第 51 页

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?'