto è venuto a galla. È meglio che tu non ti faccia vedere, perché degli estranei verranno a cercarti. Finora sono stati molto tranquilli, perché vogliono farti una sorpresa. Non perdere tempo. Io non l’ho fatto. Non mi si trova da nessuna parte. Se fossi in te, nemmeno io mi farei trovare. S. B., ex di B. M.»

Per descrivere i cambiamenti che si dipinsero sul volto di Quilp mentre leggeva questa lettera una mezza dozzina di volte, sarebbe necessaria una nuova lingua: una lingua, per potere espressivo, mai scritta, letta o parlata. Per un lungo periodo non proferì parola; ma, dopo un intervallo considerevole, durante il quale la signora Quilp era quasi paralizzata dall’allarme che lo sguardo del marito aveva suscitato in lei, riuscì a balbettare:

‘Avessi qui lui. Se almeno lo avessi qui, ’

“Ah, Quilp!” disse sua moglie, “che succede? Con chi sei arrabbiato?”

«—Lo affogherei», disse il nanerottolo, senza badare a lei. «Una morte troppo facile, troppo breve, troppo rapida — ma il fiume scorre vicino. Oh! se lo avessi qui! Solo per portarlo al bordo in modo amichevole e piacevole, — tenendolo per il risvolto della giacca — scherzando con lui, — e, con una spinta improvvisa, mandarlo a schizzare giù! Si dice che gli uomini che annegano riemergano tre volte. Ah! Vedere lui quelle tre volte, e prenderlo in giro mentre il suo viso rispunta in superficie, — oh, che delizia sarebbe!»

«Quilp!», balbettò sua moglie, cercando nello stesso tempo di toccargli la spalla: «che cosa è successo?»

Era così terrorizzata dal gusto con cui egli si dipingeva questo piacere che a malapena riusciva a rendersi intelligibile.

«Che cane senza spina dorsale!» disse Quilp, strofinandosi le mani molto lentamente e stringendole forte insieme. «Pensavo che la sua codardia e servilità fossero la migliore garanzia per il suo mantenere silenzio. Oh, Brass, Brass, mio caro, buon, affettuoso, fedele, lusinghiero, affascinante amico, se solo ti avessi qui!»

Sua moglie, che si era ritirata per non sembrare che ascoltasse quei mormorii, osò avvicinarsi di nuovo a lui e stava per parlare, quando lui si precipitò alla porta e chiamò Tom Scott, che, ricordando il suo recente gentile ammonimento, ritenne prudente apparire immediatamente.

«Ecco!» disse il nanerottolo, tirandolo dentro. «Portala a casa. Non venire domani, perché questo posto sarà chiuso. Non tornare più finché non senti qualcosa da me o non mi vedi. Hai capito?»

Tom annuì con aria scontrosa e fece cenno alla signora Quilp di aprire la strada.

«Per quanto ti riguarda», disse il nanerottolo, rivolgendosi a lei, «non fare domande su di me, non cercarmi, non dire nulla a mio riguardo. Non sarò morto, signora, e questo ti consolerà. Lui si prenderà cura di te.»

‘Ma Quilp? Che succede? Dove stai andando? Di’ qualcosa di più!’

«Lo dirò», disse il nanerottolo, afferrandola per il braccio, «e farò anche questo, che sarebbe meglio non fare e non dire, a meno che tu non vada immediatamente.»

“È successo qualcosa?” esclamò sua moglie. “Oh! Dimmi almeno questo!”

‘Sì,’ ringhiò il nanerottolo. ‘No. Che importa? Vi ho detto cosa fare. Guai a voi se non lo fate, o se disobbedite anche solo di un capello. Andate!’

«Me ne vado, andrò subito; ma», balbettò sua moglie, «rispondimi prima a una domanda. Questa lettera ha qualcosa a che fare con la cara piccola Nell? Devo chiedertelo, devo proprio, Quilp. Non puoi immaginare quali giorni e notti di dolore ho passato per aver ingannato quella bambina. Non so quale danno possa aver causato, ma, grande o piccolo che sia, l’ho fatto per te, Quilp. La mia coscienza mi rimordeva quando lo feci. Rispondimi a questa domanda, ti prego?»

Il nanerottolo esasperato non rispose, ma si voltò e afferrò la sua solita arma con tale veemenza che Tom Scott trascinò via la sua protetta con la forza e il più velocemente possibile. Fu bene che lo fece, perché Quilp, che era quasi fuori di sé dalla rabbia, li inseguì fino al vicolo vicino e avrebbe potuto prolungare la caccia se non fosse stato per la fitta nebbia che li nascondeva alla sua vista e sembrava addensarsi di momento in momento.

«Sarà una buona notte per viaggiare in incognito», disse, mentre tornava lentamente, essendo piuttosto riposato dopo la sua corsa. «Aspetta. Potremmo avere un aspetto migliore qui. Questo posto è troppo ospitale e aperto».

By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam. That done, he shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried them.—Strong and fast.

‘The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,’ said the dwarf, when he had taken these precautions. ‘There’s a back lane, too, from there. That shall be my way out. A man need know his road well, to find it in this lovely place to-night. I need fear no unwelcome visitors while this lasts, I think.’

Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands (it had grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he returned to his lair; and, after musing for some time over the fire, busied himself in preparations for a speedy departure.

While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into his pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low voice, or unclenched his teeth, which he had ground together on finishing Miss Brass’s note.

‘Oh Sampson!’ he muttered, ‘good worthy creature—if I could but hug you! If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your ribs, as I COULD squeeze them if I once had you tight—what a meeting there would be between us! If we ever do cross each other again, Sampson, we’ll have a greeting not easily to be forgotten, trust me. This time, Sampson, this moment when all had gone on so well, was so nicely chosen! It was so thoughtful of you, so penitent, so good. Oh, if we were face to face in this room again, my white-livered man of law, how well contented one of us would be!’

There he stopped; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank a long deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his parched mouth. Setting it down abruptly, and resuming his preparations, he went on with his soliloquy.

‘There’s Sally,’ he said, with flashing eyes; ‘the woman has spirit, determination, purpose—was she asleep, or petrified? She could have stabbed him—poisoned him safely. She might have seen this coming on. Why does she give me notice when it’s too late? When he sat there,—yonder there, over there,—with his white face, and red head, and sickly smile, why didn’t I know what was passing in his heart? It should have stopped beating, that night, if I had been in his secret, or there are no drugs to lull a man to sleep, or no fire to burn him!’

Another draught from the bowl; and, cowering over the fire with a ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again.

‘And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child—two wretched feeble wanderers! I’ll be their evil genius yet. And you, sweet Kit, honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to yourself. Where I hate, I bite. I hate you, my darling fellow, with good cause, and proud as you are to-night, I’ll have my turn.----What’s that?’

A knocking at the gate he had closed. A loud and violent knocking. Then, a pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen. Then, the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before.

‘So soon!’ said the dwarf. ‘And so eager! I am afraid I shall disappoint you. It’s well I’m quite prepared. Sally, I thank you!’

As he spoke, he extinguished the candle. In his impetuous attempts to subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which came tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning embers it had shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy darkness. The noise at the gate still continuing, he felt his way to the door, and stepped into the open air.

At that moment the knocking ceased. It was about eight o’clock; but the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in comparison with the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth, and shrouded everything from view. He darted forward for a few paces, as if into the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern; then, thinking he had gone wrong, changed the direction of his steps; then stood still, not knowing where to turn.

‘If they would knock again,’ said Quilp, trying to peer into the gloom by which he was surrounded, ‘the sound might guide me! Come! Batter the gate once more!’

He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed. Nothing was to be heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals, the distant barkings of dogs. The sound was far away—now in one quarter, now answered in another—nor was it any guide, for it often came from shipboard, as he knew.

‘If I could find a wall or fence,’ said the dwarf, stretching out his arms, and walking slowly on, ‘I should know which way to turn. A good, black, devil’s night this, to have my dear friend here! If I had but that wish, it might, for anything I cared, never be day again.’

As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell—and next moment was fighting with the cold dark water!

For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the knocking at the gate again—could hear a shout that followed it—could recognise the voice. For all his struggling and plashing, he could understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered back to the point from which they started; that they were all but looking on, while he was drowned; that they were close at hand, but could not make an effort to save him; that he himself had shut and barred them out. He answered the shout—with a yell, which seemed to make the hundred fires that danced before his eyes tremble and flicker, as if a gust of wind had stirred them. It was of no avail. The strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on, upon its rapid current.

Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water with his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that showed him some black object he was drifting close upon. The hull of a ship! He could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand. One loud cry, now—but the resistless water bore him down before he could give it utterance, and, driving him under it, carried away a corpse.

It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp—a dismal place where pirates had swung in chains through many a wintry night—and left it there to bleach.

And there it lay alone. The sky was red with flame, and the water that bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it flowed along. The place the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was now a blazing ruin. There was something of the glare upon its face. The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of death—such a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted in when alive—about its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night wind.

Con un grande sforzo di forza, chiuse le due vecchie porte, che erano profondamente affondate nel fango, e le bloccò con un pesante trave. Fatto ciò, si scosse i capelli arruffati dagli occhi e le provò. — Forti e solide.

«Il recinto tra questo molo e quello successivo è facilmente scalabile», disse il nanerottolo, quando aveva preso queste precauzioni. «C’è anche un vicolo sul retro, da lì. Sarà la mia via di fuga. Un uomo deve conoscere bene la sua strada per trovarla in questo delizioso posto stasera. Non ho paura di visitatori indesiderati mentre dura questa situazione, credo.»

Quasi ridotto alla necessità di tastare la strada con le mani (era diventato così buio e la nebbia si era così addensata), tornò al suo rifugio; e, dopo aver meditato per qualche tempo davanti al fuoco, si dedicò ai preparativi per una rapida partenza.

Mentre raccoglieva alcuni oggetti necessari e li infilava nelle tasche, non smise mai di parlare tra sé a bassa voce né di stringere i denti, che aveva digrignato finendo di leggere il biglietto della signorina Brass.

«Oh, Sampson!» mormorò, «buona creatura degna di stima, se solo potessi abbracciarti! Se solo potessi stringerti tra le mie braccia e comprimerti le costole, come potrei farlo se ti avessi saldamente tra le mani, che incontro sarebbe tra noi! Se mai dovessimo incrociarci di nuovo, Sampson, avremo un saluto che non si dimentica facilmente, credimi. Questo momento, Sampson, questo istante in cui tutto era andato così bene, è stato scelto così bene! È stato così premuroso da parte tua, così pentito, così buono. Oh, se fossimo di nuovo faccia a faccia in questa stanza, mio avvocato dal cuore di gallina, quanto uno di noi sarebbe bene contento!»

Lì si fermò; e portando la coppa di punch alle labbra, bevve un lungo sorso profondo, come se fosse acqua pura e rinfrescante per la sua bocca arida. Posandola bruscamente e riprendendo i suoi preparativi, continuò il suo monologo.

«C’è Sally», disse, con gli occhi che brillavano; «la donna ha spirito, determinazione, scopo: era addormentata, o pietrificata? Avrebbe potuto pugnalarlo, avvelenarlo in tutta sicurezza. Avrebbe potuto vedere che questo sarebbe accaduto. Perché mi avverte quando è troppo tardi? Quando sedeva là,—laggiù, là in fondo,—con il suo viso pallido, e la testa rossa, e il sorriso malaticcio, perché non ho saputo cosa gli passava per il cuore? Avrebbe dovuto smettere di battere, quella notte, se avessi conosciuto il suo segreto, o non ci sono droghe per cullare un uomo al sonno, o nessun fuoco per bruciarlo!»

Un altro sorso dalla coppa; e, accovacciato sul fuoco con un aspetto feroce, borbottò di nuovo tra sé.

«E questo, come ogni altro problema e preoccupazione che ho avuto ultimamente, deriva da quel vecchio decrepito e dalla sua adorata figlia—due poveri vagabondi deboli! Sarò il loro genio maligno. E tu, dolce Kit, onesto Kit, virtuoso, innocente Kit, bada a te stesso. Dove odio, morso. Ti odio, mio caro ragazzo, con buona ragione, e orgoglioso come sei stasera, avrò la mia rivincita.----Che cos’è?»

Un bussare al cancello che aveva chiuso. Un bussare forte e violento. Poi, una pausa; come se chi bussava si fosse fermato ad ascoltare. Poi, il rumore di nuovo, più clamoroso e importuno di prima.

«Così presto!» disse il nanerottolo. «E così impaziente! Temo di deludervi. È bene che io sia del tutto preparato. Sally, vi ringrazio!»

Mentre parlava, spense la candela. Nei suoi impetuosi tentativi di domare la luminosità del fuoco, rovesciò la stufa, che cadde in avanti e si abbatté con un tonfo sulle braci ardenti che aveva scagliato fuori durante la caduta, lasciando la stanza nel buio più profondo. Il rumore al cancello continuava, così si fece strada verso la porta e uscì all’aperto.

In quel momento i colpi cessarono. Erano circa le otto di sera; ma la morte della più buia notte sarebbe stata come il giorno di mezzogiorno in confronto alla spessa nuvola che allora gravava sulla terra, avvolgendo tutto alla vista. Si precipitò in avanti per alcuni passi, come se fosse entrato nella bocca di qualche caverna oscura e spalancata; poi, pensando di essersi sbagliato, cambiò direzione; poi si fermò, non sapendo dove andare.

«Se bussassero di nuovo», disse Quilp, cercando di scrutare nell’oscurità che lo circondava, «il rumore potrebbe guidarmi! Avanti! Picchiate ancora una volta alla porta!»

Rimase in ascolto con attenzione, ma il rumore non si ripeté. In quel luogo deserto non si udiva nulla, se non, a intervalli, l’abbaiare lontano dei cani. Il suono era lontano, ora in una direzione, ora risposto in un’altra, e non era di alcuna utilità, perché spesso proveniva da una nave, come sapeva.

«Se potessi trovare un muro o una recinzione», disse il nano, allungando le braccia e camminando lentamente, «saprei da che parte andare. Che buia, nera, diavolesca notte per avere qui il mio caro amico! Se solo avessi quel desiderio, potrebbe, per quanto mi riguarda, non essere mai più giorno».

Appena la parola gli uscì dalle labbra, vacillò e cadde - e nel momento successivo stava lottando con la fredda e scura acqua!

Nonostante il fruscio e il ronzio nelle orecchie, riusciva a sentire bussare di nuovo al cancello, a sentire un grido che lo seguiva, a riconoscere la voce. Nonostante le sue lotte e i suoi sforzi, capiva che si erano persi e avevano vagato fino al punto di partenza; che erano quasi lì a guardare mentre lui annegava; che erano vicini, ma non potevano fare nulla per salvarlo; che lui stesso li aveva chiusi fuori. Rispose al grido con un urlo che sembrò far tremare e vacillare le cento fiamme che danzavano davanti ai suoi occhi, come se una folata di vento le avesse smosse. Non servì a nulla. La forte corrente riempì la sua gola e lo trascinò via, sulla sua rapida corrente.

Un altro combattimento mortale, e lui era di nuovo in piedi, battendo l’acqua con le mani, e guardando fuori, con occhi selvaggi e spalancati che gli mostravano un oggetto nero verso cui stava deriva. Lo scafo di una nave! Poteva toccare con la mano la sua superficie liscia e scivolosa. Un grido forte, ora — ma l’acqua irresistibile lo trascinò giù prima che potesse emetterlo, e, spingendolo sotto di essa, portò via un cadavere.

Giocava e si divertiva con il suo orribile carico, ora sbattendolo contro i piloni viscidi, ora nascondendolo nel fango o nell’erba alta e fitta, ora trascinandolo pesantemente su pietre ruvide e ghiaia, ora fingendo di cederlo al suo stesso elemento, e nello stesso gesto attirandolo lontano, finché, stanco del brutto giocattolo, lo gettò in una palude, un luogo desolato dove i pirati erano stati appesi in catene per molte notti invernali, e lo lasciò lì a sbiancarsi.

E lì giaceva solo. Il cielo era rosso di fiamme, e l’acqua che lo aveva portato lì era stata tinta dalla luce cupa mentre scorreva. Il luogo che il cadavere abbandonato aveva lasciato così di recente, un uomo vivente, era ora una rovina in fiamme. C’era qualcosa della luce accecante sul suo volto. I capelli, mossi dalla brezza umida, giocavano in una specie di beffa della morte — una beffa di cui lo stesso uomo morto si sarebbe dilettato da vivo — intorno alla sua testa, e i suoi vestiti svolazzavano oziosamente nel vento notturno.

CHAPTER 68

Lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad voices, words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of happiness—what a change is this! But it is to such delights that Kit is hastening. They are awaiting him, he knows. He fears he will die of joy, before he gets among them.

They have prepared him for this, all day. He is not to be carried off to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first. By degrees they let him know that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be made, and perhaps he may be pardoned after all. At last, the evening being come, they bring him to a room where some gentlemen are assembled. Foremost among them is his good old master, who comes and takes him by the hand. He hears that his innocence is established, and that he is pardoned. He cannot see the speaker, but he turns towards the voice, and in trying to answer, falls down insensible.

They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear this like a man. Somebody says he must think of his poor mother. It is because he does think of her so much, that the happy news had overpowered him. They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth has gone abroad, and that all the town and country ring with sympathy for his misfortunes. He has no ears for this. His thoughts, as yet, have no wider range than home. Does she know it? what did she say? who told her? He can speak of nothing else.

They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a while, until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them. He is free to go. Mr Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is time they went away. The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake hands with him. He feels very grateful to them for the interest they have in him, and for the kind promises they make; but the power of speech is gone again, and he has much ado to keep his feet, even though leaning on his master’s arm.

As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail who are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on his release. The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is not quite hearty—there is something of surliness in his compliments. He looks upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has obtained admission to that place on false pretences, who has enjoyed a privilege without being duly qualified. He may be a very good sort of young man, he thinks, but he has no business there, and the sooner he is gone, the better.

The last door shuts behind them. They have passed the outer wall, and stand in the open air—in the street he has so often pictured to himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been in all his dreams. It seems wider and more busy than it used to be. The night is bad, and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes! One of the gentlemen, in taking leave of him, pressed some money into his hand. He has not counted it; but when they have gone a few paces beyond the box for poor Prisoners, he hastily returns and drops it in.

Mr Garland has a coach waiting in a neighbouring street, and, taking Kit inside with him, bids the man drive home. At first, they can only travel at a foot pace, and then with torches going on before, because of the heavy fog. But, as they get farther from the river, and leave the closer portions of the town behind, they are able to dispense with this precaution and to proceed at a brisker rate. On the road, hard galloping would be too slow for Kit; but, when they are drawing near their journey’s end, he begs they may go more slowly, and, when the house appears in sight, that they may stop—only for a minute or two, to give him time to breathe.

But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly to him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the garden-gate. Next minute, they are at the door. There is a noise of tongues, and tread of feet, inside. It opens. Kit rushes in, and finds his mother clinging round his neck.

And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara’s mother, still holding the baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day when they little hoped to have such joy as this—there she is, Heaven bless her, crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman sobbed before; and there is little Barbara—poor little Barbara, so much thinner and so much paler, and yet so very pretty—trembling like a leaf and supporting herself against the wall; and there is Mrs Garland, neater and nicer than ever, fainting away stone dead with nobody to help her; and there is Mr Abel, violently blowing his nose, and wanting to embrace everybody; and there is the single gentleman hovering round them all, and constant to nothing for an instant; and there is that good, dear, thoughtful little Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on the bottom stair, with his hands on his knees like an old man, roaring fearfully without giving any trouble to anybody; and each and all of them are for the time clean out of their wits, and do jointly and severally commit all manner of follies.

And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves again, and can find words and smiles, Barbara—that soft-hearted, gentle, foolish little Barbara—is suddenly missed, and found to be in a swoon by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she falls into hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again, and is, indeed, so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar and cold water she is hardly a bit better at last than she was at first. Then, Kit’s mother comes in and says, will he come and speak to her; and Kit says ‘Yes,’ and goes; and he says in a kind voice ‘Barbara!’ and Barbara’s mother tells her that ‘it’s only Kit;’ and Barbara says (with her eyes closed all the time) ‘Oh! but is it him indeed?’ and Barbara’s mother says ‘To be sure it is, my dear; there’s nothing the matter now.’ And in further assurance that he’s safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again; and then Barbara goes off into another fit of laughter, and then into another fit of crying; and then Barbara’s mother and Kit’s mother nod to each other and pretend to scold her—but only to bring her to herself the faster, bless you!—and being experienced matrons, and acute at perceiving the first dawning symptoms of recovery, they comfort Kit with the assurance that ‘she’ll do now,’ and so dismiss him to the place from whence he came.

CAPITOLO 68

Stanze illuminate, fuochi vivaci, volti sorridenti, la musica di voci gioiose, parole di amore e accoglienza, cuori caldi e lacrime di felicità: che cambiamento è questo! Ma sono proprio a tali delizie che Kit sta correndo. Lo stanno aspettando, lo sa. Ha paura di morire di gioia prima di raggiungerli.

L’hanno preparato per questo tutto il giorno. Non verrà portato via domani con gli altri, gli dicono prima. Poi, gradualmente, gli fanno sapere che sono sorti dei dubbi, che verranno fatte delle indagini e che forse, dopotutto, potrebbe essere perdonato. Infine, giunta la sera, lo portano in una stanza dove sono riuniti alcuni signori. Tra questi spicca il suo buon vecchio padrone, che si avvicina e lo prende per mano. Apprende che la sua innocenza è stata accertata e che è stato perdonato. Non riesce a vedere chi parla, ma si gira verso la voce e, nel tentativo di rispondere, cade a terra privo di sensi.

Lo recuperano di nuovo e gli dicono che deve calmarsi e sopportare tutto questo da uomo. Qualcuno dice che deve pensare alla sua povera madre. È proprio perché ci pensa tanto che la felice notizia lo ha sopraffatto. Si accalcano intorno a lui e gli dicono che la verità è trapelata e che tutta la città e la campagna sono in fermento di simpatia per le sue disgrazie. Lui non ha orecchie per questo. I suoi pensieri, per ora, non vanno oltre casa. Lo sa? Cosa ha detto? Chi gliel’ha detto? Non riesce a parlare d’altro.

Gli fanno bere un po’ di vino e gli parlano gentilmente per un po’, finché non si riprende e riesce a stare in piedi, ad ascoltare e a ringraziarli. È libero di andarsene. Il signor Garland pensa che, se si sente meglio, è ora che vadano via. I signori si radunano intorno a lui e gli stringono la mano. È molto grato per l’interesse che dimostrano nei suoi confronti e per le promesse gentili che gli fanno; ma la capacità di parlare è svanita di nuovo e fa fatica a stare in piedi, anche appoggiandosi al braccio del suo padrone.

Mentre passano per i corridoi tetri, alcuni ufficiali della prigione che li aspettano lì lo congratulano, a modo loro rude, per la sua liberazione. Il mercante di notizie è tra loro, ma il suo modo non è del tutto cordiale: c’è qualcosa di scontrosità nei suoi complimenti. Guarda Kit come un intruso, come uno che ha ottenuto l’accesso a quel luogo con false premesse, che ha goduto di un privilegio senza essere dovutamente qualificato. Potrebbe essere un ragazzo molto bravo, pensa, ma non ha nulla da fare lì, e prima se ne va, meglio è.

L’ultima porta si chiude dietro di loro. Hanno superato il muro esterno e si trovano all’aria aperta, nella strada che lui si è così spesso immaginato quando era circondato dalle cupide pietre, e che è stata in tutti i suoi sogni. Sembra più larga e più affollata di quanto fosse prima. La notte è brutta, eppure quanto appare allegra e gaia ai suoi occhi! Uno dei signori, nel prender congedo da lui, gli ha infilato in mano un po’ di denaro. Non lo ha contato; ma quando hanno fatto qualche passo oltre la cassetta per i poveri prigionieri, torna indietro di corsa e lo getta dentro.

Il signor Garland ha una carrozza in attesa in una strada vicina, e, facendo entrare Kit con sé, ordina all’uomo di guidare a casa. All’inizio, possono procedere solo a passo d’uomo, e poi con torce che vanno avanti, a causa della fitta nebbia. Ma, man mano che si allontanano dal fiume, e lasciano alle spalle le parti più strette della città, riescono a fare a meno di questa precauzione e a procedere a un ritmo più svelto. Sulla strada, un galoppo veloce sarebbe troppo lento per Kit; ma, quando si avvicinano alla fine del loro viaggio, lui chiede che vadano più lentamente, e, quando la casa appare in vista, che si fermi—solo per un minuto o due, per dargli tempo di riprendere fiato.

Ma non c’è tempo di fermarsi, perché il vecchio signore gli parla con fermezza, i cavalli aumentano il passo e sono già al cancello del giardino. Un attimo dopo, sono alla porta. All’interno si sentono voci e passi. La porta si apre. Kit si precipita dentro e trova sua madre che gli stringe il collo.

E c’è anche la sempre fedele madre di Barbara, che ancora tiene il bambino come se non lo avesse mai messo giù da quel triste giorno in cui avevano poco sperato di avere una gioia come questa — eccola lì, il Cielo la benedica, piangendo a dirotto e singhiozzando come nessuna donna ha mai fatto prima; e c’è la piccola Barbara — povera piccola Barbara, così magra e così pallida, e ppure così molto carina — tremante come una foglia e sostenendosi contro il muro; e c’è la signora Garland, più ordinata e più graziosa che mai, che sviene senza vita senza che nessuno la aiuti; e c’è il signor Abel, che si soffia il naso violentemente, e vuole abbracciare tutti; e c’è il signorino scapolo che gira intorno a tutti loro, e non è costante a nulla per un istante; e c’è quel buono, caro, premuroso piccolo Jacob, seduto tutto solo da solo sul gradino più basso, con le mani sulle ginocchia come un vecchio, che ruggisce terribilmente senza dare alcun disturbo a nessuno; e ciascuno e tutti loro sono per il momento completamente fuori di sé, e commettono congiuntamente e separatamente ogni sorta di follie.

E anche quando gli altri si sono in qualche modo ripresi, e riescono a trovare parole e sorrisi, Barbara—quella tenera, gentile, sciocca piccola Barbara—viene improvvisamente notata assente, e si scopre che è svenuta da sola nel salotto dietro, da questo svenimento cade in isterismo, e da questo isterismo in un altro svenimento, ed è, in effetti, così male, che nonostante una quantità mortale di aceto e acqua fredda lei è a malapena un po’ meglio alla fine di quanto fosse all’inizio. Poi, la madre di Kit entra e dice, verrà a parlarle; e Kit dice ‘Sì,’ e va; e lui dice con una voce gentile ‘Barbara!’ e la madre di Barbara le dice che ‘è solo Kit;’ e Barbara dice (con gli occhi chiusi tutto il tempo) ‘Oh! ma è davvero lui?’ e la madre di Barbara dice ‘Certo che è lui, mia cara; ora non c’è più niente che non va.’ E per ulteriore assicurazione che lui è sano e salvo, Kit le parla di nuovo; e poi Barbara scoppia in un’altra risata, e poi in un altro pianto; e poi la madre di Barbara e la madre di Kit si scambiano un cenno e fingono di rimproverarla—ma solo per farla tornare in sé più in fretta, benedetta!—e essendo matrone esperte, e acute nel percepire i primi segni di miglioramento, confortano Kit con l’assicurazione che ‘ora starà bene,’ e così lo congedano al posto da cui è venuto.

Well! In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters of wine, and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and his friends were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob, walking, as the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum-cake, at a most surprising pace, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges which are to follow, and making the best use of his time, you may believe. Kit no sooner comes in, than that single gentleman (never was such a busy gentleman) charges all the glasses—bumpers—and drinks his health, and tells him he shall never want a friend while he lives; and so does Mr Garland, and so does Mrs Garland, and so does Mr Abel. But even this honour and distinction is not all, for the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of his pocket a massive silver watch—going hard, and right to half a second—and upon the back of this watch is engraved Kit’s name, with flourishes all over; and in short it is Kit’s watch, bought expressly for him, and presented to him on the spot. You may rest assured that Mr and Mrs Garland can’t help hinting about their present, in store, and that Mr Abel tells outright that he has his; and that Kit is the happiest of the happy.

There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be conveniently introduced into the family circle, by reason of his being an iron-shod quadruped, Kit takes the first opportunity of 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 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.

‘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!’

Ecco! In quel luogo (che è la stanza accanto) ci sono caraffe di vino, e tutte quelle cose lì, disposte come se Kit e i suoi amici fossero compagnia di prim’ordine; e c’è il piccolo Giacobbe, che cammina, come si suol dire, in un dolce di mele fatto in casa, a un ritmo sorprendente, e tiene d’occhio le fichi e gli aranci che verranno dopo, e sfrutta al meglio il suo tempo, potete credermi. Non appena Kit entra, quel signore scapolo (non c’è mai stato un gentiluomo così indaffarato) riempie tutti i bicchieri fino all’orlo e brinda alla sua salute, e gli dice che non gli mancherà mai un amico finché vivrà; e lo stesso fa il signor Garland, e lo stesso fa la signora Garland, e lo stesso fa il signor Abel. Ma anche questo onore e distinzione non sono tutto, perché il signore scapolo tira subito fuori dalla tasca un orologio d’argento massiccio—che funziona alla perfezione, e con precisione al mezzo secondo—e sul retro di questo orologio è inciso il nome di Kit, con volute dappertutto; e in breve è l’orologio di Kit, comprato espressamente per lui, e gli viene regalato sul posto. Potete star certi che il signor e la signora Garland non possono fare a meno di accennare al loro regalo, in serbo, e che il signor Abel dice apertamente di averlo; e che Kit è il più felice dei felici.

C’è un amico che non ha ancora visto, e poiché non si può presentare comodamente in famiglia, per il fatto che è un quadrupede con le scarpe di ferro, Kit coglie la prima occasione per scivolare via e precipitarsi nella scuderia. Nel momento in cui appoggia la mano sul chiavistello, il pony nitrisce il più sonoro benvenuto da pony; prima che abbia attraversato la soglia, il pony sta già saltellando nella sua stalla (perché non sopporta l’onta di un morso), pazzo di gioia nel dargli il benvenuto; e quando Kit si avvicina per accarezzarlo e dargli pacche, il pony strofina il suo muso contro il suo cappotto, e lo coccola più affettuosamente di quanto pony abbia mai coccolato uomo. È il culmine della sua accoglienza sincera e sentita; e Kit gli cinge il collo con il braccio e lo abbraccia.

Ma come mai Barbara entra lì dentro? e come è di nuovo elegante! è stata davanti allo specchio da quando si è ripresa. Come mai Barbara è nella scuderia, di tutti i posti al mondo? Beh, da quando Kit è stato via, il pony non prendeva cibo da nessuno tranne che da lei, e Barbara, vedete, non sognando che Christopher fosse lì, e guardando appena dentro, per vedere che tutto fosse a posto, lo ha sorpreso all’improvviso. La piccola Barbara arrossisce!

Può darsi che Kit abbia accarezzato abbastanza il pony; può darsi che ci siano cose ancora migliori da accarezzare oltre ai pony. Comunque lo lascia per Barbara e spera che lei stia meglio. Sì. Barbara sta molto meglio. Ha paura — e qui Barbara abbassa lo sguardo e arrossisce ancora di più — che lui debba averla trovata molto sciocca. ‘Niente affatto,’ dice Kit. Barbara è contenta di questo e tossisce — Ahem! — la più leggera tosse possibile — non più di così.

Che pony discreto quando lo vuole! Ora è tranquillo come se fosse di marmo. Ha un’aria molto intelligente, ma ce l’ha sempre. «Abbiamo a malapena avuto tempo di stringerci la mano, Barbara», dice Kit. Barbara gliela porge. Ma guarda, sta tremando! Sciocca, tremante Barbara!

A braccetto? La lunghezza di un braccio non è molto. Quello di Barbara non era un braccio lungo, per niente, e poi lei non lo teneva dritto, ma un po’ piegato. Kit era così vicino a lei quando si strinsero la mano, che poteva vedere una piccola lacrima, ancora tremante su una ciglia. Era naturale che la guardasse, senza che Barbara se ne accorgesse. Era naturale che Barbara alzasse gli occhi inconsciamente, e lo scoprisse. Era naturale che in quel momento, senza alcun impulso o proposito precedente, Kit baciasse Barbara? Lo fece, che gli piacesse o no. Barbara disse “vergogna”, ma lo lasciò fare anche due volte. Avrebbe potuto farlo tre volte, ma il pony alzò le zampe posteriori e scosse la testa, come se fosse stato preso improvvisamente da convulsioni di gioia, e Barbara, spaventata, scappò via - non dritto verso dove erano sua madre e la madre di Kit, però, per paura che vedessero quanto erano rosse le sue guance, e le chiedessero perché. Piccola Barbara furba!

Quando i primi trasporti di tutta la compagnia si furono placati, e Kit e sua madre, e Barbara e sua madre, con il piccolo Giacobbe e il bambino in più, ebbero cenato insieme — cosa che non si poteva affrettare, perché sarebbero rimasti lì tutta la notte — il signor Garland chiamò Kit da sé, e portandolo in una stanza dove potevano stare soli, gli disse che aveva ancora qualcosa da dirgli, che lo avrebbe sorpreso molto. Kit sembrava così ansioso e impallidì tanto nel sentirlo, che il vecchio signore si affrettò ad aggiungere che sarebbe stata una sorpresa piacevole; e gli chiese se sarebbe stato pronto la mattina dopo per un viaggio.

«Per un viaggio, signore!» esclamò Kit.

“In compagnia di me e del mio amico nella stanza accanto. Riuscite a indovinare il suo scopo?”

Kit impallidì ancora di più e scosse la testa.

«Oh, sì. Penso che tu lo sappia già», disse il suo maestro. «Prova.»

Kit mormorò qualcosa di piuttosto confuso e incomprensibile, ma pronunciò chiaramente le parole “Miss Nell” tre o quattro volte, scuotendo la testa mentre lo faceva, come se volesse aggiungere che non c’era speranza di ciò.

Ma il signor Garland, invece di dire «Prova ancora», come Kit era sicuro che avrebbe fatto, gli disse molto seriamente che aveva indovinato.

«Il luogo del loro rifugio è stato infatti scoperto», disse, «finalmente. E quello è il termine del nostro viaggio.»

Kit balbettò domande come, dove fosse, e come fosse stata trovata, e da quanto tempo, e se fosse sana e felice?

«Felice è, oltre ogni dubbio,» disse il signor Garland. «E bene, io—io spero che lo sarà presto. È stata debole e malata, come ho saputo, ma stamattina, quando ho saputo, era migliorata, e tutti erano pieni di speranza. Sedetevi, e ascolterete il resto.»

A malapena osando respirare, Kit fece come gli era stato detto. Poi il signor Garland gli raccontò di avere un fratello (di cui Kit si sarebbe ricordato di averlo sentito parlare, e la cui immagine, ritratta quando era giovane, era appesa nella sala migliore), e di come questo fratello vivesse lontano, in campagna, con un vecchio ecclesiastico che era stato suo amico fin da giovane. Come, sebbene si amassero come fratelli, non si fossero visti per molti anni, ma si fossero scritto di tempo in tempo, aspettando sempre un momento in cui si sarebbero dati la mano ancora una volta, e lasciando sempre che il tempo presente scivolasse via, come è abitudine degli uomini, e soffrendo che il Futuro si fondesse col Passato. Come questo fratello, di carattere molto mite, tranquillo e riservato, come quello del signor Abel, fosse molto amato dalle semplici persone tra cui viveva, che riverivano molto il Scapolo (come lo chiamavano), e che avevano tutti sperimentato la sua carità e benevolenza. Come anche queste lievi circostanze erano giunte a sua conoscenza molto lentamente e nel corso degli anni, perché lo Scapolo era uno di coloro la cui bontà fugge la luce, e che hanno più piacere nel scoprire e lodare le buone azioni degli altri, che nel vantare le proprie, per quanto commendevoli. Come, per questo motivo, raramente parlava dei suoi amici del villaggio; ma come, nonostante ciò, la sua mente si fosse così riempita di due di loro, un bambino e un vecchio, a cui era stato molto gentile, che, in una lettera ricevuta pochi giorni prima, aveva insistito su di loro dall’inizio alla fine, e aveva raccontato una storia del loro vagabondare e del loro reciproco amore, che pochi potevano leggerla senza essere mossi a lacrime. Come lui, il destinatario di quella lettera, fosse stato portato direttamente a credere che questi dovevano essere proprio i vagabondi per i quali era stata fatta tanta ricerca, e che il Cielo aveva indirizzato alle cure di suo fratello. Come avesse scritto per avere ulteriori informazioni che avrebbero messo il fatto al di là di ogni dubbio; come queste fossero arrivate quella mattina; avessero confermato la sua prima impressione in una certezza; e fossero la causa immediata di quel viaggio che avevano progettato di fare il giorno dopo.

«Nel frattempo», disse il vecchio signore alzandosi e posando la mano sulla spalla di Kit, «hai un grande bisogno di riposo; perché un giorno come questo sfiancherebbe anche l’uomo più forte. Buona notte, e che il Cielo ci conceda una viaggio felice!»

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 best 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 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 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 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 wretches being wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell, in kissing hands to each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like tame and vulgar practices. For now the single gentleman and Mr Garland were in the carriage, and the post-boy was in the saddle, and Kit, well wrapped and muffled up, was in the rumble behind; and Mrs Garland was there, and Mr Abel was there, and Kit’s mother was there, and little Jacob was there, and Barbara’s mother was visible in remote perspective, nursing the ever-wakeful baby; and all were nodding, beckoning, curtseying, or crying out, ‘Good bye!’ with all the energy they could express. In another minute, the carriage was out of sight; and Mr Chuckster remained alone on the spot where it had lately been, with a vision of Kit standing up in the rumble waving his hand to Barbara, and of Barbara in the full light and lustre of his eyes—his eyes—Chuckster’s—Chuckster the successful—on whom ladies of quality had looked with favour from phaetons in the parks on Sundays—waving hers to Kit!

How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some time rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was the Prince of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul of Snobs, and how he clearly traced this revolting circumstance back to that old villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose; which is to track the rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their cold, bleak journey.

It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust. But little cared Kit for weather. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome. As it swept on with its cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and withered leaves, and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though some general sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry, like themselves. The harder the gusts, the better progress they appeared to make. It was a good thing to go struggling and fighting forward, vanquishing them one by one; to watch them driving up, gathering strength and fury as they came along; to bend for a moment, as they whistled past; and then to look back and see them speed away, their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering down before them.

All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and starlit, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing. Sometimes—towards the end of a long stage—Kit could not help wishing it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses, and he had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying the old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and smarted in his fingers’ ends—then, he felt as if to have it one degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the journey: and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople in their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road.

La piccola Barbara non aveva un carattere capriccioso o ostinato, e, piena di rimorso, scoppiò in lacrime. A quali ulteriori conversazioni ciò avrebbe potuto portare, non è necessario soffermarsi a chiederselo; perché in quel momento si sentirono le ruote della carrozza, seguite da un energico suono alla porta del giardino, che causò il trambusto in casa, che era rimasto inattivo per un breve periodo, di esplodere di nuovo in una vita e vigore decuplicati.

Contemporaneamente all’equipaggio di viaggio, arrivò il signor Chuckster in un cab, con alcuni documenti e un po’ di denaro per l’unico gentiluomo, nelle cui mani li consegnò. Una volta svolto questo compito, si immerse nel seno della famiglia; e, intrattenendosi con una colazione passeggera o peripatetica, osservò, con indifferenza gentile, il processo di caricamento della carrozza.

«Vedo che Snobby è in questo viaggio, signore», disse a Mr Abel Garland. «Pensavo che non fosse stato dell’ultimo perché si temeva che la sua presenza non sarebbe stata gradita al vecchio bisonte».

«A chi, signore?» chiese il signor Abel.

«All’anziano signore», rispose il signor Chuckster, leggermente imbarazzato.

«Il nostro cliente preferisce prenderlo adesso», disse Mr Abel, asciutto. «Non c’è più bisogno di quella precauzione, poiché la relazione di mio padre con un gentiluomo in cui gli oggetti della sua ricerca hanno piena fiducia, sarà una garanzia sufficiente per la natura amichevole della loro missione.»

«Ah!» pensò il signor Chuckster, guardando fuori dalla finestra, «chiunque tranne me! Sicuramente snob davanti a me. Non è stato lui a prendere quel particolare biglietto da cinque sterline, ma non ho il minimo dubbio che sia sempre capace di fare cose del genere. L’ho sempre detto, molto prima che questo venisse fuori. Che ragazza diabolica! «Per la mia anima, una creatura incredibile!»

Barbara era l’oggetto delle lodi del signor Chuckster; e mentre lei indugiava vicino alla carrozza (tutto era ormai pronto per la partenza), quel gentiluomo fu improvvisamente preso da un forte interesse per la scena, che lo spinse a sbandierare per il giardino e a prendere posizione a una distanza di osservazione comoda. Avendo grande esperienza del gentil sesso, e conoscendo perfettamente tutti quei piccoli artifici che trovano la via più pronta per i loro cuori, il signor Chuckster, nel prendere posizione, piantò una mano sul fianco e con l’altra si sistemò i capelli fluenti. Questa è un’attitudine preferita nei circoli raffinati, e, accompagnata da un fischio elegante, è nota per aver fatto un’immensa impressione.

Tale, tuttavia, è la differenza tra città e campagna, che nessuno prestò la minima attenzione a questa figura insinuante; i poveretti erano interamente impegnati a salutare i viaggiatori, a baciarsi le mani a vicenda, a sventolare fazzoletti e simili pratiche banali e volgari. Perché ora il signore singolo e il signor Garland erano nella carrozza, e il postiglione era in sella, e Kit, ben avvolto e imbacuccato, era nel rumble dietro; e c’era la signora Garland, e c’era il signor Abel, e c’era la madre di Kit, e c’era il piccolo Giacobbe, e la madre di Barbara era visibile in lontana prospettiva, che allattava il bambino sempre sveglio; e tutti facevano cenni, saluti, riverenze, o gridavano, ‘Arrivederci!’ con tutta l’energia che potevano esprimere. In un altro minuto, la carrozza era fuori vista; e il signor Chuckster rimase solo sul posto dove era stata di recente, con una visione di Kit in piedi nel rumble che sventolava la mano a Barbara, e di Barbara nella piena luce e lo splendore dei suoi occhi—i suoi occhi—di Chuckster—Chuckster il fortunato—su cui dame di qualità avevano guardato con favore dai phaeton nei parchi la domenica—che sventolava la sua a Kit!

Come il signor Chuckster, incantato da questo fatto mostruoso, rimase per qualche tempo immobile come una statua, protestando tra sé che Kit era il principe dei personaggi criminali e l’imperatore o il grande mogol degli snob, e come egli collegasse chiaramente questa circostanza ripugnante a quella vecchia infamia dello scellino, sono questioni estranee al nostro scopo; che è quello di seguire le ruote rotanti e di accompagnare i viaggiatori nel loro freddo e desolato viaggio.

Era una giornata gelida. Un forte vento soffiava, e si scagliava contro di loro con violenza: sbiancando il terreno duro, scuotendo il bianco gelato dagli alberi e dai cespugli, e facendolo vorticare come polvere. Ma Kit se ne curava poco del tempo. C’era una libertà e freschezza nel vento, mentre arrivava ululando, che, per quanto tagliente, era benvenuta. Mentre spazzava via con la sua nuvola di gelato, abbattendo i ramoscelli secchi e i rami e le foglie appassite, e portandoli via in un turbine, sembrava che qualche simpatia generale si fosse diffusa, e tutto fosse di fretta, come loro. Più forti erano le raffiche, più sembravano procedere bene. Era bello andare avanti lottando e combattendo, vittoriosi uno dopo l’altro; osservarli mentre si alzavano, raccogliendo forza e furia mentre avanzavano; piegarsi per un momento, mentre fischiavano oltre; e poi guardarsi indietro e vederli allontanarsi velocemente, il loro rumore roco che moriva in lontananza, e gli alberi robusti che si piegavano davanti a loro.

Per tutto il giorno, il vento soffiò senza sosta. La notte era serena e stellata, ma il vento non era calato, e il freddo era pungente. A volte, verso la fine di una lunga tappa, Kit non poteva fare a meno di desiderare che facesse un po’ più caldo: ma quando si fermavano per cambiare i cavalli, e lui aveva fatto una bella corsa, e con quella, e il trambusto del pagare il vecchio postiglione, e svegliare il nuovo, e correre avanti e indietro finché i cavalli non erano attaccati, era così caldo che il sangue gli formicolava e gli bruciava nelle punte delle dita — allora, sentiva che avere un grado in meno di freddo sarebbe stato come perdere metà del piacere e della gloria del viaggio: e su saltava di nuovo, proprio allegramente, cantando a ritmo della gaia musica delle ruote mentre rotolavano via, e, lasciando i cittadini nei loro letti caldi, proseguivano il loro cammino lungo la solitaria strada.

Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to sleep, beguiled the time with conversation. As both were anxious and expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and fears they entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of the latter few—none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation.

In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night had worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly:

‘Are you a good listener?’

‘Like most other men, I suppose,’ returned Mr Garland, smiling. ‘I can be, if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still try to appear so. Why do you ask?’

‘I have a short narrative on my lips,’ rejoined his friend, ‘and will try you with it. It is very brief.’

Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman’s sleeve, and proceeded thus:

‘There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly. There was a disparity in their ages—some twelve years. I am not sure but they may insensibly have loved each other the better for that reason. Wide as the interval between them was, however, they became rivals too soon. The deepest and strongest affection of both their hearts settled upon one object.

‘The youngest—there were reasons for his being sensitive and watchful—was the first to find this out. I will not tell you what misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his mental struggle was. He had been a sickly child. His brother, patient and considerate in the midst of his own high health and strength, had many and many a day denied himself the sports he loved, to sit beside his couch, telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up with an unwonted glow; to carry him in his arms to some green spot, where he could tend the poor pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer day, and saw all nature healthy but himself; to be, in any way, his fond and faithful nurse. I may not dwell on all he did, to make the poor, weak creature love him, or my tale would have no end. But when the time of trial came, the younger brother’s heart was full of those old days. Heaven strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of inconsiderate youth by one of thoughtful manhood. He left his brother to be happy. The truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the country, hoping to die abroad.

‘The elder brother married her. She was in Heaven before long, and left him with an infant daughter.

‘If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will remember how the same face and figure—often the fairest and slightest of them all—come upon you in different generations; and how you trace the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits—never growing old or changing—the Good Angel of the race—abiding by them in all reverses—redeeming all their sins—

‘In this daughter the mother lived again. You may judge with what devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this girl, her breathing image. She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart to one who could not know its worth. Well! Her fond father could not see her pine and droop. He might be more deserving than he thought him. He surely might become so, with a wife like her. He joined their hands, and they were married.

‘Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the cold neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he brought upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, in the deep devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can. Her means and substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her husband’s hand, and the hourly witness (for they lived now under one roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,—she never, but for him, bewailed her fate. Patient, and upheld by strong affection to the last, she died a widow of some three weeks’ date, leaving to her father’s care two orphans; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the other a girl—such another infant child—the same in helplessness, in age, in form, in feature—as she had been herself when her young mother died.

‘The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the heavy hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to trade—in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and precarious subsistence.

‘The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his daughter were a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste. The old man and the child dwelt alone together.

‘It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature; when her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of the too early change he had seen in such another—of all the sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone; when the young man’s profligate and hardened course drained him of money as his father’s had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary privation and distress; it was then that there began to beset him, and to be ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want. He had no thought for himself in this. His fear was for the child. It was a spectre in his house, and haunted him night and day.

‘The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and had made his pilgrimage through life alone. His voluntary banishment had been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and slight for doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful shadow on his path. Apart from this, communication between him and the elder was difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not so wholly broken off but that he learnt—with long blanks and gaps between each interval of information—all that I have told you now.

‘Then, dreams of their young, happy life—happy to him though laden with pain and early care—visited his pillow yet oftener than before; and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother’s side. With the utmost speed he could exert, he settled his affairs; converted into money all the goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore him on, with emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one evening at his brother’s door!’

The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.

‘The rest,’ said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, ‘I know.’

‘Yes,’ rejoined his friend, ‘we may spare ourselves the sequel. You know the poor result of all my search. Even when by dint of such inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen—and in time discovered the men themselves—and in time, the actual place of their retreat; even then, we were too late. Pray God, we are not too late again!’

‘We cannot be,’ said Mr Garland. ‘This time we must succeed.’

‘I have believed and hoped so,’ returned the other. ‘I try to believe and hope so still. But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to neither hope nor reason.’

‘That does not surprise me,’ said Mr Garland; ‘it is a natural consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time and place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night. A dismal night, indeed! Hark! how the wind is howling!’

Nel frattempo i due signori all’interno, che erano poco inclini a dormire, ingannavano il tempo con una conversazione. Poiché entrambi erano ansiosi e in attesa, il discorso si concentrava naturalmente sull’argomento della loro spedizione, sul modo in cui era stata organizzata e sulle speranze e le paure che nutrivano al riguardo. Le speranze erano molte, le paure poche, forse nessuna oltre quella indefinibile inquietudine che è inseparabile da una speranza improvvisamente risvegliata e da un’attesa prolungata.

In una delle pause del loro discorso, e quando era trascorsa metà della notte, il signore da solo, che era diventato gradualmente sempre più silenzioso e pensieroso, si rivolse al suo compagno e disse bruscamente:

‘Siete un buon ascoltatore?’

«Come la maggior parte degli uomini, immagino», rispose il signor Garland, sorridendo. «Posso essere, se mi interessa; e se non mi interessa, cercherei comunque di sembrare interessato. Perché me lo chiedete?»

«Ho una breve storia sulla punta della lingua», replicò il suo amico, «e voglio metterla alla prova. È molto breve.»

Non aspettando risposta, posò la mano sulla manica del vecchio signore e continuò così:

«C’erano una volta due fratelli che si amavano teneramente. C’era una differenza d’età tra loro, di circa dodici anni. Non sono sicuro, ma forse proprio per questo motivo si amavano ancora di più. Nonostante l’ampio divario tra loro, divennero rivali troppo presto. Il sentimento più profondo e forte di entrambi i loro cuori si concentrò su un unico oggetto.

«Il più giovane - c’erano ragioni per cui era sensibile e attento - fu il primo a scoprirlo. Non vi dirò quale miseria patì, quale agonia di anima provò, quanto grande fosse la sua lotta interiore. Era stato un bambino malaticcio. Suo fratello, paziente e premuroso in mezzo alla propria salute e forza, per molti e molti giorni si era negato i giochi che amava, per sedere accanto al suo letto, raccontandogli vecchie storie finché il suo pallido volto si illuminava di un bagliore insolito; per portarlo tra le braccia in qualche posto verde, dove poteva prendersi cura del povero ragazzo pensieroso mentre guardava il luminoso giorno d’estate e vedeva tutta la natura sana tranne lui; per essere, in qualsiasi modo, la sua affettuosa e fedele infermiera. Non posso soffermarmi su tutto ciò che fece per far sì che la povera, debole creatura lo amasse, altrimenti la mia storia non avrebbe fine. Ma quando arrivò il momento della prova, il cuore del fratello minore era pieno di quei vecchi giorni. Il Cielo lo rafforzò per ripagare i sacrifici della giovinezza imprudente con uno dell’uomo riflessivo. Lasciò suo fratello per essere felice. La verità non gli uscì mai dalle labbra, e lasciò il paese, sperando di morire all’estero.»

«Il fratello maggiore la sposò. Ella fu presto in Cielo, e lo lasciò con una bambina.

«Se avete visitato la galleria di dipinti di una famiglia antica, vi ricorderete come lo stesso volto e la stessa figura — spesso la più bella e la più esile di tutte — vi appaiano in generazioni diverse; e come riusciate a riconoscere la stessa dolce fanciulla in una lunga serie di ritratti — che non invecchia mai né cambia — l’Angelo Buono della stirpe — che li accompagna in tutte le avversità — riscattando tutti i loro peccati —

«In questa figlia la madre visse di nuovo. Potete immaginare con quale devozione colui che aveva perso quella madre quasi nel momento in cui la conquistava, si aggrappasse a questa ragazza, la sua immagine vivente. Lei crebbe fino a diventare donna e diede il suo cuore a uno che non poteva conoscere il suo valore. Bene! Il suo affettuoso padre non poteva vederla languire e appassire. Forse lui era più degno di quanto lui pensasse. Sicuramente poteva diventarlo, con una moglie come lei. Unì le loro mani, e si sposarono.

«Attraverso tutta la miseria che seguì a questa unione; attraverso tutta la fredda negligenza e l’ingiusto rimprovero; attraverso tutta la povertà che lui le portò addosso; attraverso tutte le lotte della loro vita quotidiana, troppo meschine e patetiche per essere raccontate, ma terribili da sopportare; lei lavorò senza sosta, nella profonda devozione del suo spirito, e nella sua migliore natura, come solo le donne sanno fare. I suoi mezzi e la sua sostanza erano esauriti; suo padre era quasi ridotto in povertà per mano di suo marito, e testimone ogni giorno (perché ora vivevano sotto lo stesso tetto) dei suoi maltrattamenti e della sua infelicità,—ma lei non si lamentò mai del suo destino, se non per lui. Paziente, e sostenuta da un forte affetto fino all’ultimo, morì vedova da appena tre settimane, lasciando alle cure di suo padre due orfani; uno un ragazzo di dieci o dodici anni; l’altro una bambina—un’infante bambina—uguale in impotenza, in età, in forma, in tratti—come era stata lei stessa quando sua giovane madre morì.

«Lo zio maggiore, nonno di questi due bambini, era ormai un uomo spezzato; schiacciato e abbattuto, meno dal peso degli anni che dalla pesante mano del dolore. Con i resti dei suoi beni, iniziò a commerciare: prima in quadri, poi in curiosi oggetti antichi. Aveva coltivato un amore per queste cose fin da ragazzo, e i gusti che aveva coltivato gli avrebbero ora procurato un’esistenza ansiosa e precaria.

«Il ragazzo cresceva come suo padre, nel carattere e nell’aspetto; la bambina era così simile a sua madre che, quando il vecchio la teneva sulle ginocchia e guardava i suoi dolci occhi azzurri, si sentiva come se si stesse risvegliando da un triste sogno e sua figlia fosse di nuovo una piccola bambina. Il ragazzo ribelle presto disprezzò la protezione del suo tetto e cercò compagni più congeniali al suo gusto. Il vecchio e la bambina vivevano da soli insieme.

«Fu allora, quando l’amore di due persone defunte che erano state le più care al suo cuore, fu tutto trasferito a questa fragile creatura; quando il suo volto, costantemente davanti a lui, gli ricordava, ora dopo ora, il cambiamento troppo precoce che aveva visto in un’altra così simile - di tutte le sofferenze che aveva osservato e conosciuto, e che tutto il suo bambino aveva subito; quando il corso dissoluto e incallito del giovane lo prosciugava di denaro come aveva fatto quello di suo padre, e talvolta causava loro privazioni e disagi temporanei; fu allora che iniziò a perseguitarlo, e a essere sempre nella sua mente, un cupo timore di povertà e indigenza. Non aveva pensieri per se stesso in questo. La sua paura era per il bambino. Era uno spettro nella sua casa, e lo perseguitava notte e giorno.

«Il fratello minore aveva viaggiato in molti paesi e aveva compiuto il suo pellegrinaggio attraverso la vita da solo. Il suo esilio volontario era stato frainteso, e aveva sopportato (non senza dolore) il biasimo e il disprezzo per aver fatto ciò che gli aveva straziato il cuore e gettato un’ombra malinconica sul suo cammino. A parte questo, la comunicazione tra lui e il fratello maggiore era difficile, incerta e spesso falliva; tuttavia, non era così completamente interrotta che non apprendesse - con lunghi vuoti e lacune tra ogni intervallo di informazioni - tutto ciò che vi ho raccontato ora.

«Poi, i sogni della loro giovane e felice vita - felice per lui benché carica di dolore e di prematura preoccupazione - visitavano il suo cuscino ancora più spesso di prima; e ogni notte, di nuovo ragazzo, era al fianco di suo fratello. Con la massima velocità di cui era capace, sistemò i suoi affari; convertì in denaro tutti i beni che possedeva; e, con una ricchezza onorevole sufficiente per entrambi, con cuore e mano aperti, con membra che tremavano mentre lo sostenevano, con un’emozione tale che gli uomini a stento possono sopportare e vivere, arrivò una sera alla porta di suo fratello!»

Il narratore, la cui voce aveva vacillato di recente, si fermò.

“I resto,” disse il signor Garland, stringendogli la mano dopo una pausa, “lo so.”

«Sì», riprese il suo amico, «possiamo risparmiarci la continuazione. Conosci il povero risultato di tutte le mie ricerche. Anche quando, grazie a indagini così approfondite come potevano essere intraprese dalla massima vigilanza e perspicacia, abbiamo scoperto che erano stati visti con due poveri artisti itineranti — e, col tempo, abbiamo trovato gli uomini stessi — e, col tempo, il vero luogo del loro rifugio; anche allora, eravamo troppo tardi. Prega Dio che non siamo troppo tardi di nuovo!»

«Non possiamo fallire», disse il signor Garland. «Questa volta dobbiamo riuscire».

«L’ho creduto e sperato», rispose l’altro. «Cerco ancora di crederlo e di sperare. Ma un grave peso è caduto sul mio spirito, mio buon amico, e la tristezza che si accumula su di me non cede né alla speranza né alla ragione.»

«Questo non mi sorprende», disse il signor Garland; «è una naturale conseguenza degli eventi che avete ricordato; di questo triste tempo e luogo; e soprattutto, di questa selvaggia e desolata notte. Una desolata notte, davvero! Ascolta! come ulula il vento!»

CHAPTER 70

Day broke, and found them still upon their way. Since leaving home, they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for fresh horses. They had made no other stoppages, but the weather continued rough, and the roads were often steep and heavy. It would be night again before they reached their place of destination.

Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and, having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for thinking of discomforts. Though his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers, rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours did not stand still. The short daylight of winter soon faded away, and it was dark again when they had yet many miles to travel.

As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low and mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling covertly among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some great phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled as it stalked along. By degrees it lulled and died away, and then it came on to snow.

The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some inches deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness. The rolling wheels were noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the horses’ hoofs, became a dull, muffled tramp. The life of their progress seemed to be slowly hushed, and something death-like to usurp its place.

Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to some not distant town. He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly. Now, a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps. Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, or meeting them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them, turned to shadows too. A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise up in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be the road itself. Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of water, appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful and uncertain; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these things, like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim illusions.

He descended slowly from his seat—for his limbs were numbed—when they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far they had to go to reach their journey’s end. It was a late hour in such by-places, and the people were abed; but a voice answered from an upper window, Ten miles. The ten minutes that ensued appeared an hour; but at the end of that time, a shivering figure led out the horses they required, and after another brief delay they were again in motion.

It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four miles, of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow, were so many pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to keep a footpace. As it was next to impossible for men so much agitated as they were by this time, to sit still and move so slowly, all three got out and plodded on behind the carriage. The distance seemed interminable, and the walk was most laborious. As each was thinking within himself that the driver must have lost his way, a church bell, close at hand, struck the hour of midnight, and the carriage stopped. It had moved softly enough, but when it ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as startling as if some great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness.

‘This is the place, gentlemen,’ said the driver, dismounting from his horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn. ‘Halloa! Past twelve o’clock is the dead of night here.’

The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy inmates. All continued dark and silent as before. They fell back a little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black patches in the whitened house front. No light appeared. The house might have been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life it had about it.

They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers; unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now raised.

‘Let us go on,’ said the younger brother, ‘and leave this good fellow to wake them, if he can. I cannot rest until I know that we are not too late. Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!’

They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as the house afforded, and to renew his knocking. Kit accompanied them with a little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home, and had not forgotten since—the bird in his old cage—just as she had left him. She would be glad to see her bird, he knew.

The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village clustering round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence until they returned.

The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A venerable building—grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. An ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace the melancholy night.

CAPITOLO 70

L’alba si levò e li trovò ancora in cammino. Da quando avevano lasciato casa, si erano fermati qua e là per il necessario sostentamento, e spesso erano stati ritardati, specialmente durante la notte di mezzanotte, aspettando dei cavalli freschi. Non avevano fatto altre soste, ma il tempo continuava a essere burrascoso, e le strade erano spesso ripide e pesanti. Sarebbe stata di nuovo notte prima che raggiungessero il loro luogo di destinazione.

Kit, tutto bluff e indurito dal freddo, proseguiva con coraggio; e, avendo abbastanza da fare per mantenere in circolo il suo sangue, per immaginare la felice conclusione di questo avventuroso viaggio, e per guardarsi intorno e stupirsi di tutto, aveva poco tempo libero per pensare ai disagi. Sebbene la sua impazienza, e quella dei suoi compagni di viaggio, aumentasse rapidamente man mano che il giorno declinava, le ore non si fermavano. La breve luce del giorno d’inverno svanì presto, e fu di nuovo buio quando ancora avevano molte miglia da percorrere.

Mentre calava il crepuscolo, il vento si placò; i suoi lontani lamenti erano più bassi e lamentosi; e, mentre saliva strisciando lungo la strada, e frusciava furtivamente tra le secche more che crescevano ai lati, sembrava un grande fantasma per il quale la via era stretta, i cui panni frusciavano mentre si aggirava. A poco a poco si calmò e si spense, e poi iniziò a nevicare.

I fiocchi cadevano fitti e rapidi, ricoprendo presto il terreno per alcuni pollici di spessore e diffondendo un silenzio solenne. Le ruote rotanti erano silenziose, e il nitido suono e lo scalpitio degli zoccoli dei cavalli si trasformavano in un passo sordo e soffocato. La vita del loro cammino sembrava lentamente sopita, e qualcosa di simile alla morte usurpava il suo posto.

Proteggendosi gli occhi dalla neve che cadeva, che si ghiacciava sulle ciglia e gli offuscava la vista, Kit cercava spesso di cogliere il primo barlume di luci scintillanti, che indicavano l’avvicinarsi a qualche città non lontana. Poteva distinguere oggetti in tali momenti, ma nessuno correttamente. Ora, un alto campanile appariva alla vista, che presto diventava un albero, un fienile, un ombra a terra, proiettato dalle loro stesse lampade luminose. Ora, c’erano cavalieri, pedoni, carrozze, che andavano avanti, o che li incontravano in strade strette; che, quando erano vicini a loro, diventavano ombre anche loro. Un muro, una rovina, un robusto frontone, sorgeva sulla strada; e, quando si lanciavano a capofitto contro di esso, era la strada stessa. Apparivano anche strane svolte, ponti e distese di acqua, che sembravano sorgere qua e là, rendendo il cammino dubbio e incerto; eppure erano sulla stessa nuda strada, e queste cose, come le altre, una volta passate, si trasformavano in illusioni sfumate.

Scendendo lentamente dal suo posto — poiché le membra erano intorpidite — quando arrivarono a una solitaria stazione di posta, chiese quanto mancasse per raggiungere la fine del loro viaggio. Era un’ora tarda in quei luoghi sperduti, e la gente era a letto; ma una voce rispose da una finestra al piano superiore, Dieci miglia. I dieci minuti che seguirono sembrarono un’ora; ma alla fine di quel tempo, una figura tremante condusse fuori i cavalli di cui avevano bisogno, e dopo un altro breve ritardo furono di nuovo in movimento.

Era una strada di campagna, piena, dopo i primi tre o quattro chilometri, di buche e solchi di carri che, coperti dalla neve, erano tante insidie per i cavalli tremanti e li obbligavano a mantenere un passo lento. Poiché era quasi impossibile per uomini così agitati come lo erano a quell’ora rimanere fermi e muoversi così lentamente, tutti e tre scesero e proseguirono a piedi dietro la carrozza. La distanza sembrava interminabile e la camminata estremamente faticosa. Mentre ognuno pensava tra sé che il cocchiere doveva essersi perso, una campana di chiesa vicina suonò l’ora di mezzanotte e la carrozza si fermò. Si era mossa abbastanza dolcemente, ma quando smise di scricchiolare sulla neve, il silenzio fu altrettanto sorprendente come se un grande rumore fosse stato sostituito da un perfetto silenzio.

«Questo è il posto, signori», disse il cocchiere, smontando dal suo cavallo e bussando alla porta di una piccola locanda. «Ehi! Dopo le dodici di notte qui è il cuore della notte.»

I colpi furono forti e prolungati, ma non riuscirono a svegliare gli abitanti assonnati. Tutto rimase buio e silenzioso come prima. Si ritirarono un po’ e guardarono le finestre, che erano semplici macchie nere sulla facciata imbiancata della casa. Non apparve nessuna luce. La casa poteva essere deserta, o i dormienti morti, per qualsiasi segno di vita che avesse intorno.

Parlavano insieme con una strana incoerenza, a bassa voce, non volendo disturbare di nuovo gli echi lugubri che avevano appena suscitato.

«Andiamo avanti», disse il fratello più giovane, «e lasciamo che questo buon uomo li svegli, se può. Non posso riposare finché non saprò che non siamo arrivati troppo tardi. Andiamo avanti, per amor del cielo!»

Così fecero, lasciando al postiglione il compito di provvedere alloggio in base a quanto la casa poteva offrire, e di bussare di nuovo. Kit li accompagnò con un piccolo pacco, che aveva appeso al carro quando erano partiti da casa, e che non aveva dimenticato da allora: il suo uccello nella vecchia gabbia, esattamente come l’aveva lasciato lei. Sapeva che sarebbe stata felice di rivedere il suo uccello.

La strada si snodava dolcemente in discesa. Mentre procedevano, persero di vista la chiesa il cui orologio avevano sentito, e il piccolo villaggio che si raggruppava intorno ad essa. Il bussare, che ora si rinnovava, e che in quella quiete potevano chiaramente udire, li turbava. Avrebbero voluto che l’uomo desistesse, o che gli avessero detto di non rompere il silenzio fino al loro ritorno.

L’antico campanile della chiesa, avvolto in un abito spettrale di bianco freddo e puro, si ergeva nuovamente davanti a loro, e pochi istanti dopo li portò vicino ad esso. Un edificio venerabile, grigio anche in mezzo al paesaggio incanutito. Un antico quadrante solare sul muro del campanile era quasi nascosto dalla neve accumulata, e a malapena riconoscibile per quello che era. Lo stesso tempo sembrava essersi fatto opaco e vecchio, come se nessun giorno dovesse mai sostituire la malinconica notte.

A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take, they came to a stand again.

The village street—if street that could be called which was an irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the path—was close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way.

His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that unseasonable hour, wanting him.

‘’Tis hard weather this,’ he grumbled, ‘and not a night to call me up in. My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this season. What do you want?’

‘I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,’ said Kit.

‘Old!’ repeated the other peevishly. ‘How do you know I am old? Not so old as you think, friend, perhaps. As to being ill, you will find many young people in worse case than I am. More’s the pity that it should be so—not that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I mean, but that they should be weak and tender. I ask your pardon though,’ said the old man, ‘if I spoke rather rough at first. My eyes are not good at night—that’s neither age nor illness; they never were—and I didn’t see you were a stranger.’

‘I am sorry to call you from your bed,’ said Kit, ‘but those gentlemen you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just arrived from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house. You can direct us?’

‘I should be able to,’ answered the old man, in a trembling voice, ‘for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years. The right hand path, friend, is the road.—There is no ill news for our good gentleman, I hope?’

Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child. Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window.

‘What is that?’ cried the child, earnestly. ‘Has my dream come true? Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.’

‘Poor boy!’ said the sexton, before Kit could answer, ‘how goes it, darling?’

‘Has my dream come true?’ exclaimed the child again, in a voice so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener. ‘But no, that can never be! How could it be—Oh! how could it!’

‘I guess his meaning,’ said the sexton. ‘To bed again, poor boy!’

‘Ay!’ cried the child, in a burst of despair. ‘I knew it could never be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked! But, all to-night, and last night too, it was the same. I never fall asleep, but that cruel dream comes back.’

‘Try to sleep again,’ said the old man, soothingly. ‘It will go in time.’

‘No no, I would rather that it staid—cruel as it is, I would rather that it staid,’ rejoined the child. ‘I am not afraid to have it in my sleep, but I am so sad—so very, very sad.’

The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit was again alone.

He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child’s manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from him. They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived before the parsonage wall. Turning round to look about them when they had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance, one single solitary light.

It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like a star. Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads, lonely and motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with the eternal lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them.

‘What light is that!’ said the younger brother.

‘It is surely,’ said Mr Garland, ‘in the ruin where they live. I see no other ruin hereabouts.’

‘They cannot,’ returned the brother hastily, ‘be waking at this late hour—’

Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and waited at the gate, they would let him make his way to where this light was shining, and try to ascertain if any people were about. Obtaining the permission he desired, he darted off with breathless eagerness, and, still carrying the birdcage in his hand, made straight towards the spot.

It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another time he might have gone more slowly, or round by the path. Unmindful of all obstacles, however, he pressed forward without slackening his speed, and soon arrived within a few yards of the window. He approached as softly as he could, and advancing so near the wall as to brush the whitened ivy with his dress, listened. There was no sound inside. The church itself was not more quiet. Touching the glass with his cheek, he listened again. No. And yet there was such a silence all around, that he felt sure he could have heard even the breathing of a sleeper, if there had been one there.

A strange circumstance, a light in such a place at that time of night, with no one near it.

A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he could not see into the room. But there was no shadow thrown upon it from within. To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to look in from above, would have been attended with some danger—certainly with some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child, if that really were her habitation. Again and again he listened; again and again the same wearisome blank.

Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the ruin for a few paces, he came at length to a door. He knocked. No answer. But there was a curious noise inside. It was difficult to determine what it was. It bore a resemblance to the low moaning of one in pain, but it was not that, being far too regular and constant. Now it seemed a kind of song, now a wail—seemed, that is, to his changing fancy, for the sound itself was never changed or checked. It was unlike anything he had ever heard; and in its tone there was something fearful, chilling, and unearthly.

The listener’s blood ran colder now than ever it had done in frost and snow, but he knocked again. There was no answer, and the sound went on without any interruption. He laid his hand softly upon the latch, and put his knee against the door. It was secured on the inside, but yielded to the pressure, and turned upon its hinges. He saw the glimmering of a fire upon the old walls, and entered.

Un cancelletto era vicino, ma c’era più di un sentiero che attraversava il cimitero a cui conduceva, e, incerti su quale prendere, si fermarono di nuovo.

La strada del villaggio — se si poteva chiamare strada un agglomerato irregolare di povere casupole di varie altezze e epoche, alcune con la facciata, altre con la parte posteriore e altre ancora con le guglie rivolte verso la strada, con qua e là un cartello stradale o un capanno che invadeva il sentiero — era vicina. C’era una luce fioca in una finestra di una stanza non lontana, e Kit corse verso quella casa per chiedere la strada.

Il suo primo grido fu risposto da un vecchio all’interno, che apparve subito alla finestra, avvolgendo qualche indumento attorno al collo per proteggersi dal freddo, e chiese chi fosse fuori a quell’ora inaspettata, cercandolo.

«È un tempo duro questo», borbottò, «e non una notte in cui dovrebbero svegliarmi. Il mio mestiere non è di quelli che richiedono di essere tirati giù dal letto. Gli affari per cui la gente ha bisogno di me possono aspettare, specialmente in questa stagione. Cosa vuole?»

«Non vi avrei svegliato se avessi saputo che eravate vecchio e malato», disse Kit.

«Vecchio!» ripeté l’altro, con tono sgarbato. «Come fate a sapere che sono vecchio? Non tanto vecchio come pensate, amico mio, forse. Per quanto riguarda la malattia, troverete molti giovani in condizioni peggiori delle mie. È davvero un peccato che sia così, non intendo che io sia forte e robusto per la mia età, ma che loro siano deboli e fragili. Vi chiedo scusa, però,» disse il vecchio, «se all’inizio ho parlato un po’ bruscamente. La mia vista non è buona di notte - non è né questione di età né di malattia; non lo è mai stata - e non vi ho visto che eravate uno sconosciuto.»

«Mi dispiace chiamarla dal suo letto», disse Kit, «ma quei signori che può vedere al cancello del cimitero, sono anch’essi forestieri, appena arrivati da un lungo viaggio, e cercano la casa del parroco. Può indirizzarci?»

«Dovrei saperlo», rispose il vecchio con voce tremante, «perché, al prossimo estate, saranno cinquant’anni che sono il sagrestano qui. Il sentiero a destra, amico mio, è la strada. — Non ci sono cattive notizie per il nostro buon signore, spero?»

Kit lo ringraziò e gli fece una risposta affrettata in senso negativo; stava tornando indietro, quando la sua attenzione fu catturata dalla voce di un bambino. Alzando lo sguardo, vide una creatura molto piccola a una finestra vicina.

«Che cos’è?» esclamò il bambino, con fervore. «Il mio sogno si è avverato? Ti prego, parla con me, chiunque tu sia, sveglio e in piedi.»

“Povero ragazzo!” disse il sagrestano, prima che Kit potesse rispondere, “come va, tesoro?”

«È forse il mio sogno che si avvera?» esclamò di nuovo il bambino, con una voce così fervida che avrebbe potuto commuovere il cuore di chiunque l’ascoltasse. «Ma no, questo non può essere! Come potrebbe essere—Oh! come potrebbe essere!»

‘Immagino cosa intenda,’ disse il becchino. ‘A letto di nuovo, povero ragazzo!’

«Ah!» esclamò il bambino, in un impeto di disperazione. «Lo sapevo che non sarebbe mai potuto essere, ne ero troppo sicuro, prima ancora di chiedere! Ma, tutta la notte scorsa, e anche la notte prima, è stata la stessa cosa. Non riesco mai a addormentarmi, ma quel crudele sogno ritorna.»

«Cerca di dormire di nuovo», disse il vecchio, con tono rassicurante. «Passerà con il tempo.»

«No, no, preferisco che rimanga, anche se è crudele, preferisco che rimanga», rispose il bambino. «Non ho paura di averlo nel mio sonno, ma sono così triste, così molto, molto triste.»

Il vecchio lo benedisse, il bambino in lacrime rispose Buona notte, e Kit fu di nuovo solo.

Ritornò di corsa, commosso da ciò che aveva udito, sebbene più dal comportamento del bambino che da qualsiasi cosa avesse detto, poiché il suo significato gli era celato. Presero il sentiero indicato dal sagrestano e presto arrivarono davanti al muro del parroco. Girandosi per guardarsi intorno quando erano arrivati fin lì, videro, tra alcuni edifici in rovina in lontananza, una singola luce solitaria.

Splendeva da quello che sembrava essere un vecchio finestrone a sesto acuto, e, essendo circondato dalle profonde ombre di mura sporgenti, brillava come una stella. Luminoso e scintillante come le stelle sopra le loro teste, solitario e immobile come loro, sembrava rivendicare una certa parentela con le lampade eterne del Cielo, e ardere in comunione con esse.

«Che luce è quella!» disse il fratello minore.

«È sicuramente», disse il signor Garland, «nella rovina dove vivono. Non vedo altre rovine nei dintorni.»

“Non possono” rispose il fratello in fretta “essere svegli a quest’ora tarda”

Kit intervenne direttamente e pregò che, mentre suonavano e aspettavano al cancello, gli permettessero di farsi strada fino a dove questa luce brillava, e cercare di accertare se ci fossero persone nei paraggi. Ottenuto il permesso che desiderava, partì con un’ansia senza fiato, e, continuando a portare la gabbia per uccelli in mano, si diresse dritto verso il punto.

Non era facile mantenere quel ritmo tra le tombe, e in un altro momento avrebbe potuto procedere più lentamente, o fare il giro per il sentiero. Tuttavia, senza badare a nessun ostacolo, continuò ad avanzare senza rallentare la sua velocità e presto si trovò a pochi metri dalla finestra. Si avvicinò il più silenziosamente possibile, e avanzando così vicino al muro da sfiorare con i suoi vestiti l’edera imbiancata, ascoltò. Non c’era nessun suono all’interno. La chiesa stessa non era più silenziosa. Appoggiando la guancia al vetro, ascoltò di nuovo. No. Eppure c’era un tale silenzio tutto intorno, che era sicuro di poter sentire anche il respiro di un dormiente, se ci fosse stato.

Una circostanza strana, una luce in un posto del genere a quell’ora della notte, senza che ci fosse nessuno nelle vicinanze.

Una tenda era stata tirata davanti alla parte inferiore della finestra, e lui non poteva vedere l’interno della stanza. Ma non c’era nessuna ombra proiettata su di essa dall’interno. Aver guadagnato un appiglio sul muro e aver cercato di guardare dall’alto, sarebbe stato accompagnato da qualche pericolo — certamente da un po’ di rumore, e dalla possibilità di spaventare la bambina, se quella era davvero la sua dimora. Più e più volte ascoltò; più e più volte lo stesso noioso vuoto.

Allontanandosi con passi lenti e cauti da quel luogo, e aggirando la rovina per qualche passo, giunse infine a una porta. Bussò. Nessuna risposta. Ma all’interno si udiva un rumore curioso. Era difficile stabilire di che cosa si trattasse. Aveva una certa somiglianza con il lamento sommesso di chi è in dolore, ma non era quello, essendo troppo regolare e costante. Ora sembrava una specie di canzone, ora un lamento, sembrava cioè alla sua fantasia mutevole, poiché il suono stesso non cambiava mai né si interrompeva. Non assomigliava a nulla che avesse mai udito; e nel suo tono c’era qualcosa di spaventoso, gelido e ultraterreno.

Il sangue dell’ascoltatore si gelò più di quanto avesse mai fatto in gelida e neve, ma lui bussò di nuovo. Non ci fu risposta, e il suono continuò senza alcuna interruzione. Egli posò dolcemente la mano sulla maniglia e appoggiò il ginocchio contro la porta. Era chiusa dall’interno, ma cedette alla pressione e si aprì sui cardini. Vide il bagliore di un fuoco sulle vecchie pareti, e entrò.

CHAPTER 71

The dull, red glow of a wood fire—for no lamp or candle burnt within the room—showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with its back towards him, bending over the fitful light. The attitude was that of one who sought the heat. It was, and yet was not. The stooping posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands were stretched out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver compared its luxury with the piercing cold outside. With limbs huddled together, head bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast, and fingers tightly clenched, it rocked to and fro upon its seat without a moment’s pause, accompanying the action with the mournful sound he had heard.

The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash that made him start. The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look, nor gave in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the noise. The form was that of an old man, his white head akin in colour to the mouldering embers upon which he gazed. He, and the failing light and dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellowship. Ashes, and dust, and ruin!

Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they were he scarcely knew. Still the same terrible low cry went on—still the same rocking in the chair—the same stricken figure was there, unchanged and heedless of his presence.

He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form—distinctly seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed up—arrested it. He returned to where he had stood before—advanced a pace—another—another still. Another, and he saw the face. Yes! Changed as it was, he knew it well.

‘Master!’ he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand. ‘Dear master. Speak to me!’

The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow voice,

‘This is another!—How many of these spirits there have been to-night!’

‘No spirit, master. No one but your old servant. You know me now, I am sure? Miss Nell—where is she—where is she?’

‘They all say that!’ cried the old man. ‘They all ask the same question. A spirit!’

‘Where is she?’ demanded Kit. ‘Oh tell me but that,—but that, dear master!’

‘She is asleep—yonder—in there.’

‘Thank God!’

‘Aye! Thank God!’ returned the old man. ‘I have prayed to Him, many, and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been asleep, He knows. Hark! Did she call?’

‘I heard no voice.’

‘You did. You hear her now. Do you tell me that you don’t hear THAT?’

He started up, and listened again.

‘Nor that?’ he cried, with a triumphant smile, ‘Can any body know that voice so well as I? Hush! Hush!’

Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber. After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in a softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp.

‘She is still asleep,’ he whispered. ‘You were right. She did not call—unless she did so in her slumber. She has called to me in her sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen her lips move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that she spoke of me. I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I brought it here.’

He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put the lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some momentary recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face. Then, as if forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned away and put it down again.

‘She is sleeping soundly,’ he said; ‘but no wonder. Angel hands have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. She used to feed them, Sir. Though never so cold and hungry, the timid things would fly from us. They never flew from her!’

Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to smooth and brush them with his hand.

‘Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,’ he murmured, ‘when there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them! Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping to the door, crying “where is Nell—sweet Nell?”—and sob, and weep, because they do not see thee. She was always gentle with children. The wildest would do her bidding—she had a tender way with them, indeed she had!’

Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears.

‘Her little homely dress,—her favourite!’ cried the old man, pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand. ‘She will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall have it—she shall have it. I would not vex my darling, for the wide world’s riches. See here—these shoes—how worn they are—she kept them to remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little feet went bare upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the stones had cut and bruised them. She never told me that. No, no, God bless her! and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might not see how lame she was—but yet she had my hand in hers, and seemed to lead me still.’

He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back again, went on communing with himself—looking wistfully from time to time towards the chamber he had lately visited.

‘She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then. We must have patience. When she is well again, she will rise early, as she used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time. I often tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no print upon the dewy ground, to guide me. Who is that? Shut the door. Quick!—Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble cold, and keep her warm!’

CAPITOLO 71

La luce opaca e rossastra di un fuoco di legna — poiché non ardeva alcuna lampada o candela nella stanza — gli mostrò una figura seduta sul focolare con le spalle rivolte verso di lui, china sulla luce intermittente. La posa era quella di chi cerca il calore. Era, e non era. La postura curva e la forma rannicchiata erano lì, ma non si tendevano le mani per ricevere il piacevole calore, né si faceva un gesto o un brivido per paragonarne il lusso con il freddo pungente all’esterno. Con gli arti rannicchiati, la testa china, le braccia incrociate sul petto e le dita strette, oscillava avanti e indietro senza una pausa, accompagnando il movimento con il suono lamentoso che aveva udito.

La pesante porta si era chiusa alle sue spalle al suo ingresso, con un fracasso che lo fece sobbalzare. La figura non parlò, né si voltò a guardare, né diede in alcun altro modo il più lieve segno di aver sentito il rumore. La figura era quella di un vecchio, la sua testa bianca simile di colore alle braci in disfacimento su cui fissava lo sguardo. Lui, e la luce che si affievoliva e il fuoco che moriva, la stanza logorata dal tempo, la solitudine, la vita sprecata e l’oscurità, erano tutti in comunione. Ceneri, e polvere, e rovina!

Kit cercò di parlare e riuscì a pronunciare alcune parole, sebbene non sapesse bene quali fossero. Ma quel terribile lamento sommesso continuava, e il dondolio della sedia pure, e la stessa figura colpita era lì, immutata e ignara della sua presenza.

Aveva la mano sulla maniglia quando qualcosa nella forma - distintamente visibile mentre un pezzo di legna si spezzava e cadeva, e mentre cadeva si accendeva - lo fermò. Tornò al punto in cui si era fermato prima - fece un passo avanti - un altro - un altro ancora. Un altro ancora, e vide il volto. Sì! Per quanto fosse cambiato, lo conosceva bene.

«Signore!» esclamò, inginocchiandosi su un ginocchio e afferrandogli la mano. «Caro signore. Parlatemi!»

Il vecchio si voltò lentamente verso di lui e mormorò con voce cavernosa,

«Questo è un altro!—Quanti di questi spiriti ci sono stati fino a questa notte!»

«Nessuno spirito, padrone. Solo il tuo vecchio servitore. Ora mi riconosci, ne sono certo? La signorina Nell, dov’è, dov’è?»

“Lo dicono tutti!” gridò il vecchio. “Fanno tutti la stessa domanda. Uno spirito!”

‘Dov’è?’ chiese Kit. ‘Oh, ditemelo almeno questo, caro padrone!’

‘Lei dorme là dentro.’

‘Grazie a Dio!’

«Sì! Grazie a Dio!», rispose il vecchio. «Gli ho pregato, molte, e molte, e molte lunghe notti, quando lei dormiva, Lui lo sa. Ascolta! Ha chiamato?»

‘Non ho sentito nessuna voce.’

‘L’hai fatto. La senti ora. Mi dici che non senti QUESTO?’

Si raddrizzò e ascoltò di nuovo.

«Nemmeno quello?» esclamò con un sorriso trionfante, «Può forse qualcuno conoscere quella voce così bene come me? Zitto! Zitto!»

Facendogli cenno di tacere, si allontanò in un’altra stanza. Dopo una breve assenza (durante la quale si poteva udire parlare con tono dolce e rassicurante) tornò, portando in mano una lampada.

«È ancora addormentata», sussurrò. «Avevate ragione. Non ha chiamato—a meno che non l’abbia fatto nel sonno. Mi ha chiamato nel sonno altre volte, signore; mentre stavo seduto a guardarla, ho visto le sue labbra muoversi, e ho capito, anche se non usciva alcun suono, che parlava di me. Temevo che la luce potesse accecarle gli occhi e svegliarla, così l’ho portata qui.»

Parlava più a se stesso che al visitatore, ma quando ebbe posato la lampada sul tavolo, la prese di nuovo, come spinto da un improvviso ricordo o da una curiosità, e la avvicinò al viso. Poi, come se avesse dimenticato il motivo proprio nell’atto, si voltò e la ripose di nuovo.

«Dorme profondamente», disse; «ma non c’è da meravigliarsi. Mani angeliche hanno ricoperto il terreno di uno spesso strato di neve, perché anche il passo più leggero sia ancora più leggero; e persino gli uccelli sono morti, perché non la svegliassero. Li nutriva, signore. Nonostante il freddo e la fame, quei timorosi esseri volavano via da noi. Non volavano mai via da lei!»

Di nuovo si fermò ad ascoltare, e a malapena respirando, ascoltò per un lungo, lungo tempo. Passata quella fantasia, aprì un vecchio baule, ne tirò fuori qualche indumento con la stessa tenerezza che avrebbe usato per delle creature viventi, e iniziò a lisciarli e spazzolarli con la mano.

«Perché giaci così oziosa, cara Nell», mormorò, «quando ci sono belle bacche rosse fuori che aspettano che tu le cogli! Perché giaci così oziosa, quando i tuoi piccoli amici vengono strisciando alla porta, chiedendo “dov’è Nell—la dolce Nell?”—e singhiozzano e piangono, perché non ti vedono. Lei era sempre gentile con i bambini. Anche i più selvaggi facevano ciò che lei chiedeva—aveva un modo tenero con loro, davvero lo aveva!»

Kit non aveva la forza di parlare. Gli occhi gli si riempirono di lacrime.

«Il suo piccolo vestito semplice,—il suo preferito!» esclamò il vecchio, stringendolo al petto e accarezzandolo con la sua mano raggrinzita. «Ne sentirà la mancanza quando si sveglierà. L’hanno nascosto qui per gioco, ma lo avrà—lo avrà. Non vorrei addolorare la mia piccola per tutto il tesoro del mondo. Guardate qui—queste scarpe—come sono consumate—le ha tenute per ricordarsi del nostro ultimo lungo viaggio. Vedete dove i piccoli piedi sono andati scalzi sulla terra. Mi hanno detto, dopo, che le pietre li avevano tagliati e feriti. Lei non me lo ha mai detto. No, no, Dio la benedica! e, da allora, mi è rimasto impresso che lei camminava dietro di me, signore, perché io non vedessi quanto zoppicava—ma purtuttavia aveva la mia mano nella sua, e sembrava guidarmi ancora».

Le premette sulle labbra, e dopo averle riposte con cura, continuò a parlare tra sé e sé, guardando con malinconia, di tanto in tanto, verso la camera che aveva appena visitato.

«Non era solita a restare a letto; ma allora era sana. Dobbiamo avere pazienza. Quando sarà di nuovo sana, si alzerà presto, come faceva di solito, e gironzolerà all’esterno nella sana ora del mattino. Spesso ho cercato di seguire la strada che aveva fatto, ma il suo piccolo passo non lasciava alcuna impronta sul terreno umido di rugiada, per guidarmi. Chi è? Chiudi la porta. In fretta!—Non abbiamo abbastanza da fare per scacciare quel freddo di marmo e tenerla al caldo!»

The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his friend, accompanied by two other persons. These were the schoolmaster, and the bachelor. The former held a light in his hand. He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish the exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit came up and found the old man alone.

He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside the angry manner—if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can be applied—in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed his former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old action, and the old, dull, wandering sound.

Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever. He had seen them, but appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The younger brother stood apart. The bachelor drew a chair towards the old man, and sat down close beside him. After a long silence, he ventured to speak.

‘Another night, and not in bed!’ he said softly; ‘I hoped you would be more mindful of your promise to me. Why do you not take some rest?’

‘Sleep has left me,’ returned the old man. ‘It is all with her!’

‘It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,’ said the bachelor. ‘You would not give her pain?’

‘I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her. She has slept so very long. And yet I am rash to say so. It is a good and happy sleep—eh?’

‘Indeed it is,’ returned the bachelor. ‘Indeed, indeed, it is!’

‘That’s well!—and the waking—’ faltered the old man.

‘Happy too. Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man conceive.’

They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other chamber where the lamp had been replaced. They listened as he spoke again within its silent walls. They looked into the faces of each other, and no man’s cheek was free from tears. He came back, whispering that she was still asleep, but that he thought she had moved. It was her hand, he said—a little—a very, very little—but he was pretty sure she had moved it—perhaps in seeking his. He had known her do that, before now, though in the deepest sleep the while. And when he had said this, he dropped into his chair again, and clasping his hands above his head, uttered a cry never to be forgotten.

The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come on the other side, and speak to him. They gently unlocked his fingers, which he had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in their own.

‘He will hear me,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘I am sure. He will hear either me or you if we beseech him. She would, at all times.’

‘I will hear any voice she liked to hear,’ cried the old man. ‘I love all she loved!’

‘I know you do,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘I am certain of it. Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have shared together; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures, you have jointly known.’

‘I do. I do. I think of nothing else.’

‘I would have you think of nothing else to-night—of nothing but those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it to old affections and old times. It is so that she would speak to you herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.’

‘You do well to speak softly,’ said the old man. ‘We will not wake her. I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile. There is a smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and changeless. I would have it come and go. That shall be in Heaven’s good time. We will not wake her.’

‘Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when you were journeying together, far away—as she was at home, in the old house from which you fled together—as she was, in the old cheerful time,’ said the schoolmaster.

‘She was always cheerful—very cheerful,’ cried the old man, looking steadfastly at him. ‘There was ever something mild and quiet about her, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy nature.’

‘We have heard you say,’ pursued the schoolmaster, ‘that in this and in all goodness, she was like her mother. You can think of, and remember her?’

He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer.

‘Or even one before her,’ said the bachelor. ‘It is many years ago, and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not forgotten her whose death contributed to make this child so dear to you, even before you knew her worth or could read her heart? Say, that you could carry back your thoughts to very distant days—to the time of your early life—when, unlike this fair flower, you did not pass your youth alone. Say, that you could remember, long ago, another child who loved you dearly, you being but a child yourself. Say, that you had a brother, long forgotten, long unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, in your utmost need came back to comfort and console you—’

‘To be to you what you were once to him,’ cried the younger, falling on his knee before him; ‘to repay your old affection, brother dear, by constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at your right hand, what he has never ceased to be when oceans rolled between us; to call to witness his unchanging truth and mindfulness of bygone days, whole years of desolation. Give me but one word of recognition, brother—and never—no never, in the brightest moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly boys, we thought to pass our lives together—have we been half as dear and precious to each other as we shall be from this time hence!’

The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no sound came from them in reply.

‘If we were knit together then,’ pursued the younger brother, ‘what will be the bond between us now! Our love and fellowship began in childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we have proved it, and are but children at the last. As many restless spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the world, retire in their decline to where they first drew breath, vainly seeking to be children once again before they die, so we, less fortunate than they in early life, but happier in its closing scenes, will set up our rest again among our boyish haunts, and going home with no hope realised, that had its growth in manhood—carrying back nothing that we brought away, but our old yearnings to each other—saving no fragment from the wreck of life, but that which first endeared it—may be, indeed, but children as at first. And even,’ he added in an altered voice, ‘even if what I dread to name has come to pass—even if that be so, or is to be (which Heaven forbid and spare us!)—still, dear brother, we are not apart, and have that comfort in our great affliction.’

La porta era effettivamente aperta per l’ingresso del signor Garland e del suo amico, accompagnati da altre due persone. Questi erano il maestro di scuola e il celibe. Il primo teneva una luce in mano. Sembrava che fosse andato solo alla sua capanna per riempire la lampada esaurita, nel momento in cui Kit si era presentato e aveva trovato l’anziano solo.

Si ammorbidì di nuovo alla vista di questi due amici, e, abbandonando il tono arrabbiato - se a qualcosa di così debole e triste si può applicare il termine - con cui aveva parlato quando la porta si era aperta, riprese il suo posto precedente, e, poco a poco, ricadde nell’antico gesto e nel vecchio, opaco, vago suono.

Degli sconosciuti, non si curava affatto. Li aveva visti, ma sembrava del tutto incapace di interesse o curiosità. Il fratello minore stava in disparte. Il celibe trasse una sedia verso il vecchio e si sedette vicino a lui. Dopo un lungo silenzio, si azzardò a parlare.

«Un’altra notte, e non a letto!» disse dolcemente; «Speravo che saresti stato più attento alla tua promessa. Perché non riposi un po’?»

«Il sonno mi ha abbandonato», rispose il vecchio. «È tutto con lei!»

‘Le farebbe molto male sapere che la stai osservando così,’ disse il celibe. ‘Non vorresti farle male?’

«Non ne sono così sicuro, se ciò la risvegliasse. Ha dormito così a lungo. Eppure sono temerario a dirlo. È un sonno buono e felice, eh?»

‘Infatti’, rispose il celibe. ‘Infatti, infatti, è così!’

«Questo è bene!—e il risveglio—» balbettò il vecchio.

“Felice anche lui. Più felice di quanto si possa esprimere o immaginare.”

Lo guardarono mentre si alzava e si avvicinava in punta di piedi all’altra stanza dove la lampada era stata sostituita. Lo ascoltarono mentre parlava di nuovo entro le sue mura silenziose. Si guardarono in faccia l’un l’altro, e nessuno era senza lacrime sulle guance. Tornò indietro, sussurrando che lei dormiva ancora, ma che pensava che si fosse mossa. Era la sua mano, disse, un po’—un pochissimo—ma era abbastanza sicuro che l’avesse mossa—forse cercando la sua. L’aveva vista fare così, prima di allora, anche se nel più profondo sonno del mondo. E quando ebbe detto questo, ricadde nella sua sedia, e stringendo le mani sopra la testa, emise un grido che non si dimenticherà mai.

Il povero maestro di scuola fece cenno al celibe che sarebbe venuto dall’altra parte, e gli avrebbe parlato. Gli serrarono delicatamente le dita, che aveva intrecciato nei suoi capelli grigi, e le strinsero nelle loro.

«Mi ascolterà», disse il maestro di scuola, «ne sono sicuro. Ci ascolterà, me o te, se lo supplichiamo. Lei lo avrebbe fatto, in ogni momento.»

«Ascolterò qualsiasi voce lei volesse ascoltare», gridò il vecchio. «Amo tutto ciò che lei amava!»

«So che lo fate», rispose il maestro. «Ne sono certo. Pensate a lei; pensate a tutti i dolori e le afflizioni che avete condiviso insieme; a tutte le prove, e a tutti i pacifici piaceri, che avete conosciuto insieme.»

‘Sì. Sì. Non penso ad altro.’

«Vorrei che non pensaste ad altro questa sera—a nulla se non a quelle cose che addolciranno il vostro cuore, caro amico, e lo apriranno ai vecchi affetti e ai vecchi tempi. È così che lei stessa vi parlerebbe, e in suo nome è che ora parlo io.»

«Fai bene a parlare a bassa voce», disse il vecchio. «Non la sveglieremo. Sarei felice di rivedere i suoi occhi e di vederla sorridere. C’è un sorriso sul suo giovane volto, ma è fisso e immutabile. Vorrei che apparisse e scomparisse. Questo accadrà nel buon tempo del Cielo. Non la sveglieremo.»

«Non parliamo di lei nel suo sonno, ma come era quando viaggiavate insieme, lontano, come era a casa, nella vecchia casa da cui siete fuggiti insieme, come era, nei vecchi tempi allegri», disse il maestro di scuola.

«Era sempre allegra — molto allegra», esclamò il vecchio, guardandolo fissamente. «C’era sempre qualcosa di mite e tranquillo in lei, me lo ricordo, fin dall’inizio; ma era di un natura felice.»

«Abbiamo sentito dire», continuò il maestro di scuola, «che in questo e in tutto ciò che è buono, lei era come sua madre. Può pensare a lei e ricordarla?»

Egli mantenne il suo sguardo fermo, ma non diede risposta.

‘O anche una prima di lei’, disse il celibe. ‘È passato molti anni, e l’afflizione rende il tempo più lungo, ma non avete dimenticato lei la cui morte contribuì a rendere questa bambina così cara a voi, anche prima di conoscere il suo valore o di poter leggere il suo cuore? Dite, che potreste riportare indietro i vostri pensieri a giorni molto lontani—al tempo della vostra giovinezza—quando, a differenza di questo bel fiore, non passaste la vostra giovinezza solo. Dite, che potreste ricordare, tanto tempo fa, un’altra bambina che vi amava teneramente, voi essendo solo un bambino. Dite, che aveste un fratello, da tempo dimenticato, da tempo non visto, da tempo separato da voi, che ora, finalmente, nel vostro estremo bisogno tornò a confortarvi e consolarvi—’

«Essere per te ciò che tu fosti un tempo per lui», gridò il più giovane, cadendo in ginocchio davanti a lui; «ripagare il tuo antico affetto, caro fratello, con costante cura, sollecitudine e amore; essere, al tuo fianco destro, ciò che lui non ha mai smesso di essere quando gli oceani rotolavano tra noi; chiamare a testimoniare la sua fedeltà immutabile e la sua attenzione ai giorni passati, interi anni di desolazione. Dammi solo una parola di riconoscimento, fratello—e mai—no mai, nel momento più luminoso dei nostri giorni più giovani, quando, poveri ragazzi sciocchi, pensavamo di passare la vita insieme—siamo stati nemmeno la metà di quanto cari e preziosi l’uno per l’altro come saremo da questo momento in poi!»

Il vecchio guardò da un volto all’altro e le sue labbra si mossero; ma nessun suono ne uscì in risposta.

«Se eravamo uniti allora», proseguì il fratello minore, «che legame ci sarà tra noi ora! Il nostro amore e la nostra amicizia sono nati nell’infanzia, quando la vita era tutta davanti a noi, e riprenderanno quando l’avremo provata e saremo di nuovo bambini. Come molti spiriti inquieti, che hanno inseguito fortuna, fama o piacere in giro per il mondo, si ritirano nel declino dove hanno tratto il primo respiro, cercando invano di essere bambini ancora una volta prima di morire, così noi, meno fortunati di loro nella prima parte della vita, ma più felici nelle sue scene conclusive, riposeremo di nuovo tra i luoghi della nostra infanzia, e andando a casa senza alcuna speranza realizzata, che aveva avuto origine nell’età adulta, non riportando indietro nulla di ciò che abbiamo portato via, ma i nostri vecchi desideri reciproci, non salvando alcun frammento dalle rovine della vita, ma ciò che per primo l’ha resa cara, possiamo essere, in effetti, bambini come all’inizio. E anche», aggiunse con voce alterata, «anche se ciò che temo di nominare è accaduto, anche se è così, o sta per esserlo (il che il Cielo ci risparmi!) ancora, caro fratello, non siamo separati, e abbiamo questo conforto nella nostra grande afflizione.»

By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner chamber, while these words were spoken. He pointed there, as he replied, with trembling lips.

‘You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You never will do that—never while I have life. I have no relative or friend but her—I never had—I never will have. She is all in all to me. It is too late to part us now.’

Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he stole into the room. They who were left behind, drew close together, and after a few whispered words—not unbroken by emotion, or easily uttered—followed him. They moved so gently, that their footsteps made no noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief and mourning.

For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel now.

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death.

Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour. ‘When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.’ Those were her words.

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird—a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed—was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child mistress was mute and motionless for ever.

Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.

And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same mild lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty, after death.

The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile—the hand that had led him on, through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.

She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast—the garden she had tended—the eyes she had gladdened—the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour—the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday—could know her never more.

‘It is not,’ said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, ‘it is not on earth that Heaven’s justice ends. Think what earth is, compared with the World to which her young spirit has winged its early flight; and say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!’

Poco a poco, mentre queste parole venivano pronunciate, il vecchio si era ritirato verso la camera interna. Indicò là, mentre rispondeva, con le labbra tremanti.

«Cospirate tra voi per allontanare il mio cuore da lei. Mai lo farete, mai finché avrò vita. Non ho parenti né amici se non lei, non ne ho mai avuti, non ne avrò mai. Lei è tutto per me. Ora è troppo tardi per separarci.»

Cacciandoli via con un gesto della mano e chiamandola dolcemente mentre andava, egli si insinuò nella stanza. Quelli che erano rimasti indietro si strinsero l’uno all’altro, e dopo poche parole sussurrate - non prive di emozione, o facilmente pronunciate - lo seguirono. Si muovevano così dolcemente, che i loro passi non facevano rumore; ma tra il gruppo si udivano singhiozzi, e suoni di dolore e lutto.

Per era morta. Lì, sul suo piccolo letto, riposava. Quella solenne quiete non era più un mistero.

Era morta. Nessun sonno così bello e tranquillo, così privo di tracce di dolore, così bello da guardare. Sembrava una creatura appena uscita dalle mani di Dio, in attesa del soffio della vita; non una che aveva vissuto e sofferto la morte.

Il suo divano era decorato qua e là con alcune bacche d’inverno e foglie verdi, raccolte in un luogo che aveva sempre prediletto. «Quando morirò, mettete vicino a me qualcosa che ha amato la luce e ha sempre avuto il cielo sopra di sé.» Queste erano le sue parole.

Era morta. La cara, gentile, paziente, nobile Nell era morta. Il suo piccolo uccello, una povera fragile creatura che la pressione di un dito avrebbe schiacciata, si agitava agilmente nella sua gabbia; e il forte cuore della sua bambina padrona era muto e immobile per sempre.

Dove erano le tracce delle sue prime preoccupazioni, delle sue sofferenze e delle sue fatiche? Erano tutte sparite. La tristezza era davvero morta in lei, ma erano nati la pace e la felicità perfetta; riflesse nella sua tranquilla bellezza e nel suo profondo riposo.

E ancora il suo vecchio io giaceva lì, immutato in questo cambiamento. Sì. Il vecchio caminetto aveva sorriso a quel dolce volto; era passato, come un sogno, tra luoghi di miseria e preoccupazione; alla porta del povero maestro di scuola nella sera d’estate, davanti al fuoco del forno nella fredda e umida notte, al capezzale silenzioso del ragazzo morente, c’era stato lo stesso dolce e amabile sguardo. Così conosceremo gli angeli nella loro maestà, dopo la morte.

Il vecchio teneva un braccio languido nel suo e stringeva la piccola mano al petto, per scaldarla. Era la mano che lei gli aveva teso con il suo ultimo sorriso, la mano che lo aveva guidato attraverso tutti i loro vagabondaggi. Di tanto in tanto la portava alle labbra; poi la stringeva di nuovo al petto, mormorando che ora era più calda; e, mentre lo diceva, guardava, in agonia, coloro che stavano intorno, come se li implorasse di aiutarla.

Era morta, e al di là di ogni aiuto, o bisogno di esso. Le antiche stanze che aveva sembrato riempire di vita, anche mentre la sua stessa vita si esauriva rapidamente, il giardino che aveva curato, gli occhi che aveva rallegrato, i luoghi silenziosi di molte ore di riflessione, i sentieri che aveva percorso come se fosse stato solo ieri, non l’avrebbero più conosciuta.

«Non è», disse il maestro di scuola, mentre si chinava per baciarla sulla guancia e lasciava libere le sue lacrime, «non è sulla terra che finisce la giustizia del Cielo. Pensa a cosa sia la terra, rispetto al Mondo verso cui il suo giovane spirito ha spiccato il suo primo volo; e dimmi, se un desiderio deliberato espresso in termini solenni sopra questo letto potesse richiamarla in vita, quale di noi lo esprimerebbe!»

CHAPTER 72

When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of their grief, they heard how her life had closed.

She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said ‘God bless you!’ with great fervour. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have been.

Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face—such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget—and clung with both her arms about his neck. They did not know that she was dead, at first.

She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were like dear friends to her. She wished they could be told how much she thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked together, by the river side at night. She would like to see poor Kit, she had often said of late. She wished there was somebody to take her love to Kit. And, even then, she never thought or spoke about him, but with something of her old, clear, merry laugh.

For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered—save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them—faded like the light upon a summer’s evening.

The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon as it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged them to lay upon her breast. It was he who had come to the window overnight and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces of small feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which she lay, before he went to bed. He had a fancy, it seemed, that they had left her there alone; and could not bear the thought.

He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being restored to them, just as she used to be. He begged hard to see her, saying that he would be very quiet, and that they need not fear his being alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother all day long when he was dead, and had felt glad to be so near him. They let him have his wish; and indeed he kept his word, and was, in his childish way, a lesson to them all.

Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once—except to her—or stirred from the bedside. But, when he saw her little favourite, he was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as though he would have him come nearer. Then, pointing to the bed, he burst into tears for the first time, and they who stood by, knowing that the sight of this child had done him good, left them alone together.

Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuaded him to take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him. And when the day came on, which must remove her in her earthly shape from earthly eyes for ever, he led him away, that he might not know when she was taken from him.

They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed. It was Sunday—a bright, clear, wintry afternoon—and as they traversed the village street, those who were walking in their path drew back to make way for them, and gave them a softened greeting. Some shook the old man kindly by the hand, some stood uncovered while he tottered by, and many cried ‘God help him!’ as he passed along.

‘Neighbour!’ said the old man, stopping at the cottage where his young guide’s mother dwelt, ‘how is it that the folks are nearly all in black to-day? I have seen a mourning ribbon or a piece of crape on almost every one.’

She could not tell, the woman said.

‘Why, you yourself—you wear the colour too?’ he said. ‘Windows are closed that never used to be by day. What does this mean?’

Again the woman said she could not tell.

‘We must go back,’ said the old man, hurriedly. ‘We must see what this is.’

‘No, no,’ cried the child, detaining him. ‘Remember what you promised. Our way is to the old green lane, where she and I so often were, and where you found us, more than once, making those garlands for her garden. Do not turn back!’

‘Where is she now?’ said the old man. ‘Tell me that.’

‘Do you not know?’ returned the child. ‘Did we not leave her, but just now?’

‘True. True. It was her we left—was it?’

He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the sexton’s house. He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the fire. Both rose up, on seeing who it was.

The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand. It was the action of an instant, but that, and the old man’s look, were quite enough.

‘Do you—do you bury any one to-day?’ he said, eagerly.

‘No, no! Who should we bury, Sir?’ returned the sexton.

‘Aye, who indeed! I say with you, who indeed!’

‘It is a holiday with us, good Sir,’ returned the sexton mildly. ‘We have no work to do to-day.’

‘Why then, I’ll go where you will,’ said the old man, turning to the child. ‘You’re sure of what you tell me? You would not deceive me? I am changed, even in the little time since you last saw me.’

‘Go thy ways with him, Sir,’ cried the sexton, ‘and Heaven be with ye both!’

‘I am quite ready,’ said the old man, meekly. ‘Come, boy, come—’ and so submitted to be led away.

CAPITOLO 72

Quando giunse il mattino, e poterono parlare più tranquillamente del loro dolore, seppero come si era conclusa la sua vita.

Era morta da due giorni. Tutti erano stati con lei in quel momento, sapendo che la fine si avvicinava. Morì poco dopo l’alba. Avevano letto e parlato con lei nella prima parte della notte, ma man mano che le ore passavano, lei sprofondava nel sonno. Potevano capire, da ciò che mormorava debolmente nei suoi sogni, che riguardavano i suoi viaggi con il vecchio; non erano scene dolorose, ma di persone che li avevano aiutati e trattati con gentilezza, perché spesso diceva “Dio vi benedica!” con grande fervore. Al risveglio, la sua mente non vagò mai se non una volta, e fu per una bella musica che disse di sentire nell’aria. Dio lo sa. Potrebbe essere stato così.

Quando finalmente aprì gli occhi, dopo un sonno molto tranquillo, chiese loro di baciarla ancora una volta. Fatto ciò, si rivolse al vecchio con un sorriso incantevole sul viso, un sorriso, dissero, che non avevano mai visto e non avrebbero mai dimenticato, e lo abbracciò con entrambe le braccia intorno al collo. All’inizio non sapevano che fosse morta.

Aveva spesso parlato delle due sorelle, che, diceva, erano come care amiche per lei. Desiderava che potessero essere informate di quanto spesso pensasse a loro, e di come le avesse osservate mentre camminavano insieme lungo la riva del fiume di notte. Le sarebbe piaciuto rivedere la povera Kit, aveva spesso detto ultimamente. Avrebbe voluto che ci fosse qualcuno che portasse il suo affetto a Kit. E, anche allora, non pensava o parlava di lui se non con qualcosa della sua vecchia, chiara, allegra risata.

Per il resto, non aveva mai borbottato né lamentato; ma con una mente tranquilla e un comportamento del tutto invariato - se non per il fatto che ogni giorno diventava più fervente e più grata nei loro confronti - si è affievolita come la luce di una serata estiva.

Il bambino che era stato il suo piccolo amico arrivò lì quasi non appena fu giorno, con un’offerta di fiori secchi che pregò loro di deporre sul suo seno. Fu lui che era venuto alla finestra durante la notte e aveva parlato col sagrestano, e videro nella neve le tracce di piccoli piedi, dove era rimasto a soffermarsi vicino alla stanza in cui lei giaceva, prima di andare a letto. Aveva la fantasia, sembrava, che l’avessero lasciata lì sola; e non poteva sopportare il pensiero.

Raccontò loro di nuovo il suo sogno, e che riguardava il suo ritorno da loro, proprio come era solita essere. Chiese con insistenza di vederla, dicendo che sarebbe stato molto tranquillo, e che non dovevano temere che si spaventasse, perché era rimasto solo accanto al suo giovane fratello tutto il giorno quando era morto, e si era sentito felice di essere così vicino a lui. Gli concessero il suo desiderio; e infatti mantenne la sua parola, e fu, a modo suo infantile, un esempio per tutti loro.

Fino a quel momento, il vecchio non aveva parlato una volta — tranne con lei — o si era mosso dal letto. Ma, quando vide il suo piccolo preferito, fu commosso come non l’avevano mai visto prima, e fece cenno di volerlo avvicinare. Poi, indicando il letto, scoppiò in lacrime per la prima volta, e quelli che stavano lì, sapendo che la vista di questo bambino gli aveva fatto bene, li lasciarono soli insieme.

Rassicurandolo con il suo ingenuo parlare di lei, il bambino lo persuase a riposare, a fare una passeggiata, a fare quasi tutto ciò che lui desiderava. E quando arrivò il giorno che avrebbe dovuto allontanarla per sempre dalla vista degli uomini in forma terrena, lo portò via, perché non sapesse quando lei gli sarebbe stata tolta.

Dovevano raccogliere foglie fresche e bacche per il suo letto. Era domenica — un luminoso, limpido pomeriggio invernale — e mentre attraversavano la strada del villaggio, coloro che camminavano sul loro cammino si ritiravano per fargli spazio e li salutavano con un saluto dolcificato. Alcuni strinsero calorosamente la mano al vecchio, alcuni rimasero a testa scoperta mentre lui passava traballando, e molti gridavano “Dio lo aiuti!” mentre passava.

«Vicino!» disse il vecchio, fermandosi alla casetta dove abitava la madre del suo giovane guida, «come mai la gente è quasi tutta in lutto oggi? Ho visto un nastro di lutto o un pezzo di crespo su quasi tutti.»

Non poteva dirlo, disse la donna.

«Ma voi stesso, voi indossate quel colore?» disse. «Le finestre sono chiuse, mentre di giorno non lo erano mai. Che cosa significa tutto ciò?»

Ancora la donna disse che non poteva dire.

‘Dobbiamo tornare indietro’, disse l’anziano, in fretta. ‘Dobbiamo vedere di che si tratta.’

‘No, no’, gridò il bambino, trattenerlo. ‘Ricorda ciò che hai promesso. La nostra strada è quella vecchia via verde, dove lei ed io siamo stati così spesso, e dove ci hai trovati, più di una volta, mentre facevamo quei ghirlande per il suo giardino. Non tornare indietro!’

“Dov’è ora?” disse il vecchio. “Dimmelo.”

«Non lo sapete?» rispose il bambino. «Non l’abbiamo lasciata proprio ora?»

‘Vero. Vero. Era lei quella che abbiamo lasciato, vero?’

Si premette la mano sulla fronte, guardò intorno con aria assente, e come spinto da un pensiero improvviso, attraversò la strada ed entrò nella casa del becchino. Lui e il suo assistente sordo erano seduti davanti al fuoco. Entrambi si alzarono in piedi, vedendo chi fosse.

Il bambino fece loro un rapido cenno con la mano. Fu un gesto improvviso, ma questo, insieme allo sguardo del vecchio, fu più che sufficiente.

«Voi, voi seppellite qualcuno oggi?» disse, con impeto.

«No, no! Chi dovremmo seppellire, signore?» rispose il becchino.

‘Sì, chi diavolo! Dico con te, chi diavolo!’

«È una festa per noi, buon signore», rispose il sagrestano con dolcezza. «Oggi non abbiamo lavoro da fare.»

«Allora, andrò dove vuoi tu», disse il vecchio, rivolgendosi al bambino. «Sei sicuro di quello che mi dici? Non vorresti ingannarmi? Sono cambiato, anche nel poco tempo da quando mi hai visto l’ultima volta.»

“Seguitelo, signore”, gridò il sagrestano, “e che il Cielo sia con voi entrambi!”

«Sono del tutto pronto», disse l’anziano, mansueto. «Vieni, ragazzo, vieni, » e così si sottomise a essere condotto via.

And now the bell—the bell she had so often heard, by night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice—rung its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life—to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing—grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl and creep above it!

Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen snow that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting. Under the porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its quiet shade.

They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light streamed on it through the coloured window—a window, where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light, would fall upon her grave.

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! Many a young hand dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some—and they were not a few—knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in their sorrow.

The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be replaced. One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky. Another told, how he had wondered much that one so delicate as she, should be so bold; how she had never feared to enter the church alone at night, but had loved to linger there when all was quiet, and even to climb the tower stair, with no more light than that of the moon rays stealing through the loopholes in the thick old wall. A whisper went about among the oldest, that she had seen and talked with angels; and when they called to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her early death, some thought it might be so, indeed. Thus, coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the church was cleared in time, of all but the sexton and the mourning friends.

They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place—when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave—in that calm time, when outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them—then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God.

Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach, but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the Destroyer’s steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven.

It was late when the old man came home. The boy had led him to his own dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back; and, rendered drowsy by his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into a deep sleep by the fireside. He was perfectly exhausted, and they were careful not to rouse him. The slumber held him a long time, and when he at length awoke the moon was shining.

The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching at the door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with his little guide. He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging the old man to lean upon his arm, conducted him with slow and trembling steps towards the house.

He repaired to her chamber, straight. Not finding what he had left there, he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they were assembled. From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster’s cottage, calling her name. They followed close upon him, and when he had vainly searched it, brought him home.

With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest, they prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should tell him. Then endeavouring by every little artifice to prepare his mind for what must come, and dwelling with many fervent words upon the happy lot to which she had been removed, they told him, at last, the truth. The moment it had passed their lips, he fell down among them like a murdered man.

For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is strong, and he recovered.

If there be any who have never known the blank that follows death—the weary void—the sense of desolation that will come upon the strongest minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at every turn—the connection between inanimate and senseless things, and the object of recollection, when every household god becomes a monument and every room a grave—if there be any who have not known this, and proved it by their own experience, they can never faintly guess how, for many days, the old man pined and moped away the time, and wandered here and there as seeking something, and had no comfort.

E ora la campana, quella campana che aveva così spesso udito, di notte e di giorno, e ascoltato con solenne piacere quasi fosse una voce vivente, suonava il suo implacabile rintocco per lei, così giovane, così bella, così buona. Età decrepita, vita vigorosa, giovinezza fiorente e infanzia indifesa si riversavano fuori, su grucce, nel orgoglio della forza e della salute, nel pieno rossore della promessa, nel mero alba della vita, per radunarsi intorno alla sua tomba. C’erano vecchi i cui occhi erano offuscati e i sensi in declino, nonne che avrebbero potuto morire dieci anni fa e comunque essere vecchie, i sordi, i ciechi, i zoppi, i paralitici, i morti viventi in molte forme e aspetti, per vedere la chiusura di quella precoce tomba. Che cosa era la morte che avrebbe chiuso dentro, rispetto a quella che ancora poteva strisciare e gattonare sopra di essa!

Lungo il sentiero affollato la trasportavano ora; pura come la neve appena caduta neve che lo ricopriva; il cui giorno sulla terra era stato altrettanto fugace. Sotto il portico, dove si era seduta quando il Cielo nella sua misericordia l’aveva condotta in quel luogo pacifico, passò di nuovo; e la vecchia chiesa la accolse nella sua quieta ombra.

La portarono in un vecchio angolo dove molte e molte volte si era seduta a meditare, e deposero delicatamente il loro carico sul pavimento. La luce vi si riversava attraverso la finestra colorata - una finestra dove i rami degli alberi frusciavano sempre nell’estate, e dove gli uccelli cantavano dolcemente tutto il giorno. Con ogni respiro d’aria che si muoveva tra quei rami al sole, una luce tremolante e mutevole cadeva sulla sua tomba.

Terra alla terra, ceneri alle ceneri, polvere alla polvere! Molte giovani mani posarono il loro piccolo ghirlanda, molti singhiozzi soffocati furono uditi. Alcuni - e non erano pochi - si inginocchiarono. Tutti erano sinceri e veritieri nel loro dolore.

Finito il servizio, i partecipanti al lutto si tennero in disparte, e i contadini si strinsero intorno per dare un’occhiata alla tomba prima che la lastra del pavimento fosse rimessa a posto. Uno ricordò come l’aveva vista seduta proprio in quel punto, e come il suo libro le era caduto in grembo, e lei fissava con aria pensosa il cielo. Un altro raccontò come si era molto meravigliato che una così delicata come lei, fosse così audace; come non avesse mai temuto di entrare in chiesa da sola di notte, ma avesse amato indugiare lì quando tutto era tranquillo, e persino salire la scala della torre, senza altra luce che quella dei raggi della luna che filtravano dalle feritoie nella spessa vecchia parete. Tra i più anziani corse un sussurro che lei avesse visto e parlato con gli angeli; e quando si ricordavano come aveva guardato, e parlato, e la sua precoce morte, alcuni pensarono che potesse essere vero, davvero. Così, avvicinandosi alla tomba in piccoli gruppi, e guardando giù, e lasciando il posto ad altri, e allontanandosi in bisbiglianti gruppetti di tre o quattro, la chiesa fu sgomberata in tempo, di tutti tranne che del sagrestano e degli amici in lutto.

Videro la tomba coperta e la pietra fissata. Poi, quando era calata la sera e nessun rumore turbava la sacra quiete del luogo, quando la luna splendente riversava la sua luce sulle tombe e i monumenti, sui pilastri, le pareti e gli archi, e più di tutti (così sembrava loro) sulla sua tranquilla tomba — in quel calmo momento, quando le cose esterne e i pensieri interiori traboccano di certezze di immortalità, e le speranze e le paure mondane si umiliano nella polvere davanti a loro — allora, con cuori tranquilli e sottomessi, si allontanarono, e lasciarono il bambino a Dio.

Oh! è difficile prendere a cuore la lezione che tali morti insegnano, ma nessuno la rifiuti, perché è una che tutti devono imparare, ed è una possente, universale Verità. Quando Morte colpisce il innocente e il giovane, per ogni fragile forma da cui libera l’affannoso spirito, sorgono cento virtù, in forme di misericordia, carità, e amore, per camminare nel mondo e benedirlo. Ogni lacrima che i mortali addolorati versano su tali tombe verdi, genera un bene, fa nascere una natura più mite. Nei passi del Distruttore sorgono creazioni luminose che sfidano il suo potere, e il suo oscuro cammino diventa un sentiero di luce verso il Cielo.

Era tardi quando il vecchio tornò a casa. Il ragazzo lo aveva condotto al suo stesso alloggio, sotto qualche pretesto, lungo il cammino di ritorno; e, reso assonnato dalla lunga passeggiata e dalla mancanza di riposo, era caduto in un profondo sonno accanto al caminetto. Era completamente esausto, e loro furono attenti a non svegliarlo. Il sonno lo tenne per un lungo periodo, e quando alla fine si svegliò la luna splendeva.

Il fratello minore, inquieto per la sua prolungata assenza, stava aspettando alla porta il suo arrivo, quando apparve nel sentiero con la sua piccola guida. Si avvicinò per incontrarli e, obbligando con tenerezza il vecchio a appoggiarsi al suo braccio, lo condusse con passi lenti e tremanti verso la casa.

Si recò subito nella sua stanza. Non trovando ciò che vi aveva lasciato, tornò con aria distratta nella sala in cui erano riuniti. Da lì, si precipitò nella casetta del maestro di scuola, chiamando il suo nome. Lo seguirono da vicino, e quando ebbe cercato invano, lo riportarono a casa.

Con parole così persuasive come la pietà e l’affetto potevano suggerire, riuscirono a convincerlo a sedersi tra loro e ascoltare ciò che avrebbero dovuto dirgli. Poi, cercando con ogni piccolo artificio di preparare la sua mente a ciò che doveva venire, e soffermandosi con molte parole ferventi sulla felice sorte a cui era stata trasferita, gli dissero, alla fine, la verità. Nel momento in cui essa aveva oltrepassato le loro labbra, egli cadde tra loro come un uomo assassinato.

Per molte ore, avevano poca speranza che sopravvivesse; ma il dolore è forte, e lui guarì.

Se ci sono persone che non hanno mai conosciuto il vuoto che segue la morte — il vuoto stanco — la sensazione di desolazione che colpirà le menti più forti, quando qualcosa di familiare e amato viene mancato ad ogni passo — la connessione tra cose inanimate e senza senso, e l’oggetto del ricordo, quando ogni divinità domestica diventa un monumento e ogni stanza una tomba — se ci sono persone che non hanno mai conosciuto questo, e non l’hanno provato con la propria esperienza, non potranno mai immaginare vagamente come, per molti giorni, il vecchio uomo languì e si trascinò via il tempo, e vagò qua e là come se cercasse qualcosa, e non ebbe alcun conforto.

Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up in her. He never understood, or seemed to care to understand, about his brother. To every endearment and attention he continued listless. If they spoke to him on this, or any other theme—save one—he would hear them patiently for awhile, then turn away, and go on seeking as before.

On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, it was impossible to touch. Dead! He could not hear or bear the word. The slightest hint of it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that he had had when it was first spoken. In what hope he lived, no man could tell; but that he had some hope of finding her again—some faint and shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him from day to day more sick and sore at heart—was plain to all.

They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last sorrow; of trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him. His brother sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful in such matters, and they came and saw him. Some of the number staid upon the spot, conversed with him when he would converse, and watched him as he wandered up and down, alone and silent. Move him where they might, they said, he would ever seek to get back there. His mind would run upon that spot. If they confined him closely, and kept a strict guard upon him, they might hold him prisoner, but if he could by any means escape, he would surely wander back to that place, or die upon the road.

The boy, to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any influence with him. At times he would suffer the child to walk by his side, or would even take such notice of his presence as giving him his hand, or would stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the head. At other times, he would entreat him—not unkindly—to be gone, and would not brook him near. But, whether alone, or with this pliant friend, or with those who would have given him, at any cost or sacrifice, some consolation or some peace of mind, if happily the means could have been devised; he was at all times the same—with no love or care for anything in life—a broken-hearted man.

At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with his knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and little basket full of such things as she had been used to carry, was gone. As they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a frightened schoolboy came who had seen him, but a moment before, sitting in the church—upon her grave, he said.

They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in the attitude of one who waited patiently. They did not disturb him then, but kept a watch upon him all that day. When it grew quite dark, he rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to himself, ‘She will come to-morrow!’

Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and still at night he laid him down to rest, and murmured, ‘She will come to-morrow!’

And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her grave, for her. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden—how many tones of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind—how many visions of what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be—rose up before him, in the old, dull, silent church! He never told them what he thought, or where he went. He would sit with them at night, pondering with a secret satisfaction, they could see, upon the flight that he and she would take before night came again; and still they would hear him whisper in his prayers, ‘Lord! Let her come to-morrow!’

The last time was on a genial day in spring. He did not return at the usual hour, and they went to seek him. He was lying dead upon the stone.

They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in the church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together.

Qualunque potere di pensiero o memoria avesse conservato, era tutto legato a lei. Non capì mai, o non sembrò mai voler capire, nulla riguardo a suo fratello. Continuò a essere apatico a ogni affetto e attenzione. Se gli parlavano di questo, o di qualsiasi altro argomento - tranne uno - li ascoltava pazientemente per un po’, poi si voltava e continuava a cercare come prima.

Su quell’unico tema, che era nella sua mente e in quella di tutti loro, era impossibile toccare. Morto! Non poteva sentire o sopportare quella parola. Il minimo accenno a essa lo avrebbe gettato in un parossismo, come quello che aveva avuto quando era stato pronunciato per la prima volta. In quale speranza vivesse, nessuno poteva dirlo; ma che avesse qualche speranza di ritrovarla di nuovo - qualche debole e ombrosa speranza, rimandata di giorno in giorno, e che lo rendeva di giorno in giorno più malato e affranto nel cuore - era evidente a tutti.

Pensarono di allontanarlo dal luogo di questo ultimo dolore, di provare se un cambiamento di posto lo avrebbe risvegliato o consolato. Suo fratello chiese consiglio a coloro che erano considerati esperti in tali questioni, e questi vennero a vederlo. Alcuni di loro rimasero sul posto, conversarono con lui quando voleva conversare, e lo osservarono mentre vagava su e giù, solo e silenzioso. Lo spostassero dove volevano, dicevano, lui avrebbe sempre cercato di tornare lì. La sua mente sarebbe stata sempre su quel luogo. Se lo avessero rinchiuso strettamente e tenuto sotto stretta sorveglianza, avrebbero potuto tenerlo prigioniero, ma se fosse riuscito a fuggire in qualche modo, sarebbe sicuramente tornato a vagare in quel posto, o sarebbe morto sulla strada.

Il ragazzo, a cui si era sottomesso all’inizio, non aveva più alcuna influenza su di lui. A volte permetteva al bambino di camminare al suo fianco, o addirittura si accorgeva della sua presenza al punto da dargli la mano, o si fermava per baciarlo sulla guancia, o per accarezzargli la testa. Altre volte, lo pregava - non in modo sgarbato - di andarsene, e non tollerava la sua vicinanza. Ma, sia che fosse solo, o con questo amico malleabile, o con coloro che gli avrebbero dato, a qualsiasi costo o sacrificio, qualche consolazione o un po’ di pace, se per fortuna fosse stato possibile escogitare il modo; era sempre lo stesso - senza amore o cura per nulla nella vita - un uomo con il cuore spezzato.

Alla fine, un giorno, scoprirono che si era alzato presto, e, con lo zaino in spalla, il bastone in mano, il suo cappello di paglia e il piccolo cesto pieno di cose che era solita portare, era sparito. Mentre si preparavano a inseguirlo in lungo e in largo, arrivò un bambino spaventato che lo aveva visto, solo un attimo prima, seduto in chiesa — sulla sua tomba, disse.

Si affrettarono là, e avvicinandosi silenziosamente alla porta, lo videro nell’atteggiamento di chi aspetta pazientemente. Non lo disturbarono allora, ma lo sorvegliarono per tutto quel giorno. Quando fu completamente buio, egli si alzò e tornò a casa, e andò a letto, mormorando tra sé: «Verrà domani!»

Il giorno dopo era di nuovo lì dal sorgere del sole fino a notte; e ancora a notte si coricò per riposare, e mormorò: «Verrà domani!»

E da allora in poi, ogni giorno, e tutto il giorno, egli attese presso la tomba di lei, per lei. Quante immagini di nuovi viaggi attraverso paesi piacevoli, di luoghi di riposo sotto il vasto cielo libero, di passeggiate nei campi e nei boschi, e per sentieri poco battuti — quante tonalità di quella unica voce ben ricordata, quanti lampi della sua forma, del vestito che svolazzava, dei capelli che sventolavano così allegramente nel vento — quante visioni di ciò che era stato, e di ciò che sperava sarebbe ancora stato — si levavano davanti a lui, nella vecchia, tetra, silenziosa chiesa! Egli non raccontò mai loro ciò che pensava, o dove andava. Sedeva con loro di sera, riflettendo con un soddisfazione segreta, come potevano vedere, sul volo che lui e lei avrebbero fatto prima che la notte tornasse; e ancora li sentivano sussurrare nelle sue preghiere, ‘Signore! Facciela venire domani!’

L’ultima volta fu in una giornata geniale di primavera. Non tornò all’ora solita, e andarono a cercarlo. Era disteso morto sulla pietra.

Lo deposero al fianco di colei che aveva amato così tanto; e, nella chiesa dove spesso avevano pregato, meditato e indugiato mano nella mano, il bambino e il vecchio riposarono insieme.

CHAPTER 73

The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler thus far, now slackens in its pace, and stops. It lies before the goal; the pursuit is at an end.

It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey.

Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm, claim our polite attention.

Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to protract his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under his protection for a considerable time, during which the great attention of his entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he was quite lost to society, and never even went abroad for exercise saving into a small paved yard. So well, indeed, was his modest and retiring temper understood by those with whom he had to deal, and so jealous were they of his absence, that they required a kind of friendly bond to be entered into by two substantial housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds a-piece, before they would suffer him to quit their hospitable roof—doubting, it appeared, that he would return, if once let loose, on any other terms. Mr Brass, struck with the humour of this jest, and carrying out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his wide connection a pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some halfpence short of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail—for that was the merry word agreed upon both sides. These gentlemen being rejected after twenty-four hours’ pleasantry, Mr Brass consented to remain, and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand jury (who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve other wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty with a most facetious joy,—nay, the very populace entered into the whim, and when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the building where these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs and carcases of kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into shreds, which greatly increased the comicality of the thing, and made him relish it the more, no doubt.

To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his counsel, moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to criminate himself, by assurances of safety and promises of pardon, and claimed the leniency which the law extends to such confiding natures as are thus deluded. After solemn argument, this point (with others of a technical nature, whose humorous extravagance it would be difficult to exaggerate) was referred to the judges for their decision, Sampson being meantime removed to his former quarters. Finally, some of the points were given in Sampson’s favour, and some against him; and the upshot was, that, instead of being desired to travel for a time in foreign parts, he was permitted to grace the mother country under certain insignificant restrictions.

These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a spacious mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and boarded at the public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of grey turned up with yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and chiefly lived on gruel and light soup. It was also required of him that he should partake of their exercise of constantly ascending an endless flight of stairs; and, lest his legs, unused to such exertion, should be weakened by it, that he should wear upon one ankle an amulet or charm of iron. These conditions being arranged, he was removed one evening to his new abode, and enjoyed, in common with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the privilege of being taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty’s own carriages.

Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and blotted out from the roll of attorneys; which erasure has been always held in these latter times to be a great degradation and reproach, and to imply the commission of some amazing villany—as indeed it would seem to be the case, when so many worthless names remain among its better records, unmolested.

Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumours went abroad. Some said with confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and had become a female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had enlisted as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and had been seen in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her musket and looking out of a sentry-box in St James’s Park, one evening. There were many such whispers as these in circulation; but the truth appears to be that, after the lapse of some five years (during which there is no direct evidence of her having been seen at all), two wretched people were more than once observed to crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of St Giles’s, and to take their way along the streets, with shuffling steps and cowering shivering forms, looking into the roads and kennels as they went in search of refuse food or disregarded offal. These forms were never beheld but in those nights of cold and gloom, when the terrible spectres, who lie at all other times in the obscene hiding-places of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars, venture to creep into the streets; the embodied spirits of Disease, and Vice, and Famine. It was whispered by those who should have known, that these were Sampson and his sister Sally; and to this day, it is said, they sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome guise, close at the elbow of the shrinking passenger.

The body of Quilp being found—though not until some days had elapsed—an inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been washed ashore. The general supposition was that he had committed suicide, and, this appearing to be favoured by all the circumstances of his death, the verdict was to that effect. He was left to be buried with a stake through his heart in the centre of four lonely roads.

CAPITOLO 73

La magica bobina, che, rotolando avanti, ha condotto il cronista fin qui, ora rallenta il suo passo e si ferma. Si trova davanti al traguardo; la ricerca è giunta al termine.

Resta solo congedare i capi della piccola folla che ci ha fatto compagnia sulla strada, e così concludere il viaggio.

In testa a tutti, il liscio Sampson Brass e Sally, braccio a braccio, reclamano la nostra cortese attenzione.

Il signor Sampson, dunque, essendo stato trattenuto, come già è stato mostrato, dalla giustizia presso la quale si era presentato, e essendo stato così fortemente sollecitato a prolungare il suo soggiorno che non poteva in alcun modo rifiutare, rimase sotto la sua protezione per un considerevole periodo, durante il quale l’attenzione del suo ospite lo tenne così estremamente isolato che fu completamente perduto per la società e non uscì mai nemmeno per fare esercizio, se non in un piccolo cortile lastricato. Il suo temperamento modesto e riservato era, infatti, così ben compreso da coloro con i quali aveva a che fare, e questi erano così gelosi della sua assenza, che richiesero una sorta di cauzione amichevole da parte di due rispettabili casalinghi, per la somma di millecinquecento sterline a testa, prima di consentirgli di lasciare il loro ospitale tetto—dubitando, sembrava, che sarebbe tornato, se una volta lasciato libero, su qualsiasi altro termine. Il signor Brass, colpito dal capriccio di questo scherzo, e portandone lo spirito al massimo, cercò tra le sue ampie conoscenze una coppia di amici le cui proprietà congiunte mancavano di mezzo penny per arrivare a quindici pence, e li offrì come cauzioni—perché questo era il termine scherzoso concordato da entrambe le parti. Questi signori, dopo essere stati rifiutati dopo ventiquattro ore di scherzi, il signor Brass acconsentì a rimanere, e rimase, fino a quando un club di spiriti scelti chiamato Gran Giurì (che era nella congiura) lo convocò a un processo davanti a dodici altri spiritosi per spergiuro e frode, che a loro volta lo trovarono colpevole con una gioia estremamente faceta,—anzi, la stessa popolazione si unì al capriccio, e quando il signor Brass si stava muovendo in una carrozza pubblica verso l’edificio dove si riunivano questi spiritosi, lo salutò con uova marce e carcasse di gattini, e fingeva di volerlo strappare a pezzi, il che aumentò notevolmente la comicità della cosa, e lo fece apprezzare ancora di più, senza dubbio.

Per sfruttare ulteriormente questa vena sportiva, il signor Brass, con il suo avvocato, chiese la sospensione della sentenza sostenendo di essersi autoincriminato in seguito a rassicurazioni sulla sua incolumità e promesse di perdono, e chiese la clemenza che la legge estende a quelle nature fiduciose che vengono così ingannate. Dopo un solenne dibattito, questo punto (insieme ad altri di natura tecnica, la cui esagerata umoristica sarebbe difficile da esagerare) fu deferito ai giudici per la loro decisione, mentre Sampson veniva nel frattempo ricondotto alle sue precedenti stanze. Alla fine, alcuni dei punti furono concessi a favore di Sampson e alcuni contro di lui; e il risultato fu che, invece di essere invitato a viaggiare per un periodo all’estero, gli fu permesso di onorare la madrepatria con alcune restrizioni insignificanti.

Queste erano che, per un certo numero di anni, dovesse risiedere in una spaziosa dimora dove diversi altri signori erano alloggiati e vitto a spese pubbliche, che andavano vestiti in un sobrio uniforme grigio con risvolti gialli, avevano i capelli tagliati estremamente corti, e vivevano principalmente di gruel e minestre leggere. Gli si richiedeva inoltre di partecipare al loro esercizio di salire costantemente una scala infinita; e, per timore che le sue gambe, non abituate a tale sforzo, ne fossero indebolite, che portasse ad un caviglia un amuleto o ciondolo di ferro. Queste condizioni essendo state concordate, fu trasferito una sera nella sua nuova dimora, e godette, insieme a nove altri signori e due signore, del privilegio di essere condotto al suo luogo di ritiro in una delle carrozze della stessa Reale Famiglia.

Oltre a queste pene lievi, il suo nome fu cancellato e rimosso dall’albo degli avvocati; tale cancellazione è sempre stata considerata in tempi recenti una grande degradazione e un’onta, e implica la commissione di qualche incredibile infamia, come sembrerebbe essere il caso, quando tanti nomi senza valore rimangono tra i suoi migliori registri, indisturbati.

Di Sally Brass, circolavano voci contrastanti. Alcuni affermavano con sicurezza che si era recata al porto travestita da uomo e che era diventata una marinaia; altri sussurravano oscuramente che si era arruolata come soldato semplice nel secondo reggimento dei Foot Guards e che era stata vista in uniforme, in servizio, appoggiata al suo fucile e di guardia in una cabina nel St James’s Park, una sera. Circolavano molti sussurri del genere; ma la verità sembra essere che, dopo il trascorrere di circa cinque anni (durante i quali non c’è alcuna prova diretta che sia stata vista), due persone miserabili furono più volte osservate strisciare al crepuscolo dai recessi più interni di St Giles’s, e percorrere le strade con passi trascinati e forme tremanti e rannicchiate, scrutando le strade e i canali mentre cercavano cibo di scarto o scarti trascurati. Queste forme non furono mai viste se non in quelle notti di freddo e oscurità, quando i terribili spettri, che giacciono in tutti gli altri momenti nei nascondigli osceni di Londra, in portici, cantine buie e scantinati, osano strisciare nelle strade; gli spiriti incarnati della Malattia, del Vizio e della Fame. Si sussurrava tra coloro che avrebbero dovuto saperlo, che questi erano Sampson e sua sorella Sally; e si dice che ancora oggi, passino a volte, nelle brutte notti, con la stessa ripugnante sembianza, vicino al gomito del passeggero che si ritrae.

Il corpo di Quilp fu trovato — sebbene solo dopo alcuni giorni — e si tenne un’inchiesta presso il luogo in cui era stato trascinato a riva. Si supponeva in generale che si fosse tolto la vita, e, poiché tutti i particolari della sua morte sembravano avvalorare questa ipotesi, la sentenza fu in tal senso. Fu lasciato per essere sepolto con un paletto conficcato nel cuore al centro di quattro strade solitarie.

It was rumoured afterwards that this horrible and barbarous ceremony had been dispensed with, and that the remains had been secretly given up to Tom Scott. But even here, opinion was divided; for some said Tom dug them up at midnight, and carried them to a place indicated to him by the widow. It is probable that both these stories may have had their origin in the simple fact of Tom’s shedding tears upon the inquest—which he certainly did, extraordinary as it may appear. He manifested, besides, a strong desire to assault the jury; and being restrained and conducted out of court, darkened its only window by standing on his head upon the sill, until he was dexterously tilted upon his feet again by a cautious beadle.

Being cast upon the world by his master’s death, he determined to go through it upon his head and hands, and accordingly began to tumble for his bread. Finding, however, his English birth an insurmountable obstacle to his advancement in this pursuit (notwithstanding that his art was in high repute and favour), he assumed the name of an Italian image lad, with whom he had become acquainted; and afterwards tumbled with extraordinary success, and to overflowing audiences.

Little Mrs Quilp never quite forgave herself the one deceit that lay so heavy on her conscience, and never spoke or thought of it but with bitter tears. Her husband had no relations, and she was rich. He had made no will, or she would probably have been poor. Having married the first time at her mother’s instigation, she consulted in her second choice nobody but herself. It fell upon a smart young fellow enough; and as he made it a preliminary condition that Mrs Jiniwin should be thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together after marriage with no more than the average amount of quarrelling, and led a merry life upon the dead dwarf’s money.

Mr and Mrs Garland, and Mr Abel, went out as usual (except that there was a change in their household, as will be seen presently), and in due time the latter went into partnership with his friend the notary, on which occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and great extent of dissipation. Unto this ball there happened to be invited the most bashful young lady that was ever seen, with whom Mr Abel happened to fall in love. HOW it happened, or how they found it out, or which of them first communicated the discovery to the other, nobody knows. But certain it is that in course of time they were married; and equally certain it is that they were the happiest of the happy; and no less certain it is that they deserved to be so. And it is pleasant to write down that they reared a family; because any propagation of goodness and benevolence is no small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no small subject of rejoicing for mankind at large.

The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr Garland’s and his son’s, and, as the old people and the young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising dignity. He condescended to play with the children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such small freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted any one among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were points between them far too serious for trifling.

He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for when the good bachelor came to live with Mr Garland upon the clergyman’s decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least resistance. He did no work for two or three years before he died, but lived in clover; and his last act (like a choleric old gentleman) was to kick his doctor.

Mr Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Marchioness a handsome stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in redemption of the vow he had made upon his fevered bed. After casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of her, he decided in favour of Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious and genteel, and furthermore indicative of mystery. Under this title the Marchioness repaired, in tears, to the school of his selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she was removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher grade. It is but bare justice to Mr Swiveller to say, that, although the expenses of her education kept him in straitened circumstances for half a dozen years, he never slackened in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the accounts he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement, on his monthly visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in quotation.

In a word, Mr Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age— good-looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider seriously what was to be done next. On one of his periodical visits, while he was revolving this question in his mind, the Marchioness came down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more fresh than ever. Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first time, that if she would marry him, how comfortable they might be! So Richard asked her; whatever she said, it wasn’t No; and they were married in good earnest that day week. Which gave Mr Swiveller frequent occasion to remark at divers subsequent periods that there had been a young lady saving up for him after all.

Si vociferò in seguito che questa orribile e barbara cerimonia fosse stata evitata, e che i resti fossero stati segretamente consegnati a Tom Scott. Ma anche qui, l’opinione era divisa; alcuni dicevano che Tom li avesse dissotterrati a mezzanotte, e li avesse portati in un luogo indicatogli dalla vedova. È probabile che entrambe queste storie possano aver avuto la loro origine nel semplice fatto che Tom versò lacrime durante l’inchiesta—cosa che fece certamente, per quanto possa apparire straordinario. Manifestò, inoltre, un forte desiderio di aggredire la giuria; e, essendo trattenuto e condotto fuori dal tribunale, oscurò la sua unica finestra stando in piedi sulla testa sul davanzale, finché non fu abilmente rimesso in piedi da un cauto usciere.

Essendo stato gettato nel mondo dalla morte del suo padrone, decise di attraversarlo su testa e mani, e di conseguenza iniziò a caprioleggiare per guadagnarsi il pane. Scoprì, tuttavia, che la sua nascita inglese era un ostacolo insormontabile al suo avanzamento in questo mestiere (nonostante il suo talento fosse molto apprezzato e in favore), così assunse il nome di un ragazzo italiano che faceva le statue viventi, con cui si era fatto conoscere; e in seguito caprioleggiò con straordinario successo, davanti a platee strapiene.

La piccola signora Quilp non riusciva mai a perdonarsi completamente l’unica menzogna che gravava così pesantemente sulla sua coscienza, e non ne parlava né ci pensava se non con amare lacrime. Suo marito non aveva parenti, e lei era ricca. Non aveva fatto testamento, altrimenti probabilmente sarebbe stata povera. Avendo sposato la prima volta per insistenza di sua madre, nella seconda scelta non consultò nessuno tranne se stessa. La sua scelta cadde su un giovane abbastanza intelligente; e poiché egli pose come condizione preliminare che la signora Jiniwin dovesse da quel momento in poi essere una pensionata esterna, vissero insieme dopo il matrimonio con una quantità di litigi non superiore alla media, e condussero una vita allegra con i soldi del morto nanetto.

Signor e signora Garland e il signor Abel uscirono come al solito (salvo che nella loro famiglia c’era stato un cambiamento, come si vedrà più avanti), e a dovuto tempo quest’ultimo entrò in società con il suo amico il notaio, occasione per la quale ci fu una cena, un ballo e una grande quantità di dissipazione. A questo ballo era stata invitata per caso la più timida giovane signorina che si fosse mai vista, di cui il signor Abel si innamorò per caso. COME ciò accadde, o come lo scoprirono, o quale dei due comunicò per primo la scoperta all’altro, nessuno lo sa. Ma è certo che nel corso del tempo si sposarono; e altrettanto certo è che furono i più felici dei felici; e non meno certo è che lo meritavano. E fa piacere scrivere che ebbero una famiglia; perché qualsiasi propagazione di bontà e benevolenza non è una piccola aggiunta all’aristocrazia della natura, e non è un piccolo motivo di gioia per l’umanità nel suo insieme.

Il pony mantenne il suo carattere indipendente e di principio fino all’ultimo momento della sua vita; che fu insolitamente lunga, e lo fece considerare, in effetti, come il vero Old Parr dei pony. Spesso andava avanti e indietro con il piccolo phaeton tra la casa del signor Garland e quella di suo figlio, e poiché le persone anziane e i giovani erano spesso insieme, aveva una stalla tutta sua nel nuovo stabilimento, nella quale si recava da solo con sorprendente dignità. Si degnava di giocare con i bambini, man mano che diventavano abbastanza grandi da coltivare la sua amicizia, e correva su e giù per il piccolo paddock con loro come un cane; ma anche se si rilassava fino a quel punto, e permetteva loro piccole libertà come le carezze, o anche di guardare le sue scarpe o di aggrapparsi alla sua coda, non permetteva a nessuno di loro di montargli in groppa o di guidarlo; dimostrando così che anche la loro familiarità doveva avere i suoi limiti, e che c’erano punti tra loro troppo seri per essere presi alla leggera.

Non era insensibile a forti attaccamenti nella sua vita successiva, poiché quando il buon scapolo venne a vivere con il signor Garland dopo la morte del sacerdote, concepì una grande amicizia per lui e si sottomise amabilmente a essere guidato dalle sue mani senza la minima resistenza. Non lavorò per due o tre anni prima di morire, ma visse nel lusso; e il suo ultimo atto (da vecchio signore collerico) fu quello di dare un calcio al suo dottore.

Il signor Swiveller, che si riprendeva molto lentamente dalla sua malattia, e che aveva ripreso a ricevere la sua rendita, comprò per la marchesa un bel corredo di vestiti e la mise subito a scuola, in adempimento del voto che aveva fatto sul suo letto di malato. Dopo aver riflettuto a lungo su un nome che fosse degno di lei, decise per Sophronia Sphynx, perché suonava bene e aveva un’aria distinta, e inoltre era evocativo di mistero. Con questo titolo la marchesa si recò, in lacrime, alla scuola da lui scelta, dalla quale, poiché presto distanziò tutte le concorrenti, fu trasferita prima che fossero trascorsi molti trimestri in una di grado superiore. È solo giusto dire del signor Swiveller che, sebbene le spese per la sua educazione lo tenessero in condizioni di ristrettezza economica per una mezza dozzina di anni, non diminuì mai nel suo zelo, e si considerava sempre sufficientemente ripagato dai resoconti che sentiva (con grande gravità) dei suoi progressi, durante le sue visite mensili alla governante, che lo considerava un gentiluomo letterato di abitudini eccentriche e di un talento prodigioso nella citazione.

In breve, il signor Swiveller tenne la marchesa in questo alloggio finché non aveva, a occhio e croce, ben diciannove anni di età, bella, intelligente e di buon umore; quando cominciò a considerare seriamente cosa fare dopo. Durante una delle sue visite periodiche, mentre stava rivoltando questa questione nella sua mente, la marchesa scese da lui, da sola, con un’aria più sorridente e più fresca che mai. Allora gli venne in mente, ma non per la prima volta, che se lei lo avesse sposato, quanto sarebbero stati comodi! Così Richard glielo chiese; qualunque cosa lei dicesse, non era un No; e si sposarono sul serio la settimana successiva. Il che diede al signor Swiveller frequenti occasioni di osservare in diversi momenti successivi che c’era stata una giovane signora che aveva risparmiato per lui dopotutto.

A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden a smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to become its tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon its occupation. To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly every Sunday to spend the day—usually beginning with breakfast—and here he was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable intelligence. For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit, protesting that he had a better opinion of him when he was supposed to have stolen the five-pound note, than when he was shown to be perfectly free of the crime; inasmuch as his guilt would have had in it something daring and bold, whereas his innocence was but another proof of a sneaking and crafty disposition. By slow degrees, however, he was reconciled to him in the end; and even went so far as to honour him with his patronage, as one who had in some measure reformed, and was therefore to be forgiven. But he never forgot or pardoned that circumstance of the shilling; holding that if he had come back to get another he would have done well enough, but that his returning to work out the former gift was a stain upon his moral character which no penitence or contrition could ever wash away.

Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic and reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his own mind the mysterious question of Sophronia’s parentage. Sophronia herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller, putting various slight circumstances together, often thought Miss Brass must know better than that; and, having heard from his wife of her strange interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings whether that person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able to solve the riddle, had he chosen. These speculations, however, gave him no uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful, affectionate, and provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for an occasional outbreak with Mr Chuckster, which she had the good sense rather to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and domesticated husband. And they played many hundred thousand games of cribbage together. And let it be added, to Dick’s honour, that, though we have called her Sophronia, he called her the Marchioness from first to last; and that upon every anniversary of the day on which he found her in his sick room, Mr Chuckster came to dinner, and there was great glorification.

The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr James Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with varying success, until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the way of their profession, dispersed them in various directions, and caused their career to receive a sudden check from the long and strong arm of the law. This defeat had its origin in the untoward detection of a new associate—young Frederick Trent—who thus became the unconscious instrument of their punishment and his own.

For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by his wits—which means by the abuse of every faculty that worthily employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far below them. It was not long before his body was recognised by a stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital in Paris where the drowned are laid out to be owned; despite the bruises and disfigurements which were said to have been occasioned by some previous scuffle. But the stranger kept his own counsel until he returned home, and it was never claimed or cared for.

The younger brother, or the single gentleman, for that designation is more familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his lone retreat, and made him his companion and friend. But the humble village teacher was timid of venturing into the noisy world, and had become fond of his dwelling in the old churchyard. Calmly happy in his school, and in the spot, and in the attachment of Her little mourner, he pursued his quiet course in peace; and was, through the righteous gratitude of his friend—let this brief mention suffice for that—a POOR school-master no more.

That friend—single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will—had at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no misanthropy or monastic gloom. He went forth into the world, a lover of his kind. For a long, long time, it was his chief delight to travel in the steps of the old man and the child (so far as he could trace them from her last narrative), to halt where they had halted, sympathise where they had suffered, and rejoice where they had been made glad. Those who had been kind to them, did not escape his search. The sisters at the school—they who were her friends, because themselves so friendless—Mrs Jarley of the wax-work, Codlin, Short—he found them all; and trust me, the man who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten.

Kit’s story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and many offers of provision for his future life. He had no idea at first of ever quitting Mr Garland’s service; but, after serious remonstrance and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate the possibility of such a change being brought about in time. A good post was procured for him, with a rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the offence laid to his charge, and who had acted upon that belief. Through the same kind agency, his mother was secured from want, and made quite happy. Thus, as Kit often said, his great misfortune turned out to be the source of all his subsequent prosperity.

Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry? Of course he married, and who should be his wife but Barbara? And the best of it was, he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle, before the calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history, had ever been encased in broadcloth pantaloons,—though that was not quite the best either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle too. The delight of Kit’s mother and of Barbara’s mother upon the great occasion is past all telling; finding they agreed so well on that, and on all other subjects, they took up their abode together, and were a most harmonious pair of friends from that time forth. And hadn’t Astley’s cause to bless itself for their all going together once a quarter—to the pit—and didn’t Kit’s mother always say, when they painted the outside, that Kit’s last treat had helped to that, and wonder what the manager would feel if he but knew it as they passed his house!

When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara among them, and a pretty Barbara she was. Nor was there wanting an exact facsimile and copy of little Jacob, as he appeared in those remote times when they taught him what oysters meant. Of course there was an Abel, own godson to the Mr Garland of that name; and there was a Dick, whom Mr Swiveller did especially favour. The little group would often gather round him of a night and beg him to tell again that story of good Miss Nell who died. This, Kit would do; and when they cried to hear it, wishing it longer too, he would teach them how she had gone to Heaven, as all good people did; and how, if they were good, like her, they might hope to be there too, one day, and to see and know her as he had done when he was quite a boy. Then, he would relate to them how needy he used to be, and how she had taught him what he was otherwise too poor to learn, and how the old man had been used to say ‘she always laughs at Kit;’ at which they would brush away their tears, and laugh themselves to think that she had done so, and be again quite merry.

He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived; but new improvements had altered it so much, it was not like the same. The old house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its place. At first he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground to show them where it used to stand. But he soon became uncertain of the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he thought, and these alterations were confusing.

Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things pass away, like a tale that is told!

Poiché era in affitto una piccola casetta a Hampstead, che aveva nel suo giardino una fumoir, invidia del mondo civilizzato, decisero di prenderla in affitto, e, finita la luna di miele, vi si trasferirono. A questo rifugio il signor Chuckster si recava regolarmente ogni domenica per trascorrervi la giornata, in genere a partire dalla colazione, e qui era il grande fornitore di notizie generali e informazioni di moda. Per alcuni anni continuò a essere un nemico mortale di Kit, protestando che aveva un’opinione migliore di lui quando si credeva che avesse rubato la banconota da cinque sterline, che quando si dimostrò che era completamente innocente del crimine; in quanto la sua colpa avrebbe avuto in sé qualcosa di audace e coraggioso, mentre la sua innocenza era solo un’altra prova di una disposizione furtiva e astuta. Tuttavia, a poco a poco, alla fine si riconciliò con lui; e arrivò persino a onorarlo del suo patrocinio, come uno che si era in qualche modo riformato, e quindi era da perdonare. Ma non dimenticò mai né perdonò l’episodio dello scellino; ritenendo che se fosse tornato per prenderne un altro avrebbe fatto bene abbastanza, ma che il suo ritorno per riscattare il dono precedente era una macchia sul suo carattere morale che nessun pentimento o contrizione avrebbe mai potuto lavare via.

Il signor Swiveller, che aveva sempre avuto una certa tendenza alla filosofia e alla riflessione, diventava immensamente contemplativo, a volte, nella stanza per fumare, e in tali periodi era solito discutere con se stesso la misteriosa questione della parentela di Sophronia. Sophronia stessa supponeva di essere un’orfana; ma il signor Swiveller, mettendo insieme vari piccoli particolari, spesso pensava che la signorina Brass dovesse sapere di più; e, avendo sentito dalla moglie del suo strano incontro con Quilp, nutriva vari dubbi se quella persona, in vita sua, non sarebbe stata in grado di risolvere l’enigma, se lo avesse voluto. Tuttavia, queste speculazioni non gli davano alcuna inquietudine; perché Sophronia era sempre una moglie molto allegra, affettuosa e provvidente per lui; e Dick (a parte occasionali scontri con il signor Chuckster, che aveva il buon senso di incoraggiare piuttosto che opporsi) era per lei un marito affezionato e domestico. E giocarono insieme a migliaia di partite di cribbage. E sia aggiunto, a onore di Dick, che, sebbene l’abbiamo chiamata Sophronia, lui la chiamò la marchesa dall’inizio alla fine; e che in ogni anniversario del giorno in cui la trovò nella sua stanza da malato, il signor Chuckster veniva a cena, e c’era grande glorificazione.

I giocatori, Isaac List e Jowl, con il loro fedele compagno Mr James Groves dalla memoria ineccepibile, proseguirono la loro attività con successo variabile, finché il fallimento di un’impresa audace nel loro campo di attività li disperse in varie direzioni e fece sì che la loro carriera subisse un’improvvisa interruzione a causa del lungo e potente braccio della legge. Questa sconfitta ebbe origine dalla sfortunata scoperta di un nuovo associato, il giovane Frederick Trent, che divenne così lo strumento inconsapevole della loro punizione e della propria.

Per quanto riguarda il giovane, egli si abbandonò a una breve vita di dissolutezza all’estero, vivendo di espedienti, il che significa abusare di ogni facoltà che, se usata con dignità, eleva l’uomo al di sopra delle bestie, e, così degradata, lo sprofonda ben al di sotto di esse. Non passò molto tempo prima che il suo corpo fosse riconosciuto da uno sconosciuto, che per caso visitò quell’ospedale di Parigi dove i corpi dei morti annegati vengono esposti per essere identificati; nonostante le lividure e le deformazioni che si diceva fossero state causate da una precedente rissa. Ma lo sconosciuto tenne per sé il suo pensiero fino al suo ritorno a casa, e il corpo non fu mai rivendicato né curato.

Il fratello minore, o il signorino scapolo, poiché questa designazione è più familiare, avrebbe tratto il povero maestro di scuola dal suo rifugio solitario, e lo avrebbe fatto suo compagno e amico. Ma l’umile maestro del villaggio era timido di avventurarsi nel mondo rumoroso, e si era affezionato alla sua dimora nel vecchio cimitero. Calmamente felice nella sua scuola, e nel luogo, e nell’attaccamento della sua piccola lagnosa, proseguiva il suo tranquillo corso in pace; e, per la giusta gratitudine del suo amico — che questa breve menzione basti a questo proposito — non fu più un POVERO maestro di scuola.

Quel suo amico - un gentiluomo scapolo o un fratello minore, come preferite - aveva nel cuore un grave dolore; ma questo non gli aveva generato alcuna misantropia o cupa tristezza monastica. Egli si recava nel mondo come un amante del prossimo. Per un lungo, lunghissimo periodo, il suo principale piacere era seguire le orme del vecchio e del bambino (per quanto poteva ricostruirle dalla sua ultima narrazione), fermarsi dove si erano fermati loro, provare simpatia per i luoghi in cui avevano sofferto e gioire dove erano stati felici. Coloro che erano stati gentili con loro non sfuggivano alla sua ricerca. Le suore della scuola - quelle che erano state amiche di lei perché esse stesse erano così senza amici - la signora Jarley della cera, Codlin, Short - le trovò tutte; e credetemi, l’uomo che alimentava il fuoco della fornace non fu dimenticato.

La storia di Kit, divenuta di dominio pubblico, gli procurò un gran numero di amici e molte offerte di sostentamento per il suo futuro. All’inizio non aveva la minima idea di lasciare il servizio di Mr Garland; ma, dopo seri ammonimenti e consigli da parte di quel gentiluomo, cominciò a contemplare la possibilità che un tale cambiamento potesse realizzarsi nel tempo. Un buon posto di lavoro gli fu procurato, con una rapidità che lo lasciò senza fiato, da alcuni dei signori che lo avevano ritenuto colpevole del reato di cui era accusato, e che avevano agito in base a tale convinzione. Grazie alla stessa gentile intercessione, sua madre fu messa al sicuro dalla miseria e resa felice. Così, come Kit spesso diceva, la sua grande disgrazia si rivelò essere la fonte di tutta la sua prosperità successiva.

Visse Kit da scapolo per tutta la vita, o si sposò? Naturalmente si sposò, e chi se no se non Barbara? E la cosa migliore era che si sposò così presto che il piccolo Giacobbe era già uno zio, prima che le gambe dei suoi polpacci, già menzionate in questa storia, fossero mai state avvolte in pantaloni di lana,—anche se non era nemmeno la cosa migliore, perché per forza anche il bambino era uno zio. La gioia della madre di Kit e della madre di Barbara per l’importante occasione è indescrivibile; trovando che erano così d’accordo su questo, e su tutti gli altri argomenti, decisero di vivere insieme, e divennero una coppia di amici davvero armoniosa da quel momento in poi. E non aveva forse ragione Astley di benedirsi per il fatto che andavano tutti insieme una volta al mese—in platea—e non diceva forse sempre la madre di Kit, quando dipingevano l’esterno, che l’ultimo spettacolo di Kit aveva contribuito a questo, e si meravigliava di cosa avrebbe provato il direttore se solo lo avesse saputo mentre passavano davanti alla sua casa?

Quando Kit ebbe dei bambini di sei e sette anni, c’era una Barbara tra loro, e una bella Barbara era. E non mancava un’esatta copia e facsimmile del piccolo Giacobbe, come appariva in quei tempi remoti quando gli insegnavano cosa significassero le ostriche. C’era naturalmente un Abele, figlio spirituale del signor Garland di quel nome; e c’era un Dick, che il signor Swiveller favoriva in modo particolare. Il piccolo gruppo spesso si riuniva intorno a lui di notte e lo pregava di raccontare di nuovo quella storia della buona Miss Nell che morì. Kit lo faceva; e quando piangevano per ascoltarla, desiderando anche che fosse più lunga, insegnava loro come fosse andata in Paradiso, come tutti i buoni; e come, se fossero stati buoni come lei, avrebbero potuto sperare di essere lì anche loro, un giorno, e di vederla e conoscerla come lui aveva fatto quando era ancora un ragazzo. Poi, raccontava loro quanto fosse stato povero, e come lei gli avesse insegnato ciò che altrimenti era troppo povero per imparare, e come il vecchio avesse l’abitudine di dire “lei ride sempre di Kit”; a questo punto si asciugavano le lacrime e ridevano loro stessi al pensiero che lei avesse fatto così, e tornavano di nuovo allegra.

A volte li portava nella strada dove lei aveva vissuto; ma i nuovi interventi l’avevano così trasformata che non sembrava più la stessa. La vecchia casa era stata demolita da tempo, e al suo posto c’era una bella larga strada. All’inizio disegnava con il bastone un quadrato sul terreno per mostrare loro dove si trovava. Ma presto divenne incerto sulla posizione esatta, e poteva solo dire che era da quelle parti, pensava, e che questi cambiamenti erano disorientanti.

Tali sono i cambiamenti che pochi anni portano con sé, e così le cose svaniscono, come una favola che si racconta!