第 17 页

probably forgetting them before they had reached the ground floor.

Mr Cripples's pupils, who were by this time coming to school, desisted

from their morning recreation of cuffing one another with bags and

books, to stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger who had been

to see Dirty Dick. They bore the trying spectacle in silence, until the

mysterious visitor was at a safe distance; when they burst into pebbles

and yells, and likewise into reviling dances, and in all respects buried

the pipe of peace with so many savage ceremonies, that, if Mr Cripples

had been the chief of the Cripplewayboo tribe with his war-paint on,

they could scarcely have done greater justice to their education.

In the midst of this homage, Mr Arthur Clennam offered his arm to Little

Dorrit, and Little Dorrit took it. 'Will you go by the Iron Bridge,'

said he, 'where there is an escape from the noise of the street?' Little

Dorrit answered, if he pleased, and presently ventured to hope that he

would 'not mind' Mr Cripples's boys, for she had herself received

her education, such as it was, in Mr Cripples's evening academy. He

returned, with the best will in the world, that Mr Cripples's boys were

forgiven out of the bottom of his soul. Thus did Cripples unconsciously

become a master of the ceremonies between them, and bring them more

naturally together than Beau Nash might have done if they had lived

in his golden days, and he had alighted from his coach and six for the

purpose.

The morning remained squally, and the streets were miserably muddy, but

no rain fell as they walked towards the Iron Bridge. The little creature

seemed so young in his eyes, that there were moments when he found

himself thinking of her, if not speaking to her, as if she were a child.

Perhaps he seemed as old in her eyes as she seemed young in his.

'I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night, sir, as to be

locked in. It was very unfortunate.'

It was nothing, he returned. He had had a very good bed.

'Oh yes!' she said quickly; 'she believed there were excellent beds at

the coffee-house.' He noticed that the coffee-house was quite a majestic

hotel to her, and that she treasured its reputation. 'I believe it is

very expensive,' said Little Dorrit, 'but MY father has told me that

quite beautiful dinners may be got there. And wine,' she added timidly.

'Were you ever there?'

'Oh no! Only into the kitchen to fetch hot water.'

To think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the luxuries of

that superb establishment, the Marshalsea Hotel!

'I asked you last night,' said Clennam, 'how you had become acquainted

with my mother. Did you ever hear her name before she sent for you?'

'No, sir.'

'Do you think your father ever did?'

'No, sir.'

He met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them (she was

scared when the encounter took place, and shrunk away again), that he

felt it necessary to say:

'I have a reason for asking, which I cannot very well explain; but you

must, on no account, suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the least

alarm or anxiety. Quite the reverse. And you think that at no time of

your father's life was my name of Clennam ever familiar to him?'

'No, sir.'

He felt, from the tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up at

him with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, rather than

make her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh.

Thus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, which was as quiet after the

roaring streets as though it had been open country. The wind blew

roughly, the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on

the road and pavement, and raining them down into the river. The clouds

raced on furiously in the lead-Coloured sky, the smoke and mist raced

after them, the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction.

Little Dorrit seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven's

creatures.

'Let me put you in a coach,' said Clennam, very nearly adding 'my poor

child.'

She hurriedly declined, saying that wet or dry made little difference to

her; she was used to go about in all weathers. He knew it to be so, and

was touched with more pity; thinking of the slight figure at his side,

making its nightly way through the damp dark boisterous streets to such

a place of rest. 'You spoke so feelingly to me last night, sir, and

I found afterwards that you had been so generous to my father, that I

could not resist your message, if it was only to thank you; especially

as I wished very much to say to you--' she hesitated and trembled, and

tears rose in her eyes, but did not fall.

'To say to me--?'

'That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don't judge him, sir,

as you would judge others outside the gates. He has been there so long!

I never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown

different in some things since.'

'My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me.'

'Not,' she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept

upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, 'not that he has

anything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be

ashamed of for him. He only requires to be understood. I only ask for

him that his life may be fairly remembered. All that he said was quite

true. It all happened just as he related it. He is very much respected.

Everybody who comes in, is glad to know him. He is more courted than

anyone else. He is far more thought of than the Marshal is.'

If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when she

grew boastful of her father.

'It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's, and quite

a study. I see none like them in that place, but he is admitted to

be superior to all the rest. This is quite as much why they make him

presents, as because they know him to be needy. He is not to be blamed

for being in need, poor love. Who could be in prison a quarter of a

century, and be prosperous!'

What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears,

what a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed

false brightness round him!

'If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not because

I am ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed of the place

itself as might be supposed. People are not bad because they come there.

I have known numbers of good, persevering, honest people come there

through misfortune. They are almost all kind-hearted to one another.

And it would be ungrateful indeed in me, to forget that I have had many

quiet, comfortable hours there; that I had an excellent friend there

when I was quite a baby, who was very very fond of me; that I have been

taught there, and have worked there, and have slept soundly there. I

think it would be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some little

attachment for it, after all this.'

She had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly said,

raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend's, 'I did not mean to say

so much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before. But it seems

to set it more right than it was last night. I said I wished you had

not followed me, sir. I don't wish it so much now, unless you should

think--indeed I don't wish it at all, unless I should have spoken so

confusedly, that--that you can scarcely understand me, which I am afraid

may be the case.'

He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting

himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well

as he could.

'I feel permitted now,' he said, 'to ask you a little more concerning

your father. Has he many creditors?'

'Oh! a great number.'

'I mean detaining creditors, who keep him where he is?'

'Oh yes! a great number.'

'Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you

cannot--who is the most influential of them?'

Little Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to

hear long ago of Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power. He was a

commissioner, or a board, or a trustee, 'or something.' He lived

in Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very near it. He was under

Government--high in the Circumlocution Office. She appeared to have

acquired, in her infancy, some awful impression of the might of this

formidable Mr Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very near it, and

the Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her when she mentioned

him.

'It can do no harm,' thought Arthur, 'if I see this Mr Tite Barnacle.'

The thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness

intercepted it. 'Ah!' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild

despair of a lifetime. 'Many people used to think once of getting my

poor father out, but you don't know how hopeless it is.'

She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from

the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with

eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile

figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from

his purpose of helping her.

'Even if it could be done,' said she--'and it never can be done

now--where could father live, or how could he live? I have often thought

that if such a change could come, it might be anything but a service to

him now. People might not think so well of him outside as they do there.

He might not be so gently dealt with outside as he is there. He might

not be so fit himself for the life outside as he is for that.' Here for

the first time she could not restrain her tears from falling; and the

little thin hands he had watched when they were so busy, trembled as

they clasped each other.

'It would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a little

money, and that Fanny earns a little money. He is so anxious about us,

you see, feeling helplessly shut up there. Such a good, good father!'

He let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke. It was soon

gone. She was not accustomed to think of herself, or to trouble any one

with her emotions. He had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs

and chimneys among which the smoke was rolling heavily, and at the

wilderness of masts on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on

the shore, indistinctly mixed together in the stormy haze, when she

was again as quiet as if she had been plying her needle in his mother's

room.

'You would be glad to have your brother set at liberty?'

'Oh very, very glad, sir!'

'Well, we will hope for him at least. You told me last night of a friend

you had?'

His name was Plornish, Little Dorrit said.

And where did Plornish live? Plornish lived in Bleeding Heart Yard. He

was 'only a plasterer,' Little Dorrit said, as a caution to him not to

form high social expectations of Plornish. He lived at the last house in

Bleeding Heart Yard, and his name was over a little gateway. Arthur took

down the address and gave her his. He had now done all he sought to do

for the present, except that he wished to leave her with a reliance

upon him, and to have something like a promise from her that she would

cherish it.

'There is one friend!' he said, putting up his pocketbook. 'As I take

you back--you are going back?'

'Oh yes! going straight home.'

'As I take you back,' the word home jarred upon him, 'let me ask you to

persuade yourself that you have another friend. I make no professions,

and say no more.'

'You are truly kind to me, sir. I am sure I need no more.'

They walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the

poor, mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters

usual to a poor neighbourhood. There was nothing, by the short way, that

was pleasant to any of the five senses. Yet it was not a common passage

through common rain, and mire, and noise, to Clennam, having this

little, slender, careful creature on his arm. How young she seemed to

him, or how old he to her; or what a secret either to the other, in that

beginning of the destined interweaving of their stories, matters not

here. He thought of her having been born and bred among these scenes,

and shrinking through them now, familiar yet misplaced; he thought

of her long acquaintance with the squalid needs of life, and of her

innocence; of her solicitude for others, and her few years, and her

childish aspect.

They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a

voice cried, 'Little mother, little mother!' Little Dorrit stopping and

looking back, an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them

(still crying 'little mother'), fell down, and scattered the contents of

a large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.

'Oh, Maggy,' said Little Dorrit, 'what a clumsy child you are!'

Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then began

to pick up the potatoes, in which both Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam

helped. Maggy picked up very few potatoes and a great quantity of mud;

but they were all recovered, and deposited in the basket. Maggy then

smeared her muddy face with her shawl, and presenting it to Mr Clennam

as a type of purity, enabled him to see what she was like.

She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones, large features, large

feet and hands, large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were limpid and

almost colourless; they seemed to be very little affected by light,

and to stand unnaturally still. There was also that attentive listening

expression in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind; but she

was not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face was not