第 15 页

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