第 25 页

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