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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 49125
   :PG.Title: Stories from Dickens
   :PG.Released: 2015-06-03
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \J. Walker McSpadden
   :DC.Title: Stories from Dickens
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1906
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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STORIES FROM DICKENS
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      Cover art

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   .. _`DAVID COPPERFIELD AND LITTLE EMILY.`:

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      DAVID COPPERFIELD AND LITTLE EMILY.

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      Stories From Dickens

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      BY

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      \J. WALKER McSPADDEN

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      *Author of "Stories of Robin Hood," "Synopses
      of Dickens's Novels," etc.*

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      NEW YORK
      THOMAS \Y. CROWELL COMPANY
      PUBLISHERS

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      COPYRIGHT, 1906
      BY THOMAS \Y. CROWELL & COMPANY

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   Preface

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The title of this book rings in the ear
with a pleasant sound.  "Stories from
Dickens"!  "Stories" alone usually
suggests such delightful rambles in the land of
dreams!  And when it is coupled with the name
of a king of story-tellers by divine right, the
charm is increased a hundredfold.

These stories are—as the title indicates—taken
directly from Dickens, very largely in his
own language, and always faithful to his spirit.
They are the stories of his most famous boys
and girls, merely separated from the big books
and crowded scenes where they first appeared.
In stage talk, the "lime-light" has been turned
upon them alone.  Their early joys and sorrows
are shown, but always with more of the smiles
than the tears.  There is sadness enough in real
life without emphasizing it in books for young
people, and so only two of the numerous deathbed
scenes found in Dickens are given place
here.

The book is not intended as a substitute,
however small, for the complete texts; but is
offered in the reverent hope that it will serve
as both introduction and incentive to the bulky
volumes which so often alarm young people by
their very size.  The compiler has in mind one
child of the "long ago" who looked with awe
upon a stately row of fat books kept for show,
like mummies in a high glass case, and labelled
"Dickens."  This child never suspected that the
books were intended for reading—at any rate,
not by children; so he contented himself for
the time with trashy little books with highly
colored pictures "intended for children."  What a
world of delight would have been opened to him
if some one had placed in his hands the story
of Oliver Twist; or the first part of Nicholas
Nickleby relating to Dotheboy's Hall; or the
early history of David Copperfield (he might
have demanded *all* of *that* story!); or some of
the inimitable Christmas tales!  Afterwards he
would have read on and on for himself.

To other such children this book comes as a
friendly guide to Dickens-land.

It is barely necessary to add that the book
is in different vein from an earlier handbook,
"Synopses of Dickens's Novels," which is a
quick guide and index to all the plots and
characters in full.

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   \J.\W.\M.

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   NEW YORK CITY,
       May, 1906.

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   Contents

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`THE STORY OF OLIVER TWIST`_\:

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\I.  `Oliver Begins Life in a Hard Way`_
\II.  `Oliver Falls from Bad to Worse`_
\III.  `Oliver Makes his Way into Good Society`_
\IV.  `The End of Evil Days`_

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`THE STORY OF SMIKE AND HIS TEACHER`_\:

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\I.  `How Nicholas Nickleby Came to Dotheboys Hall`_
\II.  `How Smike Went Away from Dotheboys Hall`_

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`THE STORY OF LITTLE NELL`_\:

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\I.  `In the Old Curiosity Shop`_
\II.  `Out in the Wide World`_
\III.  `At the End of the Journey`_

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`THE STORY OF PAUL AND FLORENCE DOMBEY`_\:

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\I.  `The House of Dombey and Son`_
\II.  `How Florence Came into her Own`_

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`THE STORY OF PIP AS TOLD BY HIMSELF`_\:

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\I.  `How Pip Helped the Convict`_
\II.  `Pip and Estella`_
\III.  `How Pip Fell Heir to Great Expectations`_

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`THE STORY OF LITTLE DORRIT`_\:

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\I.  `The Child of the Marshalsea`_
\II.  `How the Prison Gates were Opened`_

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`THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD`_\:

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\I.  `My Earliest Recollections`_
\II.  `I Fall into Disgrace`_
\III.  `School.  Steerforth and Traddles`_
\IV.  `I Begin Life on my Own Account`_





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.. _`THE STORY OF OLIVER TWIST`:

.. _`OLIVER BEGINS LIFE IN A HARD WAY`:

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   THE STORY OF OLIVER TWIST

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   \I.  OLIVER BEGINS LIFE IN A HARD WAY

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Some years ago when the poorhouses of
England were in a bad state and the poor
people housed within them were often ill-treated,
a little waif began his life under the roof
of one of the worst of them.  His mother had
wandered there, weak, wretched and without
friends, it seemed, for she gave no clue to her
identity; and after her little boy was born she
had only strength enough to kiss him once
before she breathed her last.  As no one knew
anything about her, the child became a charge
upon the parish.  He was sent with other
orphans and homeless little ones to be cared for
by an elderly woman named Mrs. Mann, who
received from the parish officers but a scant
allowance for the needs of the children, to
whom she gave, in the shape of food and
attention, a still shorter return.

And so the first years of this child's life were
devoted mainly to the struggle to keep body
and soul together.  He won the fight by the
narrowest of margins, and his ninth birthday
found him a pale, thin lad, somewhat short in
stature and decidedly small in girth.  But
nature had placed a good sturdy spirit in his
breast.  It had plenty of room to expand,
thanks to the spare diet, else he might not have
had any ninth birthday at all.

On this momentous day he received a visitor,
in the person of Mr. Bumble, the fat and
pompous beadle of the workhouse, who came to see
Mrs. Mann in all the glory of his cocked hat
and brass buttons.

"Good morning, ma'am," said the beadle,
taking out a leathern pocket-book.  "The child
that was half baptized Oliver Twist is nine year
old to-day."

"Bless him!" interposed Mrs. Mann, inflaming
her left eye with the corner of her apron.

"And notwithstanding a offered reward of
ten pound, which was afterwards increased to
twenty pound; notwithstanding the most
superlative, and, I may say, supernat'ral exertions
on the part of this parish," said Bumble, "we
have never been able to discover who is his
father, or what was his mother's settlement,
name, or con-dition."

Mrs. Mann raised her hands in astonishment;
but added, after a moment's reflection, "How
comes he to have any name at all, then?"

The beadle drew himself up with great pride,
and said, "I inwented it."

"You, Mr. Bumble!"

"I, Mrs. Mann.  We name our foundlings in
alphabetical order.  The last was a S,—Swubble,
I named him.  This was a T,—Twist I named
*him*.  The next one as comes will be Unwin,
and the next Vilkins.  I have got names ready
made to the end of the alphabet, and all the
way through it again, when we come to Z."

"Why, you're quite a literary character, sir!"
said Mrs. Mann.

"Well, well," said the beadle, evidently
gratified with the compliment; "perhaps I
may be.  But the boy Oliver being now too
old to remain here, the Board have determined
to have him back into the house.  I have come
out myself to take him there.  So let me see
him at once."

"I'll fetch him directly," said Mrs. Mann,
leaving the room for that purpose.  And so
Oliver, having had as much of the outer coat of
dirt which encrusted his face and hands removed
as could be scrubbed off in one washing, was
presently led into the room.

"Make a bow to the gentleman, Oliver," said
Mrs. Mann.

Oliver made a bow, which was divided
between the beadle on the chair and the cocked
hat on the table.

"Will you go along with me, Oliver?" said
Mr. Bumble, in a majestic voice.

Oliver was about to say that he would go
along with anybody with great readiness, when,
glancing upwards, he caught sight of
Mrs. Mann, who had got behind the beadle's chair,
and was shaking her fist at him with a furious
countenance.  He took the hint at once, for
the fist had been too often impressed upon
his body not to be deeply impressed upon his
memory.

"Will *she* go with me?" he inquired.

"No, she can't," replied Mr. Bumble, "but
she'll come and see you sometimes."

This was no very great consolation to the
child.  Young as he was, however, he had
sense enough to pretend great regret at going
away.  It was no very difficult matter for the
boy to call the tears into his eyes.  Hunger
and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you
want to cry; and Oliver cried very naturally
indeed.  Mrs. Mann gave him a thousand
embraces, and, what Oliver wanted a great deal
more, a piece of bread and butter, lest he
should seem too hungry when he got to the
workhouse.  With the slice of bread in his
hand, and the little brown-cloth parish cap on
his head, the boy was then led away by
Mr. Bumble from the wretched home where one
kind word or look had never lighted the gloom
of his infant years.

Mr. Bumble walked on with long strides,
and little Oliver, firmly grasping his
gold-laced cuff, trotted beside him; inquiring at the
end of every quarter of a mile whether they
were "nearly there."  To these interrogations
Mr. Bumble returned very brief and snappish
replies; for was he not a beadle?  But at last they
were there, and the boy was looking at his new
home with interest not unmixed with dread.

Oliver had not been within the walls of the
workhouse a quarter of an hour, and had
scarcely completed the slice of bread, when
Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the
care of an old woman, returned, and, telling
him it was a board night, took him before
that august body forthwith.

"Bow to the Board," said Bumble.  Oliver
brushed away two or three tears that were
lingering in his eyes, and seeing no board but
the table, fortunately bowed to that.

"What's your name, boy?" said a gentleman
in a high chair.

Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many
fat, red-faced gentlemen, and the beadle gave
him another tap behind, which made him cry.
These two causes made him answer in a very
low and hesitating voice; whereupon a
gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a
fool,—which was a capital way of raising his spirits
and putting him quite at his ease.

"Boy," said the gentleman in the high chair,
"listen to me.  You know you're an orphan, I
suppose?"

"What's that, sir?" inquired poor Oliver.

"The boy *is* a fool—I thought he was," said
the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

"Hush!" said the gentleman who had spoken
first.  "You know you've got no father or
mother, and that you were brought up by the
parish, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.

"What are you crying for?" inquired the
gentleman in the white waistcoat.  And, to be
sure, it was very extraordinary.  What *could* the
boy be crying for?

"I hope you say your prayers every night,"
said another gentleman, in a gruff voice, "and
pray for the people who feed you, and take care
of you—like a Christian."

"Yes, sir," stammered the boy.  The gentleman
who spoke last was unconsciously right.
It would have been *very* like a Christian, and a
marvellously good Christian too, if Oliver had
prayed for the people who fed and took care
of *him*.  But he hadn't, because nobody had
taught him.

"Well!  You have come here to be educated,
and taught a useful trade," said the red-faced
gentleman in the high chair.

"So you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow
morning at six o'clock," added the surly one in
the white waistcoat.

For the combination of both these blessings
in the one simple process of picking oakum,
Oliver bowed low, by the direction of the beadle,
and was hurried away to a large ward, where, on
a rough hard bed, he sobbed himself to sleep.

Poor Oliver!  He little knew, as he fell
asleep, that the Board had just reached a sage
decision in his and other cases.  But they had,
and this was it.  The members of this Board
were very wise men, and when they came to
turn their attention to the work-house, they
found out at once, what ordinary folks would
never have discovered—that the poor people
liked it!

"Oho!" said the Board, "we'll stop all this
high living in no time!"  So they brought
the diet down to the edge of starvation.  They
contracted with the waterworks to lay on an
unlimited supply of water, and with a mill to
supply small quantities of oatmeal; and issued
three meals of thin gruel a day, and half a roll
on Sundays.

For the first six months after Oliver Twist
was removed, the system was in full operation.
It was rather expensive at first, in consequence
of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the
necessity of taking in the clothes of all the
paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted,
shrunken forms, after a week or two's gruel.
But the number of workhouse inmates got thin
as well as the paupers, and the Board were delighted.

The room in which the boys were fed was a
large stone hall, with a copper kettle at one end,
out of which the master, dressed in an apron for
the purpose, and assisted by one or two women,
ladled the gruel at meal times.  Of this festive
composition each boy had one porringer, and
no more—except on occasions of great public
rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter
of bread besides.  The bowls never wanted
washing.  The boys polished them with their
spoons till they shone again; and when they
had performed this operation (which never took
very long, the spoons being nearly as large as
the bowls), they would sit staring at the kettle,
with eager eyes, as if they could have devoured
the very bricks of which it was composed;
employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their
fingers, with the view of catching up any stray
splashes of gruel that might have been cast
thereon.

.. _`OLIVER ASKS FOR MORE.`:

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   :alt: OLIVER ASKS FOR MORE.

   OLIVER ASKS FOR MORE.

Boys have generally excellent appetites.
Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the
tortures of slow starvation for three months,
until at last they got so voracious and wild with
hunger that one boy, who was tall for his age
and hadn't been used to that sort of thing
(for his father had kept a small cook's shop),
hinted darkly to his companions that unless he
had another basin of gruel, he was afraid he
might eat the boy who slept next him, who
happened to be a weakly youth of tender age.
He had a wild hungry eye, and they implicitly
believed him.  A council was held, and lots were
cast to decide who should walk up to the master
after supper that evening and ask for more;
and it fell to Oliver Twist.

The evening arrived, and the boys took their
places.  The master, in his cook's uniform,
stationed himself at the kettle; his pauper
assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel
was served out, and a long grace was said over
the short rations.  The gruel disappeared; the
boys whispered to each other, and winked at
Oliver, while his next neighbors nudged him.
Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and
reckless with misery.  He rose from the table and
advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand,
said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

"Please, sir, I want some more."

The master was a fat, healthy man, but he
turned very pale.  He gazed in stupefied
astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds,
and then clung for support to the copper.  The
assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys
with fear.

"What!" said the master at length, in a faint
voice.

"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head
with the ladle, pinioned him in his arms, and
shrieked aloud for the beadle.

The Board were sitting in solemn conclave,
when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great
excitement, and, addressing the gentleman in the
high chair, said:

"Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir!
Oliver Twist has asked for more!"

There was a general start.  Horror was
depicted on every countenance.

"For *more*!" said Mr. Limbkins.  "Compose
yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly.
Do I understand that he asked for
more, after he had eaten the supper allotted
by the dietary?"

"He did, sir," replied Bumble.

"That boy will be hung," said the gentleman
in the white waistcoat.  "I know that boy will
be hung."

Nobody disputed this opinion.  An animated
discussion took place.  Oliver was ordered into
instant confinement; and a bill was posted on
the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five
pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist
off the hands of the parish.  In other words, five
pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any
man or woman who wanted an apprentice to
any trade, business, or calling.

Oliver had a very narrow escape a few days
later, as the result of this bill, from a
villanous-looking man who wanted a chimney-sweep.  But
finally he became the apprentice of an
undertaker named Sowerberry.  His life here was
some improvement over the workhouse, but still
hard enough.  Nevertheless he did get enough
to eat, in the shape of broken victuals, and he
slept among the coffins in the shop.

Unfortunately there was another apprentice,
a great overgrown fellow named Noah Claypole,
who delighted to bully Oliver in every way
possible.  Oliver stood it as long as he could, but
Noah mistook his attitude for cowardice and
added insults to rough usage.  But, one day,
Noah spoke ill of the boy's dead mother.

"What did you say?" asked Oliver quickly.

"A regular right-down bad 'un, she was,
Work'us," repeated Noah coolly.

Crimson with fury, Oliver started up,
overthrew the chair and table, seized Noah by the
throat, shook him, in the violence of his rage,
till his teeth chattered in his head, and, collecting
his whole force into one heavy blow, felled
him to the ground.

A minute ago, the boy had looked the quiet,
mild, dejected creature that harsh treatment had
made him.  But his spirit was roused at last;
the cruel insult had set his blood on fire.  His
breast heaved, and he defied his tormentor
with an energy he had never known before.

"He'll murder me!" blubbered Noah.
"Charlotte! missis!  Here's the new boy
a-murdering of me!  Help! help!  Oliver's
gone mad!  Char-lotte!"

His cries brought the fat maid-servant running
to the scene.

"Oh, you little wretch!" screamed Charlotte,
seizing Oliver with her utmost force, which was
about equal to that of a strong man in good
training.  "Oh, you little un-grate-ful,
mur-der-ous, hor-rid villain!"  And between every
syllable Charlotte gave Oliver a blow with all
her might, accompanying it with a scream, for
the benefit of society.

Charlotte's fist was by no means a light one;
but, lest it should not be effectual in calming
Oliver's wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into
the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one
hand while she scratched his face with the other.
In this favorable position of affairs Noah rose
from the ground and pommelled him behind.

This was rather too violent exercise to last
long.  When they were all three wearied out
and could tear and beat no longer, they
dragged Oliver, struggling and shouting but
nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there
locked him up.  This being done, Mrs. Sowerberry
sank into a chair and burst into tears.

"Oh, Charlotte!" she cried; "what a mercy
we have not all been murdered in our beds,
with such a little villain in the house!"

And when Mr. Sowerberry presently came
home, he gave Oliver a whipping on his own
account for good measure.

It was not until he was left alone in the
silence and stillness of the cellar that Oliver
gave way to the feelings which the day's
treatment had awakened.  He had listened to their
taunts with a look of contempt; he had borne
the lash without a cry, for he felt that pride
swelling in his heart which would have kept
down a shriek to the last, though they had
roasted him alive.  But now, when there was
none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees
on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands,
wept bitter tears.

For a long time Oliver remained motionless
in this attitude.  The candle was burning low
in the socket when he rose to his feet.  Having
gazed cautiously round him and listened
intently, he gently undid the fastenings of the
door and looked abroad.

It was a cold, dark night.  The stars seemed,
to the boy's eyes, farther from the earth than he
had ever seen them before.  There was no wind,
and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees
upon the ground looked sepulchral and death-like,
from being so still.  He softly re-closed
the door.  He resolved to run away in the early
morning—to go to that great city of London.

With the first ray of light that struggled
through the crevices in the shutters, Oliver
arose, and again unbarred the door.  One timid
look around,—one moment's pause of hesitation,—he
had closed it behind him, and was
in the open street.

He looked to the right and to the left,
uncertain whither to fly.  He remembered to have
seen the wagons, as they went out, toiling up
the hill.  He took the same route, and arriving
at a footpath across the fields, which he knew
led out again into the road, struck into it and
walked quickly on.

He was then only ten years old.





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.. _`OLIVER FALLS FROM BAD TO WORSE`:

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   \II.  OLIVER FALLS FROM BAD TO WORSE

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It was seventy miles to London, and the
poor boy made his way thither only with
great difficulty.  Begging was not allowed
in many of the villages, and nearly everybody
viewed him with doubt, or else shut the door in
his face.

Early on the seventh morning of his flight
Oliver limped slowly into the little town of
Barnet, near the outskirts of London.  The
window-shutters were closed, the street was
empty, and the boy sank down with bleeding
feet and covered with dust upon a door-step.

By degrees the shutters were opened, the
window-blinds were drawn up, and people began
passing to and fro.  Some few stopped to gaze
at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round
to stare at him as they hurried by; but none
relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire
how he came there.  He had no heart to beg,
and there he sat.

He had been crouching on the step for some
time when he was roused by observing that a
boy, who had passed him carelessly some
minutes before, had returned, and was now surveying
him most earnestly from the opposite side of
the way.  He took little heed of this at first;
but the boy remained in the same attitude of
close observation so long that Oliver raised his
head and returned his steady look.  Upon this
the boy crossed over, and, walking close up to
Oliver, said:

"Hullo! my covey, what's the row?"

The boy who addressed this inquiry was
about his own age, but one of the queerest-looking
fellows Oliver had ever seen.  He was
a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy
enough, and as dirty as one would wish to
see; but he had about him all the airs and
manners of a man.  He was short of his age,
with rather bow legs, and little, sharp, ugly
eyes.  He wore a man's coat, which reached
nearly to his heels.  He had turned the cuffs
back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out
of the sleeves, apparently with the ultimate view
of thrusting them into the pockets of his
corduroy trousers, for there he kept them.  He was
altogether as swaggering a young gentleman as
ever stood four feet six, or something less, in
his shoes.

"Hullo! my covey, what's the row?" said
this strange young gentleman to Oliver.

"I am very hungry and tired," replied Oliver,
the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke.  "I
have walked a long way.  I have been walking
these seven days."

The boy looked at him narrowly, and asked
him some questions.  He took Oliver for a
vagrant or worse, but led him into a small
tavern, and gave him a feast of ham and bread;
and Oliver, falling to at his new friend's bidding,
made a long and hearty meal, during the
progress of which the strange boy eyed him from
time to time with great attention.

"Going to London?" said the strange boy,
when Oliver had at length concluded.

"Yes."

"Got any lodgings?"

"No."

"Money?"

"No."

The strange boy whistled, and put his arms
into his pockets as far as the big coat-sleeves
would let them go.

"Do you live in London?" asked Oliver.

"Yes, I do when I'm at home," replied the
strange boy.  "Want to go along with me?  I
know an old gen'elman as lives there wot'll give
you lodgings for nothink."

The unexpected offer was too tempting to
be resisted, especially when Oliver was told that
the old gentleman would doubtless get him a
good place without loss of time.  This led to a
more friendly and confidential chat, in which
Oliver learned that his new friend's name was
Jack Dawkins, commonly called "The Artful
Dodger."

As Dawkins objected to entering London
before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o'clock
before he piloted Oliver down some of the
worst streets of the city's worst section.  Finally
they entered a tumbledown building, and groped
their way up a rickety stairway.  Then Dawkins
threw open the door of a back room and drew
Oliver in after him.

The walls and ceiling of the room were
perfectly black with age and dirt.  There was a
deal table before the fire, upon which were
a candle stuck in a bottle, some pewter pots,
bread and butter.  Several rough beds were
huddled side by side upon the floor.  Seated
around the table were four or five boys, none
older than the Dodger, smoking long clay pipes
and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged
men.  But the chief figure was an old shrivelled
Jew, whose villanous face was offset by a mass
of matted red hair.  He was dressed in a greasy
flannel gown, and was busily at work frying
sausages over a fire.

The boys crowded around Dawkins as he
whispered a few words in the ear of the Jew.
Then they all turned, as did the Jew, and
grinned at Oliver.

"This is him, Fagin," said Jack Dawkins;
"my friend Oliver Twist."

The Jew made a low bow to Oliver, took
him by the hand, and hoped he should have
the honor of his intimate acquaintance.  Upon
this, the young gentlemen with the pipes came
round him, and shook both his hands very
hard—especially the one in which he held his
little bundle.  One young gentleman was very
anxious to hang up his cap for him; and
another was so obliging as to put his hands
in Oliver's pockets, in order that, as he was very
tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying
them himself when he went to bed.

"We are very glad to see you, Oliver—very,"
said the Jew.  "Dodger, take off the
sausages, and draw a tub near the fire for
Oliver."

Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed
him a glass of hot gin and water, telling him he
must drink it off directly, because another
gentleman wanted the tumbler.  Oliver did as he
was desired.  Immediately afterwards, he felt
himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks,
and then he sank into a deep sleep.

The next morning, Oliver watched the Jew,
Dawkins, and Charley Bates, another of the
boys, play a curious game.  The old man
would place a purse and other valuables in
his pockets, whereupon the boys would try to
slip them out without his knowledge.

Oliver didn't understand in the least what
it was all about, even when Fagin gave him
some lessons in the same game.  But he was
to learn with a shock, a few days later, when
Bates and Dawkins took him with them for a
walk about town.

They were just emerging from a narrow court
not far from the open square in Clerkenwell,
when the Dodger made a sudden stop, and,
laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions
back again with the greatest caution.

"What's the matter?" demanded Oliver.

"Hush!" replied the Dodger.  "Do you see
that old cove at the book-stall?"

"The gentleman over the way?" said Oliver.
"Yes, I see him."

"He'll do," said the Dodger.

"A prime plant," observed Master Charley Bates.

Oliver looked from one to the other with
surprise, but he was not permitted to make any
inquiries; for the two boys walked stealthily
across the road, and slunk close behind the old
gentleman.  Oliver walked a few paces after
them, and, not knowing whether to advance or
retire, stood looking on in silent amazement.

The gentleman was a very respectable-looking
person who had taken up a book from the stall
and was reading away as hard as if he were in
his own study.

What was Oliver's horror and alarm as he
stood a few paces off, looking on with his
eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to
see the Dodger plunge his hand into the gentleman's
pocket, and draw from thence a handkerchief;
to see him hand the same to Charley
Bates; and finally to behold them both running
away round the corner at full speed!

Oliver saw in a flash that they were
pickpockets, and that he would be classed among
them!  He turned to run—the worst possible
thing to do—for just then the gentleman missed
his handkerchief and glanced around in time to
see Oliver scudding away for dear life; and
shouting "Stop thief!" made off after him,
book in hand.

He was not alone in the cry, for Bates and
Dawkins, willing to divert attention from
themselves, also shouted "Stop thief!" and joined
in the pursuit like good citizens.

"Stop thief!  Stop thief!"  There is a magic
in the sound.  The tradesman leaves his counter,
and the carman his wagon; the butcher throws
down his tray; the baker his basket; the
milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the
school-boy his marbles.  Away they run, pell-mell,
helter-skelter, slap-dash, tearing, yelling,
screaming and knocking down the passengers
as they turn the corners.

"Stop thief!  Stop thief!"  The cry is taken
up by a hundred voices, and the crowd
accumulates at every turning.  Away they fly,
splashing through the mud and rattling along the
pavements.  Up go the windows, out run the
people, and lend fresh vigor to the cry, "Stop
thief!  Stop thief!"

Stopped at last!  A well-aimed blow laid
Oliver upon the pavement.  Then a policeman
seized him by the collar and he was hustled off
for trial before a magistrate.

The magistrate was a surly boor who was
in the habit of committing prisoners to jail
with the merest pretence of a trial.  It did not
take him long to decide that Oliver was a
hardened criminal, in spite of the protests of
the kindly old gentleman whose pocket had
been picked; and the boy was, in fact, being
carried away in a fainting condition, when the
bookseller whose shop had been the scene of
action and who had witnessed the whole thing,
rushed in and declared Oliver's innocence.

The poor child was thereupon released; and
the old gentleman—Mr. Brownlow by name—was
so sorry for him, and so taken by his frank
face, that he took him to his own home and
nursed him through a severe illness, the result
of all his early privations and recent trouble.
Mr. Brownlow even thought of adopting him,
and, as soon as he was well enough, let him
have books to read out of his own well-stocked
library, greatly to the eager Oliver's
delight.

.. _`SIKES HAD HIM BY THE COLLAR.`:

.. figure:: images/img-026.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: SIKES HAD HIM BY THE COLLAR.

   SIKES HAD HIM BY THE COLLAR.

It did indeed seem as though the sky had
cleared for the boy, but instead still darker
days were threatening.  Fagin the Jew heard of
Oliver's escape with fear and anger.  He knew
that it would never do for the boy to tell what
he knew about the thieves' den.  Their one
chance of safety lay in seizing him again and
making him a thief like themselves, so that his
mouth would be closed.

So Fagin called to his aid a burglar, a big,
brutal fellow named Bill Sikes, who always went
around with a knotted stick and a surly dog.
Nancy, a poor girl of the streets, was also put
upon the search, and soon their united efforts
were successful.

One day after Oliver had begun to grow
strong, he was sent by Mr. Brownlow on an
errand to a bookshop.  He was well dressed in
a new suit, and had some books and a
five-pound note of Mr. Brownlow's.  It was not far,
but he accidentally turned down a by-street that
was not exactly in his way.  He started to turn
back, when he heard a girl's voice screaming,
"Oh, my dear brother!"  And he had hardly
looked up to see what the matter was, when he
was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown
tight around his neck.

"Don't!" cried Oliver, struggling.  "Let go
of me!  Who is it?  What are you stopping
me for?"

The only reply to this was a great number of
loud lamentations from the young woman who
had embraced him, and who had a little basket
and a large key in her hand.

"Oh, my gracious!" said the young woman,
"I've found him!  Oh, Oliver!  Oliver!  Oh, you
naughty boy, to make me suffer sich distress on
your account!  Come home, dear, come!  Oh,
I've found him!  Thank gracious goodness
heavins, I've found him!"  With these
exclamations the young woman burst into another
fit of crying.

"What's the matter, ma'am?" inquired a woman.

"Oh, ma'am," replied the girl, "he ran
away, near a month ago, from his parents,
who are hard-working and respectable people,
and went and joined a set of thieves and
bad characters, and almost broke his mother's
heart."

"Young wretch!" said the woman.

"I'm not," replied Oliver, greatly alarmed.
"I don't know her.  I haven't any sister, or
father and mother either.  I'm an orphan; I
live at Pentonville."

"Oh, only hear him, how he braves it out!"
cried the young woman.

"Why, it's Nancy!" exclaimed Oliver, who
had known her at the Jew's, and now saw her
face for the first time.

"You see he knows me!" cried Nancy,
appealing to the bystanders.  "He can't help
himself.  Make him come home, there's good
people, or he'll kill his dear mother and father,
and break my heart!"

"What the devil's this?" said a man, bursting
out of a beer-shop, with a white dog at his
heels; "young Oliver!  Come home to your
poor mother, you young dog!  Come home,
directly."

"I don't belong to them.  I don't know
them.  Help! help!" cried Oliver, struggling
in the man's powerful grasp.

"Help!" repeated the man.  "Yes; I'll
help you, you young rascal!  What books are
these?  You've been a stealing 'em, have you?
Give 'em here."  With these words, the man
tore the volumes from his grasp and struck him
on the head.

"That's right!" cried a looker-on from a
garret window.  "That's the only way of
bringing him to his senses!"

"To be sure!" cried a sleepy-faced carpenter,
casting an approving look at the garret
window.

"It'll do him good!" said the woman.

"And he shall have it, too!" rejoined the
man, administering another blow, and seizing
Oliver by the collar.  "Come on, you young
villain!  Here, Bull's-eye, mind him, boy!  Mind
him!"

Weak from his recent illness and with no
one in the idle crowd to befriend him, poor
Oliver could only suffer himself to be led away
sobbing.  Bill Sikes saw his advantage, and
pushed him rapidly down the street.  Then,
turning to Oliver, he commanded him to take
hold of Nancy's hand.

"Do you hear?" growled Sikes, as Oliver
hesitated, and looked round.

They were in a dark corner, quite out of
the track of passengers.  Oliver saw, but too
plainly, that resistance would be of no avail.
He held out his hand, which Nancy clasped
tight in hers.

"Give me the other," said Sikes.  "Here,
Bull's-eye!"

The dog looked up and growled.

"See here, boy!" said Sikes, putting his
other hand to Oliver's throat; "if he speaks
ever so soft a word, hold him!  D'ye mind?"

The dog growled again, and, licking his
lips, eyed Oliver as if he were anxious to attach
himself to his windpipe without delay.

And in this fashion Oliver saw with unspeakable
horror that he was being taken back to the
Jew.  What would the trusting Mr. Brownlow
think of him?  What, indeed!  The hot tears
blinded Oliver's eyes at the bare thought.

Presently they arrived before the house but
found it perfectly dark.

"Let's have a glim," said Sikes, "or we shall
go breaking our necks, or treading on the dog.
Look after your legs if you do!  That's all."

"Stand still a moment, and I'll get you one,"
replied a voice.  The footsteps of the speaker
were heard, and in another minute the form of
Mr. John Dawkins, otherwise the Artful Dodger,
appeared.  He bore in his right hand a tallow
candle stuck in the end of a cleft stick.

The young gentleman did not stop to bestow
any other mark of recognition upon Oliver than
a humorous grin; but, turning away, beckoned
the visitors to follow him.  As they entered the
low, dingy room, they were received with a
shout of laughter.

"Oh, my wig, my wig!" cried Charley Bates;
"here he is! oh, cry, here he is!  Oh, Fagin,
look at him; Fagin, do look at him!  I
can't bear it; it is such a jolly game, I can't
bear it!  Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out."

With this, Master Bates laid himself flat on
the floor, and kicked convulsively for five
minutes, in an ecstasy of joy.  Then jumping to
his feet, he snatched the cleft stick from the
Dodger, and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him
round and round, while the Jew, taking off his
nightcap, made a great number of low bows to
the bewildered boy.  The Artful, meantime, who
seldom gave way to merriment when it
interfered with business, rifled Oliver's pockets
thoroughly.

"Look at his togs, Fagin!" said Charley,
putting the light so close to his new jacket as
nearly to set him on fire.  "Look at his
togs,—superfine cloth, and the heavy-swell cut!  Oh,
my eye, what a game!  And his books, too;
nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!"

"Delighted to see you looking so well, my
dear," said the Jew, bowing with mock humility.
"The Artful shall give you another suit, my
dear, for fear you should spoil that Sunday one.
Why didn't you write, my dear, and say you
were coming?  We'd have got something warm
for supper."

At this Master Bates roared again so loud
that Fagin himself relaxed, and even the
Dodger smiled; but as the Artful drew forth
the five-pound note at that instant, it is
doubtful whether the sally or the discovery awakened
his merriment.

"Hallo! what's that?" inquired Sikes,
stepping forward as the Jew seized the note.
"That's mine, Fagin."

"No, no, my dear," said the Jew.  "Mine,
Bill, mine.  You shall have the books."

"They belong to Mr. Brownlow!" cried
Oliver, wringing his hands.  "Oh, pray send
them back!  He'll think I stole them!"

"The boy's right," replied Fagin, with a sly
wink.  "He *will* think you've stole them!"

Oliver saw by his look that all chance of
rescue was gone, and shrieking wildly he made
a dash for the door.  But the dog arrested him
with a fierce growl, while a blow laid him upon
the floor.

For several days Fagin kept him hid close,
for fear of searching parties.  Then, resolving
to get the boy deeply into crime as soon as
possible, he forced him to accompany Bill Sikes
upon a house-breaking expedition.

Accordingly, one raw evening they set
forth—Oliver, Sikes, and another burglar, Toby
Crackit—the ruffians threatening to shoot the
boy if he so much as uttered one word.  On
account of his small size he was chosen to creep
through a little window of the house which was
to be robbed.  The opening was about five feet
from the ground, and so small that the inmates
did not think it worth while to defend it
securely.  But it was large enough to admit a boy
of Oliver's size, nevertheless.

"Now listen, you young limb," whispered
Sikes, drawing a dark-lantern from his pocket
and throwing the glare full in Oliver's face:
"I'm going to put you through there.  Take
this light and go softly up the steps straight
afore you, and along the little hall to the street
door.  Unfasten it and let us in."

So saying, the burglar boosted Oliver up on
his back, and put him through the window.

"You see the stairs, don't you?"

Oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out
"Yes."  Sikes pointed the pistol at him, and
advised him to take notice that he was within
shot all the way.  Nevertheless, the boy had
firmly resolved that, whether he died in the
attempt or not, he would make one effort to
dart upstairs from the hall and alarm the family.
Filled with this idea, he advanced at once, but
stealthily.

"Come back!" suddenly cried Sikes aloud.
"Back! back!"

Scared by the sudden breaking of the dead
stillness of the place, and by a loud cry which
followed it, Oliver let his lantern fall, and knew
not whether to advance or fly.

The cry was repeated—a light appeared—a
vision of two terrified half-dressed men at the
top of the stairs swam before his eyes—a
flash—a loud noise—a smoke—a crash somewhere,
but where he knew not,—and he staggered back.

Sikes had disappeared for an instant; but he
was up again and had him by the collar before
the smoke had cleared away.

He fired his own pistol after the men, who
were already retreating, and dragged the boy up.

"Clasp your arm tighter," said Sikes, as he
drew him through the window.  "Give me a
shawl here.  They've hit him.  Quick!  How
the boy bleeds!"

Then came the loud ringing of a bell, mingled
with the noise of firearms, and the shouts of
men, and the sensation of being carried over
uneven ground at a rapid pace.  And then, the
noises grew confused in the distance.  A cold
deadly feeling crept over the boy's heart, and
he saw or heard no more.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OLIVER MAKES HIS WAY INTO GOOD SOCIETY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \III.  OLIVER MAKES HIS WAY INTO GOOD SOCIETY

.. vspace:: 2

Bill Sikes and Toby Crackit were so
hard pressed that they were soon forced
to leave Oliver lying in a ditch.  The
hue and cry passed him to one side, leaving
him alone and unconscious through the long
cold night.  Morning drew on apace.  The
rain came down thick and fast, but Oliver felt
it not as it beat against him.

At length a low cry of pain broke the stillness;
and uttering it, the boy awoke.  His left
arm, rudely bandaged in a shawl, hung heavy
and useless at his side; and the bandage was
saturated with blood.  He was so weak that
he could scarcely raise himself into a sitting
posture.  When he had at last done so, he
looked feebly round for help, and groaned with
agony.  Trembling in every joint from cold and
exhaustion, he made an effort to stand upright;
but, shuddering from head to foot, fell prostrate
on the ground.

After a short return of the stupor in which
he had been so long plunged, Oliver got upon
his feet, and essayed to walk.  His head was
dizzy, and he staggered to and fro like a
drunken man.  But he kept up, nevertheless,
and, with his head drooping languidly on his
breast, went stumbling onward, he knew not
whither.

The rain was falling heavily now, but the
cold drops roused him like whiplashes.  He
pressed forward with the last ounce of his
strength, feeling that if he stopped he must
surely die, and by chance reached the same
house of the attempted burglary.  He knew
the place at once, but his strength was at an
end, and he sank exhausted on the little portico
by the door.

The servants who presently opened the door
were immensely surprised to find the wounded
boy; and two of them were certain he was the
same who had broken into the house.  But in
his pitiful condition they put him to bed and
sent for a surgeon.

A very kind-hearted lady, Mrs. Maylie, and
her adopted niece Rose, lived here.  They
cared for Oliver tenderly; for, like his lost
friend, Mr. Brownlow, they were greatly taken
by his open face, and believed in him despite
the strange story which he presently found
strength to tell.  With the aid of their friend
the surgeon, they convinced the servants that
a mistake had been made, and so Oliver was
not taken to jail.  Instead, he was received
into this kindly home, and it really seemed
that now his dark days were over at last.

Oliver resumed the study of his beloved
books, which he had begun with Mr. Brownlow.
But he also spent much time in the open
fields, and soon grew sturdy and strong, with
the brown look of health in his face.  Between
him and Rose Maylie a tender affection sprang
up.  He was, in fact, her devoted knight.

One beautiful evening, when the first shades
of twilight were beginning to settle upon the
earth, Oliver sat at his window, intent upon
his books.  He had been poring over them for
some time; and, as the day had been
uncommonly sultry, and he had exerted himself a
great deal, by slow degrees he fell asleep.

There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us
sometimes, which, while it holds the body
prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense
of things about it, or enable it to ramble at
its pleasure.

Oliver knew, perfectly well, that he was in
his own little room; that his books were lying
on the table before him; that the sweet air was
stirring among the creeping plants outside.
And yet he was asleep.  Suddenly, the scene
changed; the air became close and confined;
and he thought, with a glow of terror, that he
was in the Jew's house again.  There sat the
hideous old man, in his accustomed corner,
pointing at him, and whispering to another
man, with his face averted, who sat beside him.

"Hush, my dear!" he thought he heard the
Jew say; "it is he, sure enough.  Come away."

"He!" the other man seemed to answer;
"could I mistake him, think you?  If a crowd
of ghosts were to put themselves into his exact
shape, and he stood among them, there is
something that would tell me how to point him out!"

The man seemed to say this with such dreadful
hatred, that Oliver awoke with the fear and
started up.

Good Heaven! what was that which sent
the blood tingling to his heart, and deprived
him of his voice and of power to move!
There—there—at the window—close before
him—so close that he could have almost touched
him before he started back—with his eyes
peering into the room, and meeting his—there stood
the Jew!  And beside him were the scowling
features of a dark man whom Oliver had seen
only once, but had instinctively learned to fear.

It was but an instant, a glance, a flash, before
his eyes, and they were gone.  But they had
recognized him, and he them.  He knew they
were once again lying in wait to seize him,
and that his days of peace and happiness were
numbered.

Voice and motion came back to him with the
fear; and leaping from the window he called
loudly for help.

Nevertheless, no trace of Fagin or the
stranger could be found, though the search
was pursued with haste; and Oliver's friends
were forced to believe that it had been only a
feverish dream.

But Oliver had not been mistaken.  The two
figures at the window were really Fagin and a
man named Monks, who for some mysterious
reason had been the boy's most vindictive
enemy.  It was he who had found Oliver again
and reported the fact to Fagin; and together
they laid cunning plans to get him once more
into their clutches.

At this critical moment in Oliver's welfare,
an unexpected friend to him appeared in the
person of Nancy, the street-girl.  She had
bitterly repented her share in kidnapping him
from Mr. Brownlow, and now longed for a
chance to do him some service.  The chance
offered, when she happened to overhear the
interview between Monks and the Jew.  She
could not understand all she heard, but she
realized that the boy was in great danger unless
she acted at once.

Hastening to the home of Rose Maylie,
Nancy contrived to see her alone and repeated
word for word the conversation she had
overheard.  From the dark threats of this man
Monks, it seemed that Oliver's very life
was in danger, because of some secret
connected with his birth.  Nancy knew that it
meant her own death also if her visit to Miss
Maylie became known, but she could not
remain silent.

Miss Maylie listened to her story with horror
and amazement.  She realized that something
must be done quickly, but did not know to
whom to turn.  In her perplexity Oliver made
a discovery of great value to both of them.  On
the very day of Nancy's hurried visit and no
less hurried departure he came running in, his
eyes all aglow with excitement.

"I have seen him!" he exclaimed excitedly;
"I knew that if I kept on looking, I should find
him again, one day!  I mean the gentleman
who was so good to me—Mr. Brownlow!"

"Where?" asked Rose.

"Getting out of a coach," replied Oliver.
"I didn't have the chance to speak to him, but
I took the number of the house he went into.
Here it is."  And he flourished a scrap of
paper delightedly.  "Oh, let us go there at once!"

Rose read the address eagerly, and decided
to put the discovery to account.  Not alone
would Oliver be gratified, but Mr. Brownlow
might be the very friend they needed at this
momentous time.

"Quick!" she said; "tell them to fetch a
hackney-coach, and be ready to go with me.  I
will take you there directly, without a minute's
loss of time.  I will only tell my aunt that we
are going out for an hour, and be ready as soon
as you are."

Oliver needed no prompting to hasten, and
in little more than five minutes they were on
their way.  When they arrived at the address
noted, Rose left Oliver in the coach, under
pretence of preparing his friend to receive
him; and sending up her card by the servant,
requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing
business.  The servant soon returned, to
beg that she would walk upstairs; and following
him into an upper room, Miss Maylie was
presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent
appearance, in a bottle-green coat.

"Dear me," said the gentleman, hastily
rising, with great politeness, "I beg your pardon,
young lady—-I imagined it was some importunate
person who—I beg you will excuse me.
Be seated, pray."

"Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?" said Rose.

"That is my name."

"I shall surprise you very much, I have no
doubt," said Rose, naturally embarrassed; "but
you once showed great kindness to a very dear
young friend of mine, and I am sure you will
take an interest in hearing of him again."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Brownlow.

"Oliver Twist, as you knew him," said Rose.

Mr. Brownlow was naturally surprised, but
said nothing for a few moments.  Then looking
straight into her eyes, he remarked quietly
but earnestly, "Believe me, my dear young
lady, if you can tell me good news of that
child, or lift the shadow which rests upon
his name, you will be doing me the greatest
service."

Rose at once related in a few words all that
had befallen Oliver since leaving Mr. Brownlow's
house; how he had searched for him but
had only seen him that very day; and finally of
the new danger which threatened the boy.

You may believe that Mr. Brownlow sat very
straight, upon the extreme edge of his chair,
during the latter part of this recital.

"The poor lad!" he exclaimed; "but why
have you not brought him with you?"

"I wished to talk with you alone about this
plot.  He does not know of it.  But"—smilingly—"I
believe he is now waiting in the
coach at the door."

"At this door?" cried Mr. Brownlow.  And
without another word he rushed from the room.

In less than a minute he was back again,
lugging Oliver in bodily and both laughing—yes,
and shedding tears—at the same time.

Then after the jolliest of visits, Rose and
Oliver took their leave for the present; but not
before Mr. Brownlow had told Rose privately
that he would turn his whole attention to the
new conspiracy.

Nancy had promised to meet Rose on London
Bridge, a few nights later, and Mr. Brownlow
determined to be there also.  In the meantime
he made other plans for capturing the rogues.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE END OF EVIL DAYS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \IV.  THE END OF EVIL DAYS

.. vspace:: 2

Now, unbeknown to Nancy, Fagin the
Jew had become suspicious of her,
and had set a spy upon her heels.
This spy was none other than Noah Claypole,
the undertaker's apprentice, whom Oliver had
so soundly thrashed.  Noah had lately come to
London to try his fortune in any underhand
way that might arise.  The Jew was always on
the lookout for just such fellows as he.  So
they soon struck a bargain.

On the night when Nancy set forth to keep
her appointment on the Bridge, Noah was kept
busy darting from pillar to post, but all the
time keeping her in sight.  When she met
Rose and Mr. Brownlow, the spy quickly slunk
behind an abutment where he could hear every
word of what she said.  And you may be sure
he lost no time in taking his story back to the Jew.

Bill Sikes had just returned, in the early
morning, from a house-breaking jaunt, and was
as usual in an ugly mood.  A word from the
Jew about Nancy's defection set his brain on
fire with hatred against the girl.  He hastened
to her room, and, disregarding all her appeals
for mercy, struck her lifeless to the floor.

This murder proved the beginning of the end
for all the gang.  Mr. Brownlow had already
set the police to work, and now offered a large
personal reward for Sikes's arrest.  The
murderer was tracked in and about the city for
several days, until he finally hung himself in
endeavoring to escape from the roof of a house.

Fagin the Jew was captured at last, and for
his share in this crime, and his other
wickednesses was condemned to death.  A great
popular clamor had been aroused against him,
and he was to be hung without delay.

In the hope that the Jew would throw some
light upon Monks and some secret papers which
Mr. Brownlow had traced, that gentleman took
Oliver with him to the prison to see Fagin on
his last night upon earth.

"Is the young gentleman to come, too, sir?"
said the man whose duty it was to conduct
them.  "It's not a sight for children, sir."

"It is not indeed, my friend,", rejoined
Mr. Brownlow; "but my business with this
man is intimately connected with him; and as
this child has seen him in the full career of his
success and villany, I think it well—even at
the cost of some pain and fear—that he should
see him now."

These few words had been said apart, so as
to be inaudible to Oliver.  The man touched
his hat; and glancing at Oliver with some
curiosity, opened another gate, opposite to that
by which they had entered, and led them on,
through dark and winding ways, to the cell.

The condemned criminal was seated on his
bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a
countenance more like that of a snared beast
than the face of a man.  His mind was
evidently wandering to his old life, for he
continued to mutter, without appearing conscious
of their presence otherwise than as a part of his
vision.

"Good boy, Charley—well done!"—he
mumbled.  "Oliver too, ha! ha! ha!  Oliver
too—quite the gentleman now—quite
the—take that boy away to bed!"

The jailer took the disengaged hand of
Oliver, and, whispering to him not to be
alarmed, looked on without speaking.

"Take him away to bed!" cried the Jew.
"Do you hear me, some of you?  He has been
the—the—somehow the cause of all this!"

"Fagin," said the jailer.

"That's me!" cried the Jew, falling, instantly,
into the attitude of listening he had
assumed upon his trial.  "An old man, my
Lord; a very old, old man!"

"Here," said the turnkey, laying his hand
upon his breast to keep him down.  "Here's
somebody wants to see you, to ask you some
questions, I suppose.  Fagin, Fagin!  Are you
a man?"

"I sha'n't be one long," replied the Jew,
looking up with a face retaining no human
expression but rage and terror.  "Strike them
all dead!  What right have they to butcher me?"

As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and
Mr. Brownlow.  Shrinking to the farthest
corner of the seat, he demanded to know what
they wanted there.

"Steady," said the turnkey, still holding him
down.  "Now, sir, tell him what you want—quick
if you please, for he grows worse as the
time gets on."

"You have some papers," said Mr. Brownlow,
advancing, "which were placed in your
hands, for better security, by a man called
Monks."

"It's all a lie together," replied the Jew.
"I haven't one—not one."

"For the love of God," said Mr. Brownlow,
solemnly, "do not tell a lie now, upon the
very verge of death; but tell me where they
are.  You know that Sikes is dead; and that
there is no hope of any farther gain.  Where
are those papers?"

"Oliver," cried the Jew, beckoning to him.
"Here, here!  Let me whisper to you."

"I am not afraid," said Oliver, in a firm
voice, as he relinquished Mr. Brownlow's hand.

"The papers," said the Jew, drawing him
towards him, "are in a canvas bag, in a hole a
little way up the chimney in the top front room.
I want to talk to you, my dear.  I want to talk
to you."

"Yes, yes," returned Oliver.  "Let me say
a prayer.  Do!  Let me say one prayer.  Say
only one, upon your knees, with me, and we
will talk till morning."

"Outside, outside," replied the Jew, pushing
the boy before him towards the door, and
looking vacantly over his head.  "Say I've gone to
sleep—they'll believe *you*.  You can get me
out, if you take me so.  Now then, now then!"

"Oh!  God forgive this wretched man!" cried
the boy, with a burst of tears.

"That's right, that's right," said the Jew.
"That'll help us on.  This door first.  If I
shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows,
don't you mind, but hurry on.  Now, now, now!"

"Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?"
inquired the turnkey.

"No other question," replied Mr. Brownlow.
"If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of
his position—"

"Nothing will do that, sir," replied the man,
shaking his head.  "You had better leave him."

The door of the cell opened and the attendants
returned.

"Press on, press on," cried the Jew.  "Softly,
but not so slow.  Faster, faster!"

The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging
Oliver from his grasp, held him back.  He
struggled with the power of desperation for an
instant, and then sent up cry upon cry that
penetrated even those massive walls and rang
in their ears until they reached the open yard.

And this—thought Oliver shudderingly—was
the last of the Jew—the man from whose
clutches he had so narrowly escaped!

Noah Claypole turned state's evidence at this
time, and thus escaped the law.  Dawkins, the
Artful Dodger, had been caught picking pockets
and was transported from the country.  Charley
Bates was so unnerved by the fate of Nancy,
and the swift punishment of his companions,
that he reformed and became an honest,
hard-working young man.

And, finally, what of Monks?  He was
shadowed and seized by Mr. Brownlow's agents,
and proved to be none other than the
half-brother of Oliver Twist!  Their father was
dead, but he had left a will providing for the
boy also.  And it was on this account that
Monks had wished to get him out of the way
and had employed Fagin in trying to ruin the lad.

The papers were found, as the Jew had
indicated, and they not only cleared up Oliver's
past history, but proved his right to a share in
a considerable family estate.  Mr. Brownlow
had known Monks's father in their early days,
and now used this knowledge to wring a full
confession from the villain.

Another strange secret came to light also,
at this time.  Rose Maylie was found to be a
younger sister of Oliver's dead mother, and
therefore the boy's own aunt.

"Not aunt!" cried Oliver, when he heard
this amazing but delightful news; "I'll never
call her aunt!  Sister, my own dear sister, that
something taught my heart to love so dearly
from the first!  Rose, dear darling Rose!"

And the two orphans, no longer alone but
united and surrounded by loving friends, were
clasped in each other's arms.





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.. _`THE STORY OF SMIKE AND HIS TEACHER`:

.. _`HOW NICHOLAS NICKLEBY CAME TO DOTHEBOYS HALL`:

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   THE STORY OF SMIKE AND HIS TEACHER

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   \I.  HOW NICHOLAS NICKLEBY CAME TO DOTHEBOYS HALL

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"Education.—At Mr. Wackford
Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall,
at the delightful village of Dotheboys,
near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, Youth are
boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with
pocket-money, provided with all necessaries,
instructed in all languages living and dead,
mathematics, orthography, geometry,
astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes,
algebra, single stick (if required), writing,
arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch
of classical literature.  Terms, twenty guineas
per annum.  No extras, no vacations, and diet
unparalleled.  Mr. Squeers is in town, and
attends daily, from one till four, at the
Saracen's Head, Snow Hill.  N.B. An able
assistant wanted.  Annual salary £5.  A Master
of Arts would be preferred."

To Nicholas Nickleby, a young man of
nineteen, who had come to London seeking his
fortune, this advertisement in a daily paper
seemed a godsend—that is, provided he could
secure the position referred to in the last two
lines.  It is true the salary was not large; but
he reflected that his board and living would be
included, and that a young man of his education
and ability would be bound to rise.  He even
fancied himself, in a rosy-colored future, at the
head of this model school, Dotheboys Hall, in
the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta
Bridge, in Yorkshire.

But it would not do to sit dreaming.  Some
one else might snap up this golden opportunity.
Nicholas brushed his clothes carefully and lost
no time in calling upon Mr. Squeers, at the
tavern called the Saracen's Head.

Mr. Squeers's appearance was not prepossessing.
He had but one eye which, while
it was unquestionably useful, was decidedly
not ornamental, being of a greenish gray and
in shape resembling the fan-light of a
street-door.  The blank side of his face was much
wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a
very sinister appearance, especially when he
smiled, at which times his expression bordered
closely on the villanous.  He was about two or
three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle
size; and he wore a white neckerchief with
long ends, and a suit of scholastic black.

Mr. Squeers was standing in a box by one of
the coffee-room fireplaces, fitted with one such
table as is usually seen in coffee-rooms.  In a
corner of the seat was a very small deal trunk,
tied round with a scanty piece of cord; and on
the trunk was perched—his lace-up half-boots
and corduroy trousers dangling in the air—a
diminutive boy, with his shoulders drawn up
to his ears, and his hands planted on his knees,
who glanced timidly at the schoolmaster, from
time to time, with evident dread.  Presently
the boy chanced to give a violent sneeze.

"Hallo, sir!" growled the schoolmaster,
turning round.  "What's that, sir?"

"Nothing, please, sir," replied the little boy.

"Nothing, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Squeers.

"Please, sir, I sneezed," rejoined the boy,
trembling till the little trunk shook under him.

"Oh! sneezed, did you?" retorted Mr. Squeers.
"Then what did you say 'nothing'
for, sir?"

In default of a better answer to this question,
the little boy screwed a couple of knuckles into
each of his eyes and began to cry; wherefore
Mr. Squeers knocked him off the trunk with a
blow on one side of his face, and knocked him
on again with a blow on the other.

"Wait till I get you down to Yorkshire, my
young gentleman," said Mr. Squeers, "and then
I'll give you the rest.  Will you hold that
noise, sir?"

"Ye-ye-yes," sobbed the little boy, rubbing
his face very hard.

"Then do so at once, sir," said Squeers.
"Do you hear?"

The little boy rubbed his face harder, as if
to keep the tears back; and, beyond alternately
sniffing and choking, gave no farther vent to
his emotions.

"Mr. Squeers," said the waiter, looking in
at this juncture, "here's a gentleman asking
for you at the bar."

"Show the gentleman in, Richard," replied
Mr. Squeers, in a soft voice.  "Put your
handkerchief in your pocket, you little scoundrel!"

The schoolmaster had scarcely uttered these
words in a fierce whisper, when the stranger
entered.  Affecting not to see him,
Mr. Squeers feigned to be intent upon mending a
pen, and offering benevolent advice to his
youthful pupil.

"My dear child," said Mr. Squeers, "all
people have their trials.  This early trial of
yours that is fit to make your little heart burst
and your very eyes come out of your head with
crying, what is it?  Nothing; less than
nothing.  You are leaving your friends, but you
will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother
in Mrs. Squeers.  At the delightful village of
Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire,
where youth are boarded, clothed, booked,
washed, furnished with pocket-money, provided
with all necessaries—"

"Mr. Squeers, I believe," said Nicholas
Nickleby, as that worthy man stopped to cough.

"The same, sir.  What can I do for you?"

"I came in answer to an advertisement in
this morning's paper," said Nicholas.  "I
believe you desire an assistant."

"I do, sir," rejoined Mr. Squeers, coolly;
"but if you are applying for the place, don't
you think you're too young?"

"I hope not, sir, and I have a fair education.
I could—"

"Could what?" interrupted the schoolmaster.
"Could you lick the boys if they needed it?"

"I do not usually believe in that sort of
punishment—" hesitated Nicholas.

"Could you do it?" urged Mr. Squeers.

"I think—if they needed it—I could lick
anybody in your school," smiled Nicholas.

"Well, why didn't you say so?  I guess I
had better take you.  I've got to leave town at
eight o'clock to-morrow morning, and haven't
time to look around.  So be on hand sharp!"

Nicholas thanked him and promised to be on hand.

The next day he was as good as his word,
and reached the tavern a little in advance of
the appointed hour.

He found Mr. Squeers sitting at breakfast,
with the little boy before noticed, and four
others who had turned up by some lucky chance
since the interview of the previous day, ranged
in a row on the opposite seat.  Mr. Squeers
had before him a small measure of coffee, a
plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef;
but he was at that moment intent on preparing
breakfast for the little boys.

"This is twopenn'orth of milk, is it, waiter?"
said he, looking down into a large blue mug,
and slanting it gently, so as to get an accurate
view of the quantity of liquid contained in it.

"That's twopenn'orth, sir," replied the waiter.

"What a rare article milk is, to be sure, in
London!" said Mr. Squeers, with a sigh.
"Just fill that mug up with lukewarm water,
William, will you?"

"To the wery top, sir?" inquired the waiter.
"Why, the milk will be drownded."

"Never you mind that," replied Mr. Squeers.
"Serve it right for being so dear!  You ordered
that thick bread and butter for three, did you?"

"Coming directly, sir."

"You needn't hurry yourself," said Squeers;
"there's plenty of time.  Conquer your
passions, boys, and don't be eager after vittles."  As
he uttered this moral precept, Mr. Squeers
took a large bite out of the cold beef, and
recognized Nicholas.

"Sit down, Mr. Nickleby," said Squeers.
"Here we are, a breakfasting, you see!"

Nicholas did not see that anybody was breakfasting
except Mr. Squeers; but he bowed with
all becoming reverence, and looked as cheerful
as he could.

"Oh! that's the milk and water, is it,
William?" said Squeers.  "Very good; don't
forget the bread and butter presently."

At this fresh mention of the bread and
butter the five little boys looked very eager, and
followed the waiter out with their eyes;
meanwhile Mr. Squeers tasted the milk and water.

"Ah!" said that gentleman, smacking his
lips, "here's richness!  Think of the many
beggars and orphans in the streets that would
be glad of this, little boys.  A shocking thing
hunger is, isn't it, Mr. Nickleby?"

"Very shocking, sir," said Nicholas.

"When I say number one," pursued Mr. Squeers,
putting the mug before the children,
"the boy on the left hand nearest the window
may take a drink; and when I say number two,
the boy next him will go in, and so till we
come to number five, which is the last boy.
Are you ready?"

"Yes, sir," cried all the little boys with
great eagerness.

"That's right," said Squeers, calmly getting
on with his breakfast; "keep ready till I tell
you to begin.  Subdue your appetites, my
dears, and you've conquered human natur.
This is the way we inculcate strength of mind,
Mr. Nickleby," said the schoolmaster, turning
to Nicholas, and speaking with his mouth very
full of beef and toast.

Nicholas murmured something—he knew
not what—in reply; and the little boys,
dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and
butter (which had by this time arrived), and
every morsel which Mr. Squeers took into his
mouth, remained with strained eyes in
torments of expectation.

"Thank God for a good breakfast," said
Squeers when he had finished.  "Number one
may take a drink."

Number one seized the mug ravenously, and
had just drunk enough to make him wish for
more, when Mr. Squeers gave the signal for
number two, who gave up at the same interesting
moment to number three; and the process
was repeated until the milk and water
terminated with number five.

"And now," said the schoolmaster, dividing
the bread and butter for three into as many
portions as there were children, "you had
better look sharp with your breakfast, for the
horn will blow in a minute or two, and then
every boy leaves off."

Permission being thus given to fall to, the
boys began to eat voraciously and in desperate
haste; while the schoolmaster (who was in high
good-humor after his meal) picked his teeth
with a fork, and looked smilingly on.  In a
very short time the horn was heard.

"I thought it wouldn't be long," said Squeers,
jumping up and producing a little basket from
under the seat; "put what you haven't had
time to eat in here, boys!  You'll want it on
the road!"

Nicholas was considerably startled by these
very economical arrangements; but he had no
time to reflect upon them, for the little boys had
to be got up to the top of the coach, and this
task was in his department.  But soon they
were all stowed away, and the coach started off
with a flourish.

The journey proved long and hard, however.
They were detained several times by the bad
roads and inclement weather, so that it was
not until nightfall of the second day that they
reached their destination.

"Jump out," said Squeers.  "Hallo there! come
and put this horse up.  Be quick, will you!"

While the schoolmaster was uttering these
and other impatient cries, Nicholas had time
to observe that the school was a long, cold-looking
house, one story high, with a few straggling
outbuildings behind, and a barn and stable
adjoining.  After the lapse of a minute or two,
the noise of somebody unlocking the yard-gate
was heard, and presently a tall, lean boy, with
a lantern in his hand, issued forth.

"Is that you, Smike?" cried Squeers.

"Yes, sir," replied the boy.

"Then why the devil didn't you come before?"

"Please, sir, I fell asleep over the fire,"
answered Smike, with humility.

"Fire! what fire?  Where's there a fire?"
demanded the schoolmaster, sharply.

"Only in the kitchen, sir," replied the boy.
"Missus said, as I was sitting up, I might go
in there for a warm."

"Your Missus is a fool," retorted Squeers.
"You'd have been a deuced deal more wakeful
in the cold, I'll engage."

By this time Mr. Squeers had dismounted;
and after ordering the boy to see to the pony,
and to take care that he hadn't any more corn
that night, he told Nicholas to wait at the front
door a minute while he went round and let him in.

A host of unpleasant misgivings, which had
been crowding upon Nicholas during the whole
journey, thronged into his mind with redoubled
force when he was left alone.  And as he
looked up at the dreary house and dark
windows, and upon the wild country round, covered
with snow, he felt a depression of heart and
spirit which he had never experienced before.

Presently he was ushered into a cheerless-looking
parlor where stood a large, angular
woman about half a head taller than Mr. Squeers.

"This is the new young man, my dear," said
that gentleman.

"Oh," replied Mrs. Squeers, nodding her
head at Nicholas, and eyeing him coldly from
top to toe.

"He'll take a meal with us to-night," said
Squeers, "and go among the boys to-morrow
morning.  You can give him a shakedown
here, to-night, can't you?"

"We must manage it somehow," replied the
lady.  "You don't much mind how you sleep,
I suppose, sir?"

"No, indeed," replied Nicholas, "I am not
particular."

"That's lucky," said Mrs. Squeers.  And as
the lady's humor was considered to lie chiefly
in retort, Mr. Squeers laughed heartily, and
seemed to expect that Nicholas should do the
same.

After some conversation between the master
and mistress relative to the success of
Mr. Squeers's trip, and the people who had paid,
and the people who had made default in
payment, a young servant girl brought in a
Yorkshire pie and some cold beef, which being set
upon the table, the boy Smike appeared with a
jug of ale.

Mr. Squeers was emptying his great-coat
pockets of letters to different boys, and other
small documents, which he had brought down
in them.  The boy glanced, with an anxious
and timid expression, at the papers, as if with
a sickly hope that one among them might relate
to him.  The look was a very painful one, and
went to Nicholas's heart at once, for it told a
long and very sad history.

It induced him to consider the boy more
attentively, and he was surprised to observe
the extraordinary mixture of garments which
formed his dress.  Although he could not have
been less than eighteen or nineteen years old,
and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton
suit, such as is usually put upon very little
boys, and which, though most absurdly short
in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough
for his thin body.  In order that the lower part
of his legs might be in perfect keeping with
this singular dress, he had a very large pair of
boots, originally made for tops, which might
have been once worn by some stout farmer, but
were now too patched and tattered for a beggar.
He was lame; and as he feigned to be busy in
arranging the table, he glanced at the letters
with a look so keen, and yet so dispirited and
hopeless, that Nicholas could hardly bear to
watch him.

"What are you bothering about there,
Smike?" cried Mrs. Squeers; "let the things
alone, can't you?"

"Eh!" said Squeers, looking up.  "Oh! it's
you, is it?"

"Yes, sir," replied the youth, pressing his
hands together, as though to control, by force,
the nervous wandering of his fingers; "Is
there—"

"Well!" said Squeers.

"Have you—did anybody—has nothing
been heard—about me?"

"Devil a bit," replied Squeers, testily.

The lad withdrew his eyes, and, putting his
hand to his face, moved towards the door.

"Not a word," resumed Squeers, "and never
will be.  Now, this is a pretty sort of thing,
isn't it, that you should have been left here
all these years, and no money paid after the
first six—nor no notice taken, nor no clue to
be got who you belong to?  It's a pretty sort
of thing that I should have to feed a great
fellow like you, and never hope to get one
penny for it, isn't it?"

The boy put his hand to his head as if he
were making an effort to recollect something,
and then, looking vacantly at his questioner,
gradually broke into a smile, and limped away.

"I'll tell you what, Squeers," remarked his
wife, as the door closed, "I think that young
chap's turning silly."

"I hope not," said the schoolmaster; "for
he's a handy fellow out-of-doors, and worth his
meat and drink anyway.  I should think he'd
have wit enough for us, though, if he was."

Supper being over, Mr. Squeers yawned fearfully
and was of opinion that it was high time
to go to bed.  Upon this, Mrs. Squeers and a
servant dragged in a small straw mattress and
a couple of blankets, and arranged them into a
couch for Nicholas.

"We'll put you into a regular bedroom with
the boys to-morrow, Nickleby," said Squeers.
"Good-night.  Seven o'clock, in the morning,
mind."

The next morning, when Nicholas appeared
in the main room, he found Mrs. Squeers very
much distressed.

"I can't find the school spoon," she said.

"Never mind it, my dear," observed Squeers
in a soothing manner; "it's of no consequence."

"No consequence! why, how you talk!"
retorted Mrs. Squeers, sharply; "isn't it
brimstone morning?"

"I forgot, my dear," rejoined Squeers; "yes,
it certainly is.  We purify the boys' bloods now
and then, Nickleby."

"Purify fiddlesticks' ends!" said his lady.
"Don't think, young man, that we go to the
expense of brimstone and molasses, just to
purify them; because if you think we carry on
the business in that way, you'll find yourself
mistaken, and so I tell you plainly."

"My dear," said Squeers, frowning.  "Hem!"

"Oh! nonsense," rejoined Mrs. Squeers.
"If the young man comes to be a teacher here,
let him understand, at once, that we don't want
any foolery about the boys.  They have the
brimstone and treacle, partly because if they
hadn't something or other in the way of medicine
they'd be always ailing and giving a world
of trouble, and partly because it spoils their
appetites and comes cheaper than breakfast and
dinner.  So it does them good and us good at the
same time, and that's fair enough, I'm sure."

A vast deal of searching and rummaging
ensued, and it proving fruitless, Smike was
called in, and pushed by Mrs. Squeers and
boxed by Mr. Squeers; which course of
treatment brightening his intellects, enabled him
to suggest that possibly Mrs. Squeers might
have the spoon in her pocket—as indeed
turned out to be the case.  But as Mrs. Squeers
had previously protested that she was
quite certain she had not got it, Smike received
another box on the ear for presuming to contradict
his mistress; so that he gained nothing of
advantage by his idea.

"But come," said Squeers, "let's go to the
schoolroom; and lend me a hand with my
school-coat, will you?"

Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old
shooting-jacket; and Squeers, arming himself
with his cane, led the way across a yard, to a
door in the rear of the house.

"There," said the schoolmaster, as they
stepped in together; "this is our shop,
Nickleby!"

It was such a crowded scene, and there were
so many objects to attract attention, that, at
first, Nicholas stared about him, really without
seeing anything at all.  By degrees, however,
the place resolved itself into a bare and dirty
room, with a couple of windows, stopped up
with old copybooks and paper.  There were
two rickety desks, cut and notched, and inked
in every possible way; two or three forms; a
detached desk for Squeers, and another for his
assistant.  The ceiling was supported, like that
of a barn, by crossbeams and rafters, and the
walls were so stained and discolored that it
was impossible to tell whether they had ever
been touched with paint or whitewash.

But the pupils!  How the last faint traces
of hope, the remotest glimmering of any good
to be derived from his efforts in this den, faded
from the mind of Nicholas as he looked in
dismay around!  Pale and haggard faces, lank and
bony figures, children with the countenances
of old men, boys of stunted growth, and others
whose long, meagre legs would hardly bear
their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view
together.

.. _`NICHOLAS AND SMIKE.`:

.. figure:: images/img-074.jpg
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   :alt: NICHOLAS AND SMIKE.

   NICHOLAS AND SMIKE.

And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its
grotesque features.  Mrs. Squeers stood at one
of the desks, presiding over an immense basin
of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious
compound she administered a large instalment
to each boy in succession, using for the
purpose a common wooden spoon, which might
have been originally manufactured for some
gigantic top, and which widened every young
gentleman's mouth considerably; they being
all obliged, under heavy penalties, to take in
the whole of the bowl at a gulp.

"Now," said Squeers, giving the desk a
great rap with his cane which made half the
little boys nearly jump out of their boots, "is
that physicking over?"

"Just over," said Mrs. Squeers, choking the
last boy in her hurry, and tapping the crown of
his head with the wooden spoon to restore him.
"Here, you Smike; take away now.  Look sharp!"

Smike shuffled out with the basin, and
Mrs. Squeers having called up a little boy with a
curly head and wiped her hands upon it,
hurried out after him into a species of
wash-house, where there was a small fire and a large
kettle, together with a number of little wooden
bowls which were arranged upon a board.  Into
these bowls Mrs. Squeers, assisted by the
hungry servant, poured a brown composition,
which looked like diluted pincushions without
the covers, and was called porridge.  A minute
wedge of brown bread was inserted in each
bowl, and when they had eaten their porridge
by means of the bread, the boys ate the bread
itself, and had finished their breakfast;
whereupon Mr. Squeers said, in a solemn voice,
"For what we have received, may the Lord
make us truly thankful!"—and went away to
his own.

Nicholas filled his stomach with a bowl of
porridge, for much the same reason which
induces some savages to swallow earth—lest
they should be hungry when there is nothing
to eat.  Having disposed of a slice of bread
and butter, allotted to him in virtue of his
office, he sat himself down to wait for school-time.

He could not but observe how silent and sad
the boys all seemed to be.  There was none of
the noise and clamor of a schoolroom; none of
its boisterous play or hearty mirth.  The
children sat crouching and shivering together,
and seemed to lack the spirit to move about.
The only pupil who seemed at all playful was
Master Squeers, son of the master, and as his
chief amusement was to tread upon the other
boys' toes in his new boots, his flow of spirits
was rather disagreeable than otherwise.

After some half-hour's delay Mr. Squeers
reappeared, and the boys took their places and
their books, of which latter there might be
about one to eight learners.  A few minutes
having elapsed, during which Mr. Squeers
looked very profound, as if he had a perfect
apprehension of what was inside all the books,
and could say every word of their contents by
heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that
gentleman called up the first class.

Obedient to this summons there ranged
themselves in front of the schoolmaster's desk
half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and
elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy
book beneath his learned eye.

"This is the first class in English spelling
and philosophy, Nickleby," said Squeers,
beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him.  "We'll
get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you.
Now, then, where's the first boy?"

"Please, sir, he's cleaning the back parlor
window," said the temporary head of the class.

"So he is, to be sure," rejoined Squeers.
"We go upon the practical mode of
teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system.
C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright,
to scour.  When the boy knows this out of
book, he goes and does it.  Second boy, what's
a horse?"

"A beast, sir," replied the boy.

"So it is," said Squeers, "and as you're perfect
in that, go and look after *my* horse, and rub
him down well, or I'll rub you down.  The rest
of the class go and draw water till somebody
tells you to leave off, for it's washing-day
to-morrow, and they want the coppers filled."

So saying, he dismissed the first class to
their experiments in practical philosophy, and
eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunning and
half doubtful, as if he were not altogether
certain what he might think of him by this time.

"That's the way we do it, Nickleby," he
said, after a pause.

Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner
that was scarcely perceptible, and said he saw
it was.

"And a very good way it is, too," said
Squeers.  "Now, just take them fourteen little
boys and hear them some reading, because, you
know, you must begin to be useful.  Idling
about here won't do."

Mr. Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly
occurred to him, either that he must not say
too much to his assistant, or that his assistant
did not say enough to him in praise of the
establishment.  The children were arranged in
a semicircle round the new master, and he was
soon listening to their dull, drawling recital of
those stories of interest which are to be found
in the spelling books.

In this exciting occupation the morning
lagged heavily on.  At one o'clock the boys,
having previously had their appetites
thoroughly taken away by stir-about and potatoes,
sat down in the kitchen to some hard salt beef,
of which Nicholas was graciously permitted to
take his portion to his own solitary desk, to
eat it there in peace.  After this, there was
another hour of crouching in the schoolroom
and shivering with cold; and this was a fair
sample of the school day at Dotheboys Hall.

There was a small stove in the corner of the
room, and by it Nicholas sat down, when the
school was dismissed, so heavy-hearted that it
seemed to him as though every bit of joy had
gone out of the world.  The cruelty and
coarseness of Squeers were revolting, and yet
Nicholas did not know how to resent it or
which way to turn.  He had cast his lot here,
and here he must abide.

As he was absorbed in these meditations, he
all at once encountered the upturned face of
Smike, who was on his knees before the stove,
picking a few stray cinders from the hearth and
planting them on the fire.  He had paused to
steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that
he was observed, shrank back, as if expecting
a blow.

"You need not fear me," said Nicholas,
kindly.  "Are you cold?"

"N-n-o."

"You are shivering."

"I am not cold," replied Smike, quickly.
"I am used to it."

There was such an obvious fear of giving
offence in his manner, and he was such a timid,
broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could
not help exclaiming, "Poor fellow!"

If he had struck the drudge, he would have
slunk away without a word.  But now he
burst into tears.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" he cried, covering his
face with his cracked and horny hands.  "My
heart will break.  It will, it will!"

"Hush!" said Nicholas, laying his hand
upon his shoulder.  "Be a man; you are nearly
one by years, God help you."

"By years!" cried Smike.  "Oh, dear, dear,
how many of them!  How many of them since
I was a little child, younger than any that are
here now!  Where are they all?"

"Whom do you speak of?" inquired Nicholas,
wishing to rouse the poor, half-witted creature
to reason.  "Tell me."

"My friends," he replied, "myself—my—oh! what
sufferings mine have been!"

"There is always hope," said Nicholas; he
knew not what to say.

"No," rejoined the other, "no; none for
me.  Do you remember the boy that died here?"

"I was not here, you know," said Nicholas,
gently; "but what of him?"

"Why," replied the youth, drawing closer
to his questioner's side, "I was with him at
night, and when it was all silent he cried no
more for friends he wished to come and sit with
him, but began to see faces round his bed that
came from home; he said they smiled, and
talked to him; and he died at last lifting his
head to kiss them.  Do you hear?"

"Yes, yes," rejoined Nicholas.

"What faces will smile on me when I die!"
cried his companion, shivering.  "Who will
talk to me in those long nights!  They cannot
come from home; they would frighten me, if
they did, for I don't know what it is, and
shouldn't know them.  Pain and fear, pain
and fear for me, alive or dead.  No hope, no hope!"

The bell rang to bed, and the boy, subsiding
at the sound into his usual listless state, crept
away as if anxious to avoid notice.  It was
with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon
afterwards—no, not retired; there was no
retirement there—followed to his dirty and crowded
dormitory.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HOW SMIKE WENT AWAY FROM DOTHEBOYS HALL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \II.  HOW SMIKE WENT AWAY FROM DOTHEBOYS HALL

.. vspace:: 2

Nicholas was of a naturally
optimistic temper, however, and he lost
as little time as possible brooding
over his difficulties.  Instead he began at once
to try to make the school something more than
a farce.  He arranged a few regular lessons for
the boys, and he treated the poor, half-starved
pupils with such gentleness and sympathy that
they passed from dumb amazement at the first
to blind devotion.  Indeed, there was not one
of them who would not have lain down
cheerfully and let him walk over his body; and the
most devoted of them all was Smike.

Nicholas was the one ray of sunlight that
had ever come into this wretched creature's
life.  And in return, Smike now followed him
to and fro, with an ever restless desire to serve
or help him; anticipating such little wants as
his humble ability could supply, and content
only to be near him.  He would sit beside him
for hours, looking patiently into his face; and
a word would brighten up his careworn visage,
and call into it a passing gleam, even of
happiness.  He was an altered being; he had an
object now; and that object was, to show his
attachment to the only person—that person a
stranger—who had treated him, not to say with
kindness, but like a human creature.

Needless to say, Squeers speedily took a
dislike to Nicholas.  He knew of the scarcely
concealed disdain with which his assistant
regarded his methods.  Squeers was jealous, also,
of the influence which Nicholas had so soon
acquired with the boys.  Smike's slavish
affection was speedily discovered, and the crafty
master was mean enough to strike at Nicholas
through him.

Upon this poor being all the spleen and
ill-humor that could not be vented on Nicholas
were unceasingly bestowed.  Drudgery would
have been nothing—Smike was well used to
that.  Buffetings inflicted without cause would
have been equally a matter of course; for to
them also he had served a long and weary
apprenticeship; but it was no sooner observed
that he had become attached to Nicholas, than
stripes and blows, stripes and blows, morning,
noon, and night, were his only portion.
Nicholas saw it, and ground his teeth at every
repetition of the savage and cowardly attack.
But at present he saw no way to aid the boy,
for a protest would mean his own dismissal,
and the lot of Smike and the others would
become that much harder.

One day, after especially harsh treatment,
the boy sat huddled in a dark corner by
himself, sobbing as though his heart would break.
The room was dark and deserted, when Nicholas
entered, but he heard the sound of weeping and
went over and laid his hand on the drudge's
head.

"Do not, for God's sake!" said Nicholas, in
an agitated voice; "I cannot bear to see you."

"They are more hard with me than ever,"
sobbed the boy.

"I know it," rejoined Nicholas.  "They are."

"But for you," said the outcast, "I should
die.  They would kill me, they would; I know
they would."

"You will do better, poor fellow," replied
Nicholas, shaking his head mournfully, "when
I am gone."

"Gone!" cried the other, looking intently in
his face.

"Softly!" rejoined Nicholas.  "Yes."

"Are you going?" demanded the boy, in an
earnest whisper.

"I cannot say," replied Nicholas.  "I was
speaking more to my own thoughts than to
you."

"Tell me," said the boy, imploringly, "oh,
do tell me, *will* you go—*will* you?"

"I shall be driven to that at last!" said
Nicholas.  "The world is before me, after all."

"Tell me," urged Smike, "is the world as
bad and dismal as this place?"

"Heaven forbid," replied Nicholas, pursuing
the train of his own thoughts; "its hardest,
coarsest toil were happiness to this."

"Should I ever meet you there?" demanded
the boy, speaking with unusual wildness.

"Yes," replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him.

"No, no!" said the other, clasping him by
the hand.  "Should I—should I—tell me that
again!  Say I should be sure to find you!"

"You would," replied Nicholas, with the
same humane intention, "and I would help and
aid you, and not bring fresh sorrow on you as I
have done here."

The boy caught both the young man's hands
passionately in his, and hugging them to his
breast, uttered a few broken sounds which were
unintelligible.  Squeers entered, at the
moment, and he shrank back into his old corner.

The next morning—a cold, gray day in
January—Nicholas was awakened by hearing
the voice of Squeers roughly demanding,
"Where's that Smike?"

Nicholas looked over in the corner where the
boy usually slept, but it was vacant; so he
made no answer.

"Smike!" shouted Squeers.

"Do you want your head broke in a fresh
place, Smike?" demanded his amiable lady, in
the same key.

Still there was no reply, and still Nicholas
stared about him, as did the greater part of the
boys, who were by this time roused.

"Confound his impudence!" muttered
Squeers, rapping the stair-rail impatiently
with his cane.  "Nickleby!"

"Well, sir."

"Send that obstinate scoundrel down; don't
you hear me calling?"

"He is not here, sir," replied Nicholas.

"Don't tell me a lie," retorted the schoolmaster.
"He is."

"He is not," retorted Nicholas, angrily.
"Don't tell me one."

"We shall soon see that," said Mr. Squeers,
rushing upstairs.  "I'll find him, I warrant you."

With which assurance Mr. Squeers bounced
into the dormitory, and, swinging his cane in
the air ready for a blow, darted into the
corner.  The cane descended harmlessly upon
the ground.  There was nobody there.

"What does this mean?" said Squeers,
turning round.  "Where have you hid him?"

"I have seen nothing of him since last
night," replied Nicholas.

"Come," blustered Squeers, "you won't
save him this way.  Where is he?"

"At the bottom of the nearest pond, for aught
I know," rejoined Nicholas, in a low voice, and
fixing his eyes full on the master's face.

"Confound you, what do you mean by that?"
retorted Squeers.  Without waiting for a reply,
he inquired of the boys whether any one among
them knew anything of their missing schoolmate.

There was a general hum of anxious denial,
in the midst of which one shrill voice was heard
to say (as, indeed, everybody thought):

"Please, sir, I think Smike's run away, sir."

"Ha!" cried Squeers, turning sharp round.
"Who said that?"

And, pouncing suddenly, he seized a small
urchin, who was rewarded for his suggestion so
soundly that he howled with pain.

"There," said Squeers.  "Now, if any other
boy thinks Smike has run away, I shall be glad
to have a talk with him."

There was, of course, a profound silence,
during which Nicholas showed his disgust as
plainly as looks could show it.

"Well, Nickleby," said Squeers, eyeing him
maliciously.  "*You* think he has run away, I
suppose?"

"I think it extremely likely," replied
Nicholas, in a quiet manner.

"Oh, you do, do you?" sneered Squeers.
"Maybe you know he has?"

"I know nothing of the kind."

"He didn't tell you he was going, I suppose,
did he?" continued Squeers.

"He did not," replied Nicholas; "I am very
glad he did not, for it would then have been my
duty to have warned you in time."

"Which no doubt you would have been
devilish sorry to do," said Squeers, in a
taunting fashion.

"I should indeed," replied Nicholas.

Meanwhile Mrs. Squeers, who had been
hunting elsewhere for the boy, bustled in with
great excitement.

"He is off!" said she.  "The cow-house and
stable are locked up, so he can't be there; and
he's not downstairs anywhere, for the girl has
looked.  He must have gone York way, and by
a public road too."

"Why must he?" inquired Squeers.

"Stupid!" said Mrs. Squeers, angrily.  "He
hadn't any money, had he?"

"Never had a penny of his own in his whole
life, that I know of," replied Squeers.

"To be sure," rejoined Mrs. Squeers, "and
he didn't take anything to eat with him; that
I'll answer for.  So, of course, he must beg
his way, and he could do that nowhere but on
the public road."

"That's true," exclaimed Squeers, clapping
his hands.

"True!  Yes; but you would never have
thought of it, for all that, if I hadn't said so,"
replied his wife.  "Now, if you take the chaise
and go one road, and I borrow Swallow's chaise
and go the other, what with keeping our eyes
open and asking questions, one or other of us
is pretty certain to lay hold of him."

The worthy lady's plan was put into action
without delay; while Nicholas remained behind
in a tumult of anxiety.  He realized the bitter
consequences of Smike's rash act.  The boy
was liable to freeze or starve to death on the
roadside—which could not, perhaps, be much
worse than to fall again into the clutches of
Mr. and Mrs. Squeers.

All that day there was no tidings of the
runaway.  But at daybreak the second
morning the sound of wheels was heard.  Nicholas
hardly dared to look out of the window; but he
did so, and the very first object that met his
eyes was the wretched Smike: so bedabbled
with mud and rain, so haggard and worn and
wild, that, but for his garments being such as
no scarecrow was ever seen to wear, he might
have been doubtful, even then, of his identity.

"Lift him out," said Squeers, after he had
literally feasted his eyes, in silence, upon the
culprit.  "Bring him in; bring him in!"

Smike, to all appearance more dead than
alive, was brought into the house and securely
locked up in a cellar until such time as
Mr. Squeers should deem it expedient to operate
upon him in presence of the assembled school.

After a hasty breakfast of very thin porridge,
the boys were summoned to the schoolroom by
resounding whacks on the desk from an
ugly-looking whip in the hands of the master.

"Is every boy here?" asked Squeers, in a
tremendous voice.

Every boy was there, but every boy was
afraid to speak; so Squeers glared along the
lines to assure himself; and every eye drooped,
and every head cowered down, as he did so.

"Each boy keep his place," said Squeers,
administering his favorite blow to the desk,
and regarding with gloomy satisfaction the
universal start which it never failed to
occasion.  "Nickleby! to your desk, sir!"

It was remarked by more than one small
observer that there was a very curious and
unusual expression in the usher's face; but he
took his seat without opening his lips in reply.
Squeers, casting a triumphant glance at his
assistant and a scowl on the boys, left the
room, and shortly afterwards returned,
dragging Smike by the collar.

In any other place the appearance of the
wretched, jaded, spiritless object would have
occasioned a murmur of compassion and
remonstrance.  It had some effect, even there; for
the lookers-on moved uneasily in their seats,
and a few of the boldest ventured to steal looks
at each other, expressive of indignation and pity.

They were lost on Squeers, however, whose
gaze was fastened on the luckless Smike, as he
inquired, according to custom in such cases,
whether he had anything to say for himself.

"Nothing, I suppose?" said Squeers, with a
diabolical grin.

Smike glanced round, and his eye rested,
for an instant, on Nicholas, as if he had
expected him to intercede; but his look was
riveted on his desk.

"Have you anything to say?" demanded
Squeers again, giving his right arm two or
three flourishes to try its power and suppleness.
"Stand a little out of the way, Mrs. Squeers,
my dear; I've hardly got room enough."

"Spare me, sir!" cried Smike.

"Oh! that's all, is it?" said Squeers.  "Yes,
I'll flog you within an inch of your life, and
spare you that."

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Mrs. Squeers, "that's
a good 'un!"

"I was driven to do it," said Smike, faintly,
and casting another imploring look about him.

"Driven to do it, were you?" said Squeers.
"Oh! it wasn't your fault; it was mine, I suppose—eh?"

Then he caught the boy firmly in his grip.
One desperate cut had fallen on his body—he
was wincing from the lash and uttering a scream
of pain—it was raised again, and again about
to fall—when Nicholas Nickleby, suddenly
starting up, cried "*Stop!*" in a voice that
made the rafters ring.

"Who cried stop?" said Squeers, turning
savagely round.

"I," said Nicholas, stepping forward.  "This
must not go on."

"Must not go on!" cried Squeers, almost in
a shriek.

"*No!*" thundered Nicholas.

Aghast at the boldness of this interference,
Squeers released his hold of Smike, and, falling
back a pace or two, gazed upon Nicholas with
looks that were positively frightful.

"I say *must not*!" repeated Nicholas, nothing
daunted; "*shall not*!  I will prevent it!"

Squeers continued to gaze upon him, with
his eyes starting out of his head; but
astonishment had actually, for the moment, bereft him
of speech.

"You have disregarded all my quiet interference
in the miserable lad's behalf," said
Nicholas; "you have returned no answer to the
letter in which I begged forgiveness for him,
and offered to be responsible that he would
remain quietly here.  Don't blame me for this
public interference.  You have brought it upon
yourself; not I."

"Sit down, beggar!" screamed Squeers,
almost beside himself with rage, and seizing
Smike as he spoke.

"Wretch," rejoined Nicholas, fiercely,
"touch him at your peril!  I will not stand
by, and see it done.  My blood is up, and I
have the strength of ten such men as you.
Look to yourself, for by Heaven I will not
spare you, if you drive me on!"

"Stand back," cried Squeers, brandishing
his weapon.

"I have a long series of insults to avenge,"
said Nicholas, flushed with passion; "and my
indignation is aggravated by the cruelties of
this foul den.  Have a care; for if you rouse
me farther, the consequences shall fall heavily
upon your own head!"

He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a
violent outbreak of wrath, struck him a blow
across the face which raised up a bar of livid
flesh as it was inflicted.  Smarting with the
agony of the blow, and concentrating into that
one moment all its feelings of rage and scorn,
Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the weapon
from his hand, and pinning him by the throat,
beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy.

Then Nicholas left the astounded boys and the
crestfallen master, and stalked out of the room.
He looked anxiously around for Smike, as he
closed the door, but he was nowhere to be seen.

There was nothing left for him to do.  He
must face the world again; but *anything*—he
told himself—would be better than this.  So
he packed up a few clothes in a small valise,
and, finding that nobody offered to oppose him,
he marched boldly out by the front door and
struck into the road which led to Greta Bridge.

He did not travel far that day, as there had
been a heavy fall of snow which made the way
toilsome and hard to find.  He lay, that night,
at a cottage, where beds were let at a cheap
rate to the more humble class of travellers; and,
rising betimes next morning, made his way
before night to Boroughbridge.  Passing through
that town in search of some cheap resting-place,
he stumbled upon an empty barn within a
couple of hundred yards of the roadside; in a
warm corner of which he stretched his weary
limbs, and soon fell asleep.

When he awoke next morning, and tried to
recollect his dreams, which had been all
connected with his recent sojourn at Dotheboys
Hall, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and stared—not
with the most composed countenance
possible—at some motionless object which seemed
to be stationed within a few yards in front of
him.

"Strange!" cried Nicholas; "can this be
some lingering creation of the visions that have
scarcely left me!  It cannot be real—and yet
I—-I am awake!  Smike!"

The form moved, rose, advanced, and dropped
upon its knees at his feet.  It was Smike
indeed.

"Why do you kneel to me?" said Nicholas,
hastily raising him.

"To go with you—anywhere—everywhere—to
the world's end!" replied Smike, clinging
to his hand.  "Let me, oh, do let me!  You are
my home—my kind friend—take me with you, pray!"

"I am a friend who can do little for you,"
said Nicholas, kindly.  "How came you here?"

He had followed him, it seemed; had never
lost sight of him all the way; had watched
while he slept, and when he halted for refreshment;
and had feared to appear before, lest he
should be sent back.  He had not intended to
appear now, but Nicholas had awakened more
suddenly than he looked for, and he had had no
time to conceal himself.

"Poor fellow!" said Nicholas, "your hard
fate denies you any friend but one, and he is
nearly as poor and helpless as yourself."

"May I—may I go with you?" asked Smike,
timidly.  "I will be your faithful, hard-working
servant, I will, indeed.  I want no clothes,"
added the poor creature, drawing his rags
together; "these will do very well.  I only
want to be near you."

"And you shall," cried Nicholas.  "And the
world shall deal by you as it does by me, till one
or both of us shall quit it for a better.  Come!"

With these words he strapped his valise on
his shoulders, and, taking his stick in one hand,
extended the other to the delighted boy; and so
they passed out of the old barn together.

And in the days to come—through thick and
thin—Smike and Nicholas fought their battles
together—and *won*!





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.. _`THE STORY OF LITTLE NELL`:

.. _`IN THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP`:

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   THE STORY OF LITTLE NELL

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   \I.  IN THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP

.. vspace:: 2

It was a queer home for a child—this place
where Little Nell lived with her
grandfather.  He was a dealer in all sorts of
curious old things: suits of mail which stood
like ghosts in armor here and there; fantastic
carved tables and chairs; rusty weapons of
various kinds; distorted figures in china and
wood and iron.  And, amid it all, the oldest
thing in the shop seemed to be the little old
man with the long gray hair.

The only bit of youth was Nell herself; and
yet she had a strange intermingling of dignity
and responsibility, in spite of her small figure
and childish ways.  Her fourteen years of life
had left her undecided between childhood and
girlhood.  She had not begun to grow up; and
yet she was an orphan, accustomed to doing
everything for herself.

Her grandfather tried in his way to take care
of her, for he loved her dearly.  But between
the tending of his shop and the mysterious
journeys which he made night after night, the
child was often sent upon strange errands or
left alone in the old house.  And at all times
it was she who took care of him.  But the old
man did not see that this lonely life was
putting lines of sorrow into her face.  To him she
was still the child of yesterday, care-free and
happy.

She had been happy once.  She had gone
singing through the dim rooms, and moving with
gay step among their dusty treasures, making
them older by her young life, and sterner and
more grim by her 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; and at
these times mournful fancies came flocking on
her mind in crowds.

She knew instinctively that her grandfather
was hiding something from her.  What it
was she could not guess; but these regular
journeys at night, while she watched and
waited, left him only the more fretful and
careworn.  He seemed to have a constant fever
for something; yet all he would say was that
he would some day leave her a fortune.
Meanwhile he had fallen into the clutches of Quilp
a terrible dwarf, who had lent him money
from time to time, until the entire contents of
the shop were mortgaged.  So it is not strange
that Little Nell should have mournful thoughts.

When the night had worn away, the child
would close the window and even smile, with
the first dawn of light, at her night-time fears.
Then after praying earnestly for her grandfather
and the restoring of their former happy
days, she would unlatch the door for him and
fall into a troubled sleep.

One night the old man said that he would
not leave home.  The child's face lit up at the
news, but became grave again when she saw
how worried he looked.

"You took my note safely to Mr. Quilp, you
say?" he asked fretfully.  "What did he tell
you, 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 you?  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.

"'T would be 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—I have ruined you, 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."

The child's voice was lost in sobs, as she
clasped her arms about 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,
stood looking on with his accustomed grin.
Standing, however, being tiresome, 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, chanced to see him.

The child uttered a suppressed shriek on
beholding this 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 keyholes.
I wish I was.  I want to have some talk with
you, particularly, and in private—with nobody
present, neighbor.  Good-bye, little Nelly."

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

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 upward, "the
child and I are lost!"

"Neighbor," 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.
It was all for *her*—for my little Nelly!  I had
sworn to leave her rich!"

"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."

"Humph! the old story," said the dwarf.
"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.  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, "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.

"Nay, Quilp, *good* Quilp!" gasped the old
man, extending his hands in entreaty; "let me
try just this once more.  I tell you it is not for
me—it is for *her*!  Oh, I cannot die and leave
her in poverty!"

"I couldn't do it, really," said Quilp, with
unusual politeness.  And grinning and making
a low bow he passed out of the door.

The dwarf was, for once, as good as his word.
He not only refused to lend any more money,
but he at once began to make plans for closing
the shop.  The old man was so broken-hearted
that he fell ill of a raging fever, and for days
was delirious.  Little Nell, his only nurse,
gradually learned the truth about her
grandfather's evening pursuit—the gaming-table—and
it added all the more to her sorrow.

At last when he was well enough to go about
again, the impatient dwarf would not be put off
any longer in regard to the sale.  An early day
was fixed for it, and the old dealer no longer
offered any objections.  Instead, he sat quietly,
dully in his chair, looking at a tiny patch of
green through his window.

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, he 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
you, Nell," 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.

"You said, let us be beggars and happy in
the open fields," he answered.  "Oh, let us go
away—anywhere!"

"Yes, let us go," said Nell, earnestly; "there
will we find happiness and peace."

And so it was arranged.  On the night
before the public auction they were to steal
forth quietly, out into the wide world.

The old man had slept for some hours
soundly in his bed, while she was 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, lonely and
sad though her days 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 to leave it without one kind look or
grateful tear.

But at last she was ready to go, and her
grandfather was awakened.  Just as the first
rays of dawn were seen they stole forth
noiselessly, hand in hand.  They dared not awaken
Quilp, who was sleeping that night in the shop
to guard his prospective wealth.  Out in the
middle of the street they paused.

"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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OUT IN THE WIDE WORLD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \II.  OUT IN THE WIDE WORLD

.. vspace:: 2

It was a bright morning in June when Nell
and her grandfather set forth upon their
travels.  Out of the city they walked
briskly, for the desire to leave their old
life—to elude pursuit—lay strong upon them.  Nell
had provided a simple lunch for that day's
needs; and at night they stopped foot-sore and
weary at a hospitable farmhouse.

Late in the next day they chanced to pass a
country church.  Among the tombstones, at
one side, they saw two men who were seated
upon the grass, so busily at work as not to
notice the newcomers.

It was not difficult to guess that they were
of a class of travelling showmen who went from
town to town showing Punch and his antics,
for perched upon a tombstone was a figure of
that hero himself, his nose and chin as hooked
and his face as beaming as usual.

Scattered upon the ground were the other
members of the play, in various stages of
repair; while the two showmen were engaged
with glue, hammer, and tacks, in putting their
proper parts more strongly together.

The showmen 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.

"Why do you come here to do this?" asked
the old man, after answering their greeting.

"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.  "Look here," he continued, turning
to his partner, "here's all this Judy's clothes
falling to pieces again.  Much good you do at
sewing things!"

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 can do it neater than you
could."

The showman 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 farther 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.
Come along."

The tavern 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.  But Nell could give her no very
clear replies.

That evening the wayfarers enjoyed the
Punch show, though poor Nell was so tired that
she went to sleep early in the performance.

The next morning she met the showmen at breakfast.

"And where are you going to-day?" asked
the little man with the red nose.

"Indeed, I hardly know.  We have not
decided," replied the child.

"We're going to the races," said the little
man.  "If that's your way and you'd like to
have us for company, let us travel together."

"We'll go with you, and gladly," interposed
Nell's grandfather, eagerly; for he had been as
pleased as a child with the performance of Punch.

Nell was a trifle alarmed over the prospect
of a crowded race-course; but this seemed their
best chance to press forward, so she accepted
the invitation thankfully.

For several days they travelled together, and
despite the wearisome way the child found
much novelty and interest in the wandering
life.  But presently she became uneasy in the
changed attitude of the two showmen.  From
being ordinarily kind, they now seemed to
watch Nell and her grandfather so closely as
not to suffer them out of their sight.

The showmen had, in fact, got it into their
heads that the two wayfarers were not common
people, but runaways for whom a reward must
even now be posted in London.  And so they
resolved to deliver them over to the proper
authorities at the first opportunity and claim
the reward.

Now, although Nell and her grandfather had
a perfect right to go where they pleased, and
there was no reward offered, they were at all
times fearful of being pursued by that terrible
Quilp.  So Nell determined to flee from these
two watchful men at the earliest moment.

The chance of escape offered during one of
the busy days at the race-course.  While the
two men were busy showing off Punch to the
delighted crowd, she took her grandfather by
the hand and hurriedly slipped away.

At first they pressed forward regardless of
whither their steps led them, and from time
to time casting fearful glances behind them to
see if they were being pursued.  But as they
drew farther away they gained more confidence.
Weariness also forced them to slacken their
pace.  When they had come into the middle of
a little woodland they rested a short time; then
encountered a path which led to the opposite
side.  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
overhead, 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
downward 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 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,
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."

But as nobody else appeared and it would
soon be dark, Nell at length 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 courtesy, 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.

.. _`NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER.`:

.. figure:: images/img-122.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER.

   NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER.

Without farther preface he conducted them
into his little school-room, which was parlor
and kitchen likewise, and told them 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, besought them to eat.

They did so gladly, and the schoolmaster
showed them, soon after, to some plain but
neat sleeping chambers up close under the
thatched roof.  Here they slept the sound
sleep of the very weary, and awoke refreshed
and light-hearted the following day.

But the schoolmaster, while kind and
courteous, was sad and quiet.  He gave his small
school a half-holiday that day, and Nell learned
that it was because of the illness of a favorite
pupil—a boy about her own age.

"If your journey is not a long one," he added
to the travellers, "you're very welcome to pass
another night here.  I should really be glad if
you would do so, as I am very lonely to-day."

They accepted and thanked him with grateful
hearts.  Nell busied herself tidying up the
rooms and trying in many little ways to add
to the master's comfort.  And that evening,
when his pupil died, Nell's grief was almost as
deep in its sympathy as the master's own.

She bade him a reluctant farewell the next
morning.  School had already begun, but he
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
a lady had given her at the races for some
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 roadside
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.

Finally, just at dusk, they came upon a
curious little house upon wheels—a travelling
show somewhat more pretentious than the
Punch performance they had run away from.
This little house was mounted upon a cart,
with white dimity curtains at the windows and
shutters of green set in panels of bright red.
Altogether it was a smart little contrivance.
Grazing in front of it were two comfortable-looking
horses; while at its open door sat a
stout lady—evidently the proprietor—sipping tea.

This lady, Mrs. Jarley by name, had seen
Nell and her grandfather at the races, so hailed
them and asked about the success of the Punch
show.  She was greatly astonished to learn
that they had nothing to do with it, and were
wandering about without any object in view.

Her own performance was more "classic,"
as she expressed it.  It was a Waxwork
exhibition; and as she looked at Nell's
attractive face she was seized with an idea.  This
bright little girl was just the sort of assistant
she had been needing.  So she invited them to
stop and have some tea with her.  They did so;
and when Mrs. Jarley presently unfolded her
plan—which was to engage Nell to exhibit the
wax figures and describe them in a set speech—Nell
was delighted to accept the offer, especially
since it involved no separation from her
grandfather, who could dust the figures and do
other light tasks.

It was really not a very hard position for
Nell.  At the first town where the Waxworks
were to be shown, Nell was given a private
view and instructed in her new duties.  The
figures 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.  They represented
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 with extraordinary earnestness at
nothing at all.

Nell was taught a little speech about each
one of them, and so apt was she that one
rehearsal rendered her able to take the willow
wand, which Mrs. Jarley had formerly wielded,
and tell the interesting history of this very
select Waxwork show to the audiences which
presently began to come.

Mrs. Jarley herself was delighted with her
venture.  She saw at once that Nell would be
a strong drawing card.  And in order that the
child might remain contented she made her
and her grandfather as comfortable as possible,
besides paying them a fair salary.

So the wanderers now rode in the van from
town to town, and lived almost happily.  Nell
carefully saved all their money, and watched
over her feeble grandfather with the tenderness
of a little mother.  She had one scare in almost
meeting face to face with Quilp, the dwarf, but
he had not recognized her.

Quilp, indeed, was a perpetual nightmare 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 waxwork 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.

But presently a deeper and more real concern
came to her.  Her grandfather had never
alluded to their former life, nor to his passion
for gambling.  He did not see the card-tables
out in the country; and that was the reason
why she had been so eager to wander, even
without a roof over their heads.  But now, as
the Waxworks exhibited only in the towns,
temptation came again to the poor, weak old
man.  He saw some men playing cards in a
tavern, and instantly his slumbering passion
was aroused.  He would play again and win a
great fortune—for Nell!

He began to play, and, of course, with the
old result.  He was but a tool in the hands of
the sharpers, and presently he had exhausted
all the slender hoard which Nell had so
carefully made.  She watched his actions with a
bursting heart, but was powerless to stop him
or keep the money out of his grasp.  At last
the villains who had led him on—not satisfied
with their small winnings from him—urged
him to get the money belonging to the
Waxwork show, saying that when he won he could
pay it all back.

Nell had followed her grandfather upon this
visit to the gamblers, and overheard their plot.
She knew there was but one thing to do, to
save her grandfather.  They must flee out into
the world again at once.  That night she roused
him from his sleep, and told him they must go
away.

"What does this mean?" he cried.

"I have had dreadful dreams," said the child.
"If we stay here another night something awful
will happen.  Come!"

The old man looked at her as if she were a
spirit, and trembled in every joint.

"Must we go to-night?" he asked.

"Yes, to-night," she replied.  "To-morrow
night will be too late.  The dream will have
come again.  Nothing but flight can save us.  Up!"

The old man rose obediently and made ready
to follow.  She had already packed their scanty
belongings.  She gave him his wallet and
staff, and secretly, in the night, they fled away.

The wanderings of the next few days seemed
like a nightmare to them.  Nell had brought
only a few pennies in her pockets and these
went for a scant supply of bread and cheese.
Two days and a night they rode on an open
canal-boat in company with some rough but not
unkind men.  It was easier than walking, but
the rain descended in torrents and drenched
them to the skin.

Finally the boat drew up to a wharf in an
ugly manufacturing town, and the travellers
were cast adrift as lonely and helpless as though
they had just awakened from a sleep of a
thousand years.  They had not one friend, nor the
least idea where to turn for shelter.  But a
rough stoker at one of the furnaces told them
that they might pass the night in front of his
fire.  It was nothing but a bed of ashes, yet
they were warm and the heat dried out the
poor travellers' drenched garments.

The child felt stiff and weak in every joint
the next morning, but the furnace-tender told
them that it was two days' journey to the open
country and sweet, pure fields, and she felt that
they must press forward at any cost.  So they
started forth, slowly and wearily, for their
journey and privations had almost exhausted
them, but still with brave hearts.  Through
long rows of red brick houses that looked
exactly alike they wended their way, asking
for bread to eat only when obliged to, and
meeting little else but scowls from the dirty
factory workers.

Finally, to their great joy, the open country
began again to appear; and with fresh courage
in their hearts they continued to press on.

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; when there appeared
before them, 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \III.  AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY

.. vspace:: 2

It was the poor schoolmaster.  Scarcely less
moved and surprised by the sight of the
child than she had been on recognizing
him, he stood, for a moment, 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, endeavored 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 deposited it on a
chair before the fire.

A doctor was hastily called in and restoratives
were applied; after which Nell was given
what she most needed, some warm broth and
toast, and was put to bed.

The schoolmaster asked anxiously after her
health the next morning, and was greatly
relieved to find that she was much better, though
still so weak that it would require a day's
careful nursing before she could proceed upon her
journey.  That evening he was allowed to see
her, and was greatly touched by the sight of
her pale, pinched face.  But she held out both
hands to him.

"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 poor
grandfather would have no one to take care of him."

"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!"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] About $175.

.. vspace:: 2

"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
stagecoach 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."

Nell was moved in her turn by this allusion
to the favorite pupil who had died, and by the
plain, frank kindness of the good schoolmaster.
She told him all—that they had no friend or
relative—that she had fled with the old man
to save him from all the miseries he dreaded—that
she was flying now to save him from
himself—and that she sought an asylum in
some quiet 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; "she is one
of the heroines and saints of earth!"

Then he told her of a great idea which had
occurred to him.  They were all three to travel
together to the village where his new school was
located, and he made no doubt he could find
them some simple and congenial employment.

The child joyfully accepted this; and the
journey was made very comfortably in a stage
which went that way.  Stowed among the softer
bundles and packages she thought this to be a
drowsy, luxurious way of going, indeed.

At last they came upon a quiet, restful-looking
hamlet clustered in a valley among
some stately trees.

"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 gray
porch, 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 watermill; the blue Welsh mountains
far away.  It was for such a spot the child
had wearied in the dense, dark, miserable haunts
of labor.  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.  "Be sure that I
come back with good news, and am not long gone."

So the happy schoolmaster put on a brand-new
pair of gloves which he had carried in a
little parcel in his pocket all the way, and
hurried off, full of ardor 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 an
aged, ghostly place; the church had been built
hundreds of years before; yet from this first
glimpse the child loved it and felt that in some
strange way she was a part of its crumbling
walls and grass-grown churchyard.

After a time the schoolmaster reappeared,
hurrying towards them and swinging a bunch
of keys.

"You see those two houses?" he asked,
pointing, quite out of breath.  "Well, one of
them 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.

It was a very old house, and, like the church,
falling into decay, yet still handsome with high
vaulted ceilings and queer carvings.  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 firewood 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 gray, 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!"

"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.

"Aye," returned the schoolmaster, gaily,
"for many a merry year to come, I hope.  I
shall be a close neighbor—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
learned that the ancient tenement had been
occupied for a very long time by an old person,
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, he had hurried to the clergyman
and obtained the vacant post for Nell and
her grandfather.

"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 firewood.

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 walls 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.  Neighbors, too, as they came from
work, proffered their help; or sent their
children with such small presents or loans as the
strangers needed most.  So it was not many
days before they were quite cosy; and Nell felt
again, in that strange way which had come
over her at the church, that she had always
been a part of the place.

And how she loved her work from the very
first!  Hour after hour she would spend in the
old church, dusting off its pews or casements
with reverent fingers, or more often, sitting
quietly before some tablet or inscription looking
at it or beyond it, with a dreamy light in
her eyes.

Her grandfather noted her attitude anxiously.
He saw that she grew more listless and frail,
day by day, and he sought constantly—poor
old man!—to lighten her few tasks.  But it
was not these which wearied her; it was merely
the burden of all things earthly.

Every person in the village soon grew to love
this frail, spiritual-looking child; but from
the first she seemed a being apart from them.
They were constantly showing her kindness,
or pausing at the church gate to speak with
her; but as they went their way, a sad smile
or shake of the head told only too plainly of
their fears.  She was like some rare, delicate
flower which, they knew, could not endure the
frost of winter.

The good schoolmaster gently chided her for
spending so much of her time in the church
and among the graves, instead of out in the
light and sunshine.  But she only smiled and
said she loved to tend the graves and keep them
neat, for she could not bear to think that any
lying there should be forgotten, or that she
herself might be forgotten some day.

"There is nothing good that is forgotten,"
he replied kindly.  "There is not an angel
added to the host of Heaven but does its
blessed work on earth in those that loved it here."

As the cold days of autumn and winter drew
on, the child spent more and more time within
doors, on a couch before the fire.  The slightest
task wearied her now, and her grandfather kept
watch night and day to save her needless steps.
He could scarcely bear her out of his sight;
and often would creep to the side of her couch
during the night, listening to her breathing or
stroking her slender fingers softly.  And if by
chance she awoke and smiled on him, he would
creep back to his own bed comforted.

But one chill morning in midwinter, when
the snow lay thickly on the ground, it seemed
to him that she slept more quietly than usual.
The schoolmaster, coming in, found him
crouched over a fire, muttering softly to
himself, and wondering why she slumbered so
long.  The two went softly into her chamber,
and then the schoolmaster knew why she was
so quiet.

For she was dead.  Dear, gentle, patient,
noble Nell 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 the breath of life;
not one who had lived and suffered 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 the
schoolmaster, as if imploring him 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
nevermore.

"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!"

The whole village, young and old, came to
the churchyard when they laid her to rest—save
only the old man.  He could not realize
that she was dead, and he had gone to pick
winter berries to decorate her couch.

When he returned and could not find her,
they were obliged to tell him the truth—that
her body had been put away in the cold earth—and
then his grief and distress were pitiful to
see.  He seemed at once to lose all power of
thought or action, save as they concerned her alone.

Day by day he sought for her about the house
or in the garden, calling her name wildly.  At
other times he sat before the fire staring dully,
and did not seem to hear when they spoke to him.

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE STORY OF PAUL AND FLORENCE DOMBEY`:

.. _`THE HOUSE OF DOMBEY AND SON`:

.. class:: center x-large bold

   THE STORY OF PAUL AND FLORENCE DOMBEY

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   \I.  THE HOUSE OF DOMBEY AND SON

.. vspace:: 2

Paul Dombey was a boy born to
achieve great things.  His birth was
the one historic event of the Dombey
household—at least, so his father said.  'T is
true that Paul's sister Florence was six years
older than he, but then Florence was only a
girl.  What Mr. Dombey had long wanted was
a son who could grow up to carry on the
business of the great export house, and who from
his birth would make possible the imposing
title of Dombey and Son.

So Florence, who had remained quietly
neglected in her nursery, now came into notice
only as the sister of Paul, or as a faithful little
nurse who could help amuse him.

As for Mr. Dombey himself, he was a cold,
haughty man, very proud of what he had done,
and at all times exacting obedience from every
one else.  Paul's mother had died soon after he
was born; and Mr. Dombey having engaged
the best nurses he could find, expected them
forthwith to bring the child through all the
round of infant ailments—of which the frail
little fellow had more than his full share.
Indeed, Mr. Dombey loved his son with all
the love he had.  If there were a warm place in
his frosty heart, his son occupied it; though
not so much as an infant or a boy, as a
prospective man—the "Son" of the firm.
Therefore he was impatient to have him grow up;
feeling as if the boy had a charmed life, and
must become the man around whom all his
hopes centred.

Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old.
He was a pretty little fellow, though there was
something wan and wistful in his small face,
that gave occasion to many significant shakes
of his nurse's head.  His temper gave abundant
promise of being imperious, like his father's,
in after life.  He was childish and sportive
enough at times; but he had a strange,
old-fashioned, thoughtful way at other times of
sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair,
when he looked and talked like one of those
terrible little beings in the fairy tales, who,
at a hundred and fifty or two hundred years of
age, fantastically represent the children for
whom they have been substituted.  He would
frequently be stricken with this mood upstairs
in the nursery, and would sometimes lapse into
it suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired, even
while playing with Florence, or driving his
nurse in single harness.  But at no one time
did he fall into it so surely, as when, his little
chair being carried down into his father's room,
he sat there with him after dinner by the fire.
They were the strangest pair at such a time
that ever firelight shone upon.  Mr. Dombey,
so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze; his
little image, with an old, old face, peering into
the red perspective with the fixed and rapt
attention of a sage; the two so very much alike,
and yet so monstrously contrasted.

On one of these occasions, when they had
both been perfectly quiet for a long time, little
Paul broke the silence thus:—

"Papa! what's money?"

The abrupt question had such immediate
reference to the subject of Mr. Dombey's
thoughts, that Mr. Dombey was quite disconcerted.

"What is money, Paul?" he answered.  "Money?"

"Yes," said the child, laying his hands upon
the elbows of his little chair, and turning the
old face up towards Mr. Dombey's, "what is
money?"

Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty.  He would
have liked to give him some grown-up explanation;
but looking down at the little chair, and
seeing what a long way down it was, he
answered: "Gold, and silver, and copper.
Guineas, shillings, halfpence.  You know what
they are?"

"Oh, yes, I know what they are," said Paul.
"I don't mean that, papa.  I mean what's
money, after all."

"What is money, after all?" said Mr. Dombey,
backing his chair a little, that he might
the better gaze at the atom that made such an
inquiry.

"I mean, papa, what can it do?" returned Paul.

Mr. Dombey drew his chair back to its
former place, and patted him on the head.
"You'll know better, by and by, my man," he
said.  "Money, Paul, can do anything."

"Anything, papa?"

"Yes.  Anything—almost," said Mr. Dombey.

"Anything means everything, don't it,
papa?" asked his son, not observing, or
possibly not understanding the qualification.

"Yes," said Mr. Dombey.

"Why didn't money save me my mamma?"
returned the child.  "It isn't cruel, is it?"

"Cruel!" said Mr. Dombey, settling his
neckcloth, and seeming to resent the idea.
"No.  A good thing can't be cruel."

"If it's a good thing, and can do anything,"
said the little fellow thoughtfully, as he looked
back at the fire, "I wonder why it didn't save
me my mamma."

Mr. Dombey having recovered from his surprise,
not to say his alarm (for it was the very
first occasion on which the child had ever
broached the subject of his mother to him),
expounded to him how that money, though a
very potent spirit, could not keep people alive
whose time was come to die; and how that we
must all die, unfortunately, even in the city,
though we were never so rich.

Paul listened to all this and much more with
grave attention, and then suddenly asked a
question which was still more alarming.

"It can't make me strong and quite well,
either, papa, can it?"

"Why, you *are* strong and quite well,"
returned Mr. Dombey.  "Are you not?"

Oh! the age of the face that was turned up
again, with an expression, half of melancholy,
half of slyness on it!

"You are as strong and well as such little
people usually are, eh?" said Mr. Dombey.

"Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as
strong and well as Florence, I know," returned
the child; "but I believe that when Florence
was as little as me, she could play a great deal
longer at a time without tiring herself.  I am
so tired sometimes that I don't know what to do."

"But that's at night," said Mr. Dombey,
drawing his own chair closer to his son's, and
laying his hand gently on his back; "little
people should be tired at night, for then they
sleep well."

"Oh, it's not at night, papa," returned the
child, "it's in the day; and I lie down in
Florence's lap, and she sings to me.  At night
I dream about such cu-ri-ous things!"

Mr. Dombey was so astonished, and so perfectly
at a loss how to pursue the conversation,
that he could only sit looking at his son by the
light of the fire.

Here they sat until Florence came timidly
into the room to take Paul upstairs to bed;
when he raised towards his father, in bidding
him good-night, a countenance so much brighter,
so much younger, and so much more childlike
altogether, that Mr. Dombey, while he felt
greatly reassured by the change, was quite
amazed at it.

After they had left the room together, he
thought he heard a soft voice singing; and
remembering that Paul had said his sister
sang to him, he had the curiosity to open the
door and listen, and look after them.  She
was toiling up the great, wide staircase, with
him in her arms; his head was lying on her
shoulder, one of his arms thrown negligently
round her neck.  So they went, toiling up;
she singing all the way, and Paul sometimes
crooning out a feeble accompaniment.

Mr. Dombey was so alarmed about Paul's
remarks as to his health, that he called the
family doctor in consultation the very next
day.  The doctor admitted that Paul was not
as strong as he could hope, and suggested that
sea air might benefit him.  So the boy was sent
to the home of a Mrs. Pipchin at Brighton.
But he refused to go without Florence, much
to the secret displeasure of Mr. Dombey, who
did not like to see any one—especially this
neglected daughter—gain more influence with
Paul than he himself had.

Mrs. Pipchin was a cross-grained old lady
who gained a livelihood by taking care of
delicate children.  But she was not unkind to Paul,
whose patient little face and strange way of
asking questions attracted her, as they did
everybody else.

When he had been with her for some time
and it was found that he did not gain in
strength, a little carriage was hired for him,
in which he could lie at his ease with his
books and be wheeled down to the seaside.

Consistent in his odd tastes, the child set
aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the
drawer of this carriage, and selected, instead,
the boy's grandfather—a weazen, old, crab-faced
man, in a suit of battered oilskin.  With
this attendant to pull him along, and Florence
always walking by his side, he went down to
the margin of the ocean every day; and there
he would sit or lie in his carriage for hours
together; never so distressed as by the
company of children—Florence alone excepted,
always.

Some small voice, near his ear, would ask
him how he was, perhaps.

"I am very well, I thank you," he would
answer.  "But you had better go and play, if
you please."

Then he would turn his head, and watch the
child away, and say to Florence, "We don't
want any others, do we?  Kiss me, Floy."

His favorite spot was quite a lonely one, far
away from most loungers; and with Florence
sitting by his side at work, or reading to him,
or talking to him, and the wind blowing on his
face, and the water coming up among the wheels
of his bed, he wanted nothing more.

"Floy," he said one day, "where's India?"

"Oh, it's a long, long distance off," said
Florence, raising her eyes from her work.

"Weeks off?" asked Paul.

"Yes, dear.  Many weeks' journey, night
and day."

"If you were in India, Floy," said Paul,
after being silent for a minute.  "I should—what
is it that mamma did?  I forget."

"Loved me?" answered Florence.

"No, no.  Don't I love you now, Floy?
What is it?—Died.  If you were in India, I
should die, Floy."

She hurriedly put her work aside, and laid
her head down on his pillow, caressing him.
And so would she, she said, if he were there.
He would be better soon.

"Oh!  I am a great deal better now!" he
answered.  "I don't mean that.  I mean that
I should die of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!"

Another time, in the same place, he fell
asleep, and slept quietly for a long time.
Awaking suddenly, he started up, and sat
listening.

Florence asked him what he thought he heard.

"I want to know what it says," he answered,
looking steadily in her face.  "The sea, Floy;
what is it that it keeps on saying?"

She told him that it was only the noise of
the rolling waves.

"Yes, yes," he said.  "But I know that they
are always saying something.  Always the same
thing.  What place is over there?"  He rose
up, looking eagerly at the horizon.

She told him that there was another country
opposite, but he said he didn't mean that; he
meant farther away—farther away.

Very often afterwards, in the midst of their
talk, he would break off to try to understand
what it was that the waves were always saying;
and would rise up in his couch to look towards
that invisible region far away.

But in spite of Paul's brooding fancies, the
days in the open air, and with the salt spray
blowing about him, began to have good effect.
Little by little he grew stronger until he
became able to do without his carriage; though
he still remained the same old, quiet, dreamy
child.

One day after he had been with Mrs. Pipchin
about a year, Mr. Dombey came to see her.
He informed Mrs. Pipchin that, as Paul was
now six years old and so much stronger, it was
time his education was being considered; and
so the child was to be sent to a certain
Dr. Blimber, who lived near by and managed a
select school of boys.  Meanwhile, Florence
could continue to live here, so that Paul need
not be entirely separated from his sister.

Accordingly, a few days later, Paul stood
upon the Doctor's doorsteps, with his small
right hand in his father's, and his other locked
in that of Florence.  How tight the tiny
pressure of that one, and how loose and cold the
other!

The doctor was sitting in his portentous
study, with a globe at each knee, books all
round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva
on the mantel-shelf.

"And how do you do, sir," he said to Mr. Dombey,
when they had been ushered in, "and
how is my little friend?"

Grave as an organ was the doctor's speech;
and when he ceased, the great clock in the hall
seemed (to Paul at least) to take him up, and
to go on saying,
"how-is-my-lit-tle-friend-how-is-my-lit-tle-friend,"
over and over and
over again.

The little friend being something too small
to be seen at all from where the doctor sat, over
the books on his table, the doctor made several
futile attempts to get a view of him round the
legs; which Mr. Dombey perceiving, relieved
the doctor from his embarrassment by taking
Paul up in his arms and sitting him on another
little table, over against the doctor, in the
middle of the room.

"Ha!" said the doctor, leaning back in his
chair with his hand in his breast.  "Now I see
my little friend.  How do you do, my little
friend?"

The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe
to this alteration in the form of words, but
continued to repeat
"how-is-my—lit-tle-friend—how-is-my-lit-tle-friend!"

"Very well, I thank you, sir," returned Paul,
answering the clock quite as much as the doctor.

"Ha!" said Doctor Blimber.  "Shall we
make a man of him?"

"Do you hear, Paul?" added Mr. Dombey,
Paul being silent.

"Shall we make a man of him?" repeated
the doctor.

"I had rather be a child," replied Paul.

"Indeed!" said the doctor.  "Why?"

The child sat on the table looking at him,
with a curious expression of suppressed emotion
in his face, and beating one hand proudly on
his knee as if he had the rising tears beneath
it, and crushed them.  But his other hand
strayed a little way the while, a little
farther—farther from him yet—until it lighted
on the neck of Florence.  "This is why,"
it seemed to say, and then the steady look
was broken up and gone, the working lip
was loosened and the tears came streaming
forth.

"Never mind," said the doctor, blandly
nodding his head.  "Ne-ver mind; we shall
substitute new cares and new impressions,
Mr. Dombey, very shortly.  You would wish my
little friend to acquire—"

"Everything, if you please, doctor," returned
Mr. Dombey, firmly.

"Yes," said the doctor, who, with his
half-shut eyes, and his usual smile, seemed to
survey Paul with the sort of interest that might
attach to some choice little animal he was
going to stuff.  "Yes, exactly.  Ha!  We shall
impart a great variety of information to our
little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I
dare say.  I dare say."

As soon as Mr. Dombey and Florence were
gone, Dr. Blimber gave into the charge of his
learned daughter Cornelia the little new pupil,
saying, "Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on."

Miss Blimber received her young ward from
the doctor's hands; and Paul, feeling that the
spectacles were surveying him, cast down his
eyes.

"How old are you, Dombey?" said Miss Blimber.

"Six," answered Paul, wondering, as he
stole a glance at the young lady, why her hair
didn't grow long like Florence's, and why she
was like a boy.

"How much do you know of your Latin
Grammar, Dombey?" said Miss Blimber.

"None of it," answered Paul.  Feeling
that the answer was a shock to Miss
Blimber's sensibility, he looked up and added
timidly,—

"I haven't been well.  I have been a weak
child.  I couldn't learn a Latin Grammar
when I was out, every day, with old Glubb.  I
wish you'd tell old Glubb to come and see me,
if you please."

"What a dreadfully low name!" said Miss
Blimber.  "Unclassical to a degree!  Who is
the monster, child?"

"What monster?" inquired Paul.

"Glubb."

"He's no more a monster than you are,"
returned Paul.

"What!" cried the doctor, in a terrible voice.
"What's that?"

Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he
made a stand for the absent Glubb, though he
did it trembling.

"He's a very nice old man, ma'am," he said.
"He used to pull my carriage for me, down
along the beach.  I wish you'd let him come
to see me.  He knows lots of things."

"Ha!" said the doctor, shaking his head;
"this is bad, but study will do much."

Mrs. Blimber opined, with something like
a shiver, that he was an unaccountable child;
and, allowing for the difference of visage, looked
at him pretty much as Mrs. Pipchin had been
used to do.

As for Miss Blimber, she told him to come
down to her room that evening at tea-time.
When he did so he noticed a little pile of new
books, which she was glancing over.

"These are yours, Dombey," she said.

"All of 'em, ma'am?" said Paul.

"Yes," returned Miss Blimber; "and Mr. Feeder
will look you out some more very soon,
if you are as studious as I expect you will be,
Dombey."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Paul.

"I am going out for a constitutional,"
resumed Miss Blimber; "and while I am gone,
that is to say, in the interval between this and
breakfast, Dombey, I wish you to read over
what I have marked in these books, and to tell
me if you quite understand what you have got
to learn.  Don't lose time, Dombey, for you
have none to spare, but take them downstairs,
and begin directly."

"Yes, ma'am," answered Paul.

There were so many of them that although
Paul put one hand under the bottom book and
his other hand and his chin on the top book,
and hugged them all closely, the middle book
slipped out before he reached the door, and
then they all tumbled down on the floor.  Miss
Blimber said, "Oh, Dombey, Dombey, this is
really very careless!" and piled them up afresh
for him; and this time, by dint of balancing
them with great nicety, Paul got out of the room.

But if the poor child found them heavy to
carry downstairs, how much harder was it to
cram their contents into his head.  Oh, how
tired he grew!  But always there was a
never-ending round of lessons waiting for him during
these long days and nights that Dr. Blimber
and Cornelia tried to make a man of him.
And all week long his aching head held but
one longing desire—for Saturday to come.

Oh, Saturdays!  Oh, happy Saturdays! when
Florence always came at noon, and never would,
in any weather, stay away.

And when Florence found how hard Paul's
studies were for him, she quietly bought books
just like his and studied them during the week,
so that she might keep along with him and help
him when they were together.

Not a word of this was breathed to
Mrs. Pipchin; but many a night when she was in
bed and the candles were spluttering and
burning low, Florence tried so hard to be a
substitute for one small Dombey, that her fortitude
and perseverance might have almost won her a
free right to bear the name herself.

And high was her reward, when, one Saturday
evening, as little Paul was sitting down as
usual to "resume his studies," she sat down by
his side, and showed him all that was so rough
made smooth, and all that was so dark made
clear and plain before him.  It was nothing
but a startled look in Paul's wan face—a
flush—a smile—and then a close embrace—but
God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich
payment for her trouble.

"Oh, Floy!" cried her brother, "how I love
you!  How I love you, Floy!"

"And I you, dear!"

"Oh!  I am sure of that, Floy."

And so little Paul struggled on bravely under
his heavy load, never complaining, but growing
more old-fashioned day by day—and growing
frailer, too.

.. _`MRS. PIPCHIN AND PAUL DOMBEY.`:

.. figure:: images/img-170.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: MRS. PIPCHIN AND PAUL DOMBEY.

   MRS. PIPCHIN AND PAUL DOMBEY.

Then came the holidays, and a grand party
at the school, to which Florence came, looking
so beautiful in her simple ball dress that Paul
could hardly make up his mind to let her go
again.

"But what is the matter, Floy?" he asked,
almost sure he saw a tear on her face.

"Nothing, dear.  We will go home together,
and I'll nurse you till you are strong again."

"Nurse me!" echoed Paul.

Paul couldn't understand what that had to
do with it, nor why the other guests looked on
so seriously, nor why Florence turned away
her face for a moment, and then turned it back,
lighted up again with smiles.

"Floy," said Paul, holding a ringlet of her
dark hair in his hand.  "Tell me, dear.  Do
*you* think I have grown old-fashioned?"

His sister laughed and fondled him, and told
him "No."

"Because I know they say so," returned
Paul, "and I want to know what they mean, Floy."

Florence would have sat by him all night,
and would not have danced at all of her own
accord, but Paul made her, by telling her how
much it pleased him.  And he told her the
truth, too; for his small heart swelled, and his
face glowed, when he saw how much they all
admired her, and how she was the beautiful
little rosebud of the room.

Then after the party came the leave-takings,
for Paul was going home.  And every one was
good to him—even the pompous doctor, and
Cornelia—and bade him good-bye with many
regrets; for they were afraid, as they looked
upon his pinched, wan face, that he would not
be able to come back and take up that load of
heavy books ever again.

There was a great deal, the next day and
afterwards, which Paul could not quite get clear
in his mind.  As, why they stopped at
Mrs. Pipchin's for a while instead of going straight
home; why he lay in bed, with Florence sitting
by him; whether that had been his father in
the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall.

He could not even remember whether he had
often said to Florence, "Oh, Floy, take me
home and never leave me!" but he thought he
had.  He fancied sometimes he had heard himself
repeating, "Take me home, Floy! take me home!"

But he could remember, when he got home,
and was carried up the well-remembered stairs,
that there had been the rumbling of a coach for
many hours together, while he lay upon the
seat, with Florence still beside him, and
Mrs. Pipchin sitting opposite.  He remembered his
old bed too, when they laid him down in it;
but there was something else, and recent, too,
that still perplexed him.

"I want to speak to Florence, if you please,"
he said.  "To Florence by herself, for a moment!"

She bent down over him, and the others stood away.

"Floy, my pet, wasn't that papa in the hall,
when they brought me from the coach?"

"Yes, dear."

"He didn't cry, and go into his room, Floy,
did he, when he saw me coming in?"

Florence shook her head, and pressed her
lips against his cheek.

"I'm very glad he didn't cry," said little
Paul.  "I thought he did.  Don't tell them
that I asked."

Paul never rose from his little bed.  He lay
there, listening to the noises in the street quite
tranquilly; not caring much how time went,
but watching everything about him with
observing eyes.  And when visitors or servants
came softly to the door to inquire how he was,
he always answered for himself, "I am better;
I am a great deal better, thank you!  Tell
papa so!"

And sometimes when he awoke out of a
feverish dream, in which he thought a river
was bearing him away, he would see a figure
seated motionless, with bowed head, at the foot
of his couch.  Then he would stretch out his
hands and cry, "Don't be so sorry for me, dear
papa!  Indeed, I am quite happy!"

His father coming, and bending down to
him—which he did quickly, and without first
pausing by the bedside—Paul held him round the
neck, and repeated those words to him several
times, and very earnestly; and Paul never saw
him in his room at any time, whether it were
day or night, but he called out "Don't be so
sorry for me!  Indeed, I am quite happy!"  This
was the beginning of his always saying in
the morning that he was a great deal better,
and that they were to tell his father so.

Then one day he asked to see all his friends,
and shook hands with each one quietly, and
bade them good-bye.  His father he clung to
as though he felt more deeply for that proud
man's sorrow and disappointment, than any
unhappiness on his own account.  For he was
going to his mother—about whom he had often
talked with Florence in these closing days.

"Now lay me down," he said, "and Floy,
come close to me, and let me see you!"

Sister and brother wound their arms around
each other, and the golden light came streaming
in, and fell upon them, locked together.

"How fast the river runs, between its green
banks and the rushes, Floy!  But it's very
near the sea.  I hear the waves!  They always
said so!"

Presently he told her that the motion of the
boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest.
How green the banks were now, how bright
the flowers growing on them, and how tall the
rushes!  Now the boat was out at sea, but
gliding smoothly on.  And now there was a shore
before him.  Who stood on the bank!—

He put his hands together, as he had been
used to do at his prayers.  He did not remove
his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them
so, behind her neck.

"Mamma is like you, Floy.  I know her by
the face.  But tell them that the print upon the
stairs at school is not divine enough.  The
light about the head is shining on me as I go!"

The golden ripple on the wall came back
again, and nothing else stirred in the room.
The old, old fashion!  The fashion that came
in with our first garments, and will last
unchanged until our race has run its course, and
the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll.
The old, old fashion—Death!

Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older
fashion yet, of Immortality!  And look upon
us, angels of young children, with regards not
quite estranged, when the swift river bears us
to the ocean!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HOW FLORENCE CAME INTO HER OWN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   II.  HOW FLORENCE CAME INTO HER OWN

.. vspace:: 2

The death of Paul, far from softening
Mr. Dombey's heart toward his
daughter, only served to widen the
gap between them.  He had been secretly hurt
by Paul's preference for Florence, and now was
more cold and distant with her than ever.

She, poor child, had this deep sorrow to bear
in addition to the loss of Paul.  Many and
many a night when no one in the house was
stirring, and the lights were all extinguished,
she would softly leave her own room, and with
noiseless feet descend the staircase, and
approach her father's door.  Against it, scarcely
breathing, she would rest her face and head,
and press her lips, in the yearning of her love.
She crouched upon the cold stone floor outside
it, every night, to listen even for his breath;
and in her one absorbing wish to be allowed to
show him some affection, to be a consolation
to him, to win him over to some tenderness for
her, his solitary child, she would have knelt
down at his feet, if she had dared, in humble
supplication.

No one knew it.  No one thought of it.  The
door was ever closed, and he shut up within.
He went out once or twice, and it was said in
the house that he was very soon going on a
journey; but he lived in those rooms, and lived
alone, and never saw her or inquired for her.
Perhaps he did not even know that she was in
the house.

But one night Florence found the door
slightly ajar.  She paused a moment tremblingly,
and then pushed it open and entered.

Her father sat at his old table in the middle
room.  He had been arranging some papers
and destroying others, and the latter lay in
fragile ruins before him.  The rain dripped
heavily upon the glass panes in the outer room,
where he had so often watched poor Paul, a
baby; and the low complainings of the wind
were heard without.

He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so
immersed in thought that a far heavier tread
than the light foot of his child could make,
might have failed to rouse him.  His face was
turned towards her.  By the waning lamp, and
at that haggard hour, it looked worn and
dejected; and in the utter loneliness surrounding
him there was an appeal to Florence that
struck home.

"Papa! papa!  Speak to me, dear papa!"

He started at her voice.

"What is the matter?" he said sternly.
"Why do you come here?  What has frightened you?"

If anything had frightened her, it was the
face he turned upon her.  The glowing love
within the breast of his young daughter froze
before it, and she stood and looked at him as if
stricken into stone.  There was not one touch
of tenderness or pity in it.

Did he see before him the successful rival of
his son, in health and life?  Did he look upon
his own successful rival in that son's affection?
Did a mad jealousy and withered pride poison
sweet remembrances that should have endeared
and made her precious to him?  Could it be
possible that it was gall to him to look upon
her in her beauty and her promise: thinking of
his infant boy!

Florence had no such thoughts.  But love is
quick to know when it is spurned and hopeless;
and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking
in her father's face.

"I ask you, Florence, are you frightened?
Is there anything the matter, that you come here?"

"I came, papa—"

"Against my wishes.  Why?"

She saw he knew why—it was written broadly
on his face—and dropped her head upon her
hands with one prolonged low cry.

He took her by the arm.  His hand was cold
and loose, and scarcely closed upon her.

"You are tired, I dare say," he said, taking
up the light and leading her towards the door,
"and want rest.  We all want rest.  Go,
Florence.  You have been dreaming."

The dream she had had was over then, God
help her!  and she felt that it could never more
come back.

"I will remain here to light you up the
stairs.  The whole house is yours, above
there," said her father, slowly.  "You are its
mistress now.  Good-night!"

Still covering her face, she sobbed, and
answered "Good-night, dear papa," and silently
ascended.  Once she looked back as if she
would have returned to him, but for fear.  It
was a momentary thought, too hopeless to
encourage; and her father stood therewith the
light—hard, unresponsive, motionless—until
her fluttering dress was lost in the darkness.

The days that followed were lonely and sad
indeed for the child.  Her father went away
upon a journey, and she was left entirely alone
in the great house, but for the companionship
of a faithful maid, Susan Nipper, and of her
dog Diogenes.

Then some kind friends in the country took
pity upon her loneliness and invited her to visit
them.

When she came home she was amazed to
find huge scaffolds built all around the house.
It was being remodelled.  Only her own little
room had not been changed.  The explanation
for all this work came a few days later when
her father came home accompanied by two
ladies.  One was old and greatly overdressed.
The other—her daughter—was very beautiful,
but with a cold, hard face.

"Mrs. Skewton," said her father, turning to
the first, and holding out his hand, "this is my
daughter Florence."

"Charming, I am sure," observed the lady,
putting up her glass.  "So natural!  My
darling Florence, you must kiss me, if you
please."

Florence having done so, turned towards the
other lady by whom her father stood waiting.

"Edith," said Mr. Dombey, "this is my
daughter Florence.  Florence, this lady will
soon be your mamma."

Florence started, and looked up at the
beautiful face in a conflict of emotions, among
which the tears that name awakened struggled
for a moment with surprise, interest, admiration,
and an indefinable sort of fear.  Then she
cried out, "Oh, papa, may you be happy! may
you be very, very happy all your life!" and
then fell weeping on the lady's bosom.

There was a short silence.  The beautiful
lady, who at first had seemed to hesitate
whether or not she should advance to Florence,
held her to her breast, and pressed the hand
with which she clasped her close about her
waist, as if to reassure and comfort her.  Not
one word passed the lady's lips.  She bent her
head down over Florence, and she kissed her
on the cheek, but said no word.

"Shall we go on through the rooms," said
Mr. Dombey, "and see how our workmen are
doing?  Pray allow me, my dear madam."

He said this in offering his arm to
Mrs. Skewton, and they turned and went up the
staircase.  The beautiful lady lingered a
moment to whisper to the little girl.

"Florence," said the lady hurriedly, and
looking into her face with great earnestness,
"You will not begin by hating me?"

"By hating you, mamma!" cried Florence,
winding her arm round her neck, and returning
the look.

"Hush!  Begin by thinking well of me,"
said the beautiful lady.  "Begin by believing
that I will try to make you happy and that I am
prepared to love you, Florence."

Again she pressed her to her breast—she
had spoken in a rapid manner, but firmly—and
Florence saw her rejoin them in the other room.

And now Florence began to hope that she
would learn from her new and beautiful
mamma how to gain her father's love; and in
her sleep that night, in her lost old home, her
own mamma smiled radiantly upon the hope,
and blessed it.  Dreaming Florence!

Very soon after this her new mamma came
to live with them; and the gloomy house took
on some semblance of life.  But the marriage
was not a happy one.  Even Florence could see
that.  Mrs. Dombey's face did not belie her
character.  She was haughty and reserved—a
fitting match for Mr. Dombey.  He had married
her out of a desire to have a suitable ornament
for his home and position in society.  She—it
was whispered—had been lured into a "fine"
marriage by her matchmaking mother.  It was
no wonder, then, that the marriage should be
unhappy.

Only toward Florence did the proud lady
unbend.  The child's impulsive greeting had
stirred her heart in a sudden and surprising
way; and when Mrs. Dombey saw how lonely
she was and how her life had been starved, she
tried to make good her promise to the child to
love her and be good to her always.

But once again poor Florence was misunderstood
by her father.  He saw that his cold wife
cared only for the child, and he thought that
just as Florence had cheated him out of some
of Paul's love she was now estranging his wife
from him.  It was cruelly unjust, but
Mr. Dombey was so arrogant that he could see
things only in his own narrow way.

Thus matters went along in this unhappy
house for several months.  Mr. and
Mrs. Dombey met rarely, except at the table or in
some social gathering, when the words which
passed between them were of the coldest.

Then Mr. Dombey hit upon the meanest
trick of his weak nature.  When he found that
he could not "humble" his wife by ordinary
means, he called in his business manager,
Carker, a smooth, deceitful man, whose hair
was plastered down close to his white forehead
and whose teeth shone in a continual sly smile.
To Carker Mr. Dombey would entrust various
messages for Mrs. Dombey, as to the running
of the house, the hiring of servants, and the
like.  Mr. Dombey knew that she would resent
such petty interference, especially through an
outsider; but he did not know that she
submitted quietly to these indignities simply for
the sake of Florence, whom she wished to
protect.  And even her love for the girl was given
in secret, for the same reason.

Florence, long since awakened from her
dream, mournfully observed the estrangement
between her father and new mother; and saw
it widen more and more, and knew that there
was greater bitterness between them every day.
It had been very hard to have all her love
repulsed, but it now seemed harder to be
compelled to doubt her father, or choose between
him and this mother, so affectionate and dear
to her, yet whose other moods she could only
witness with distrust or fear.

One great sorrow, however, was spared her.
She never had the least suspicion that
Mrs. Dombey, by her tenderness for her, widened
the separation from her father, or gave him
new cause of dislike.  If she had thought it,
for a single moment, what grief she would have
felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to
make, poor loving girl!

No word was ever spoken between Florence
and her mother now, on these subjects.
Mrs. Dombey had said there ought to be between
them, in that wise, a silence like the grave
itself; and Florence felt that she was right.

In this state of affairs her father was brought
home suffering and ill, and gloomily retired to
his own rooms, where he was tended by
servants, not approached by his wife, and had no
friend or companion but Mr. Carker, who always
withdrew near midnight.

Every night Florence would listen out in the
hall for news of him, after leaving her mother.
But, late one evening, she was surprised to see
a bright light burning in her room, and her
mother sitting before the dying fire looking so
fiercely at it that it terrified her.

"Mamma!" she cried, "what is the matter?"

Mrs. Dombey started; looking at her with
such a strange dread in her face that Florence
was more frightened than before.

"Mamma!" said Florence, hurriedly advancing.
"Dear mamma! what is the matter?"

"I have not been well," said Mrs. Dombey,
shaking, and still looking at her in the same
strange way.  "I have had bad dreams, my love."

"And have not yet been to bed, mamma?"

"No," she returned.  "Half-waking dreams."

Her features gradually softened; and suffering
Florence to come close to her, within her
embrace, she said in a tender manner, "But
what does my bird do here!  What does my
bird do here!"

"I have been uneasy, mamma, in not seeing
you to-night, and in not knowing how papa was;
and I—"

Florence stopped there, and said no more.

"Is it late?" her mother asked, fondly putting
back the curls that mingled with her own
dark hair, and strayed upon her face.

"Very late.  Near day."

"Near day!" she repeated in surprise.

"Mamma!" said Florence.  "Oh, mamma,
what can I do, what should I do, to make us
happier?  Is there anything?"

"Nothing," she replied.

"Are you sure of that?  Can it never be?
If I speak now of what is in my thoughts, in
spite of what we have agreed," said Florence,
"you will not blame me, will you?"

"It is useless," she replied, "useless.  I
have told you, dear, that I have had bad
dreams.  Nothing can change them, or prevent
their coming back."

"I do not understand," said Florence, gazing
on her agitated face, which seemed to darken as
she looked.

Her mother's clenched hand tightened on
the trembling arm she had in hers, and as
she looked down on the alarmed and wondering
face, her own feelings subsided.  "Oh,
Florence!" she said, "I think I have been
nearly mad to-night!" and humbled her proud
head upon the girl's neck, and burst into
tears.

"Don't leave me! be near me!  I have no
hope but in you!"  These words she said a
score of times.

Florence was greatly puzzled and distressed,
and could only repeat her promise of love and
trust.

Through six months that followed upon
Mr. Dombey's illness and recovery, no outward
change was shown between him and his wife.
Both were cold and proud; and still Mr. Carker—a
man whom she detested——bore his petty
commands to her.

As for Florence, the little hope she had ever
held for happiness in their new home was quite
gone now.  That home was nearly two years
old, and even the patient trust that was in her
could not survive the daily blight of such an
experience.

Florence loved her father still, but by
degrees had come to love him rather as some
dear one who had been, or who might have
been, than as the hard reality before her eyes.
Something of the softened sadness with which
she loved the memory of little Paul or her
mother, seemed to enter now into her thoughts
of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear
remembrance.  Whether it was that he was
dead to her, and that partly for this reason,
partly for his share in those old objects of her
affection, and partly for the long association of
him with hopes that were withered and tendernesses
he had frozen, she could not have told;
but the father whom she loved began to be a
vague and dreamy idea to her; hardly more
substantially connected with her real life than
the image she would sometimes conjure up of
her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a
man, who would protect and cherish her.

The change, if it may be called one, had
stolen on her like the change from childhood
to womanhood, and had come with it.  Florence
was almost seventeen, when, in her lonely
musings, she was conscious of these thoughts.

She was often alone now, for the old association
between her and her mamma was greatly
changed.  At the time of her father's illness,
and when he was lying in his room downstairs,
Florence had first observed that Edith avoided
her.  Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to
reconcile this with her affection when they did
meet, she sought her in her own room at night,
once more.

"Mamma," said Florence, stealing softly to
her side, "have I offended you?"

She answered "No."

"I must have done something," said Florence.
"Tell me what it is.  You have changed
your manner to me, dear mamma.  I cannot say
how instantly I feel the least change; for I love
you with my whole heart."

"As I do you," said Mrs. Dombey.  "Ah,
Florence, believe me never more than now!"

"Why do you go away from me so often, and
keep away?" asked Florence.  "And why do
you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear
mamma?  You do so, do you not?"

"Dear Florence, it is for your good.  Why,
I cannot tell you now.  But you will believe I
have always tried to make you happy, dear,
will you not?"

"Mamma," said Florence, anxiously, "there
is a change in you, in more than what you say
to me, which alarms me.  Let me stay with you
a little."

"No, dearest.  I am best left alone now,
and I do best to keep apart from you, of all
else.  Ask me no questions, but believe that
what I am, I am not of my own will, or for
myself.  Forgive me for having ever darkened
your dark home—I am a shadow on it, I know
well—and let us never speak of this again."

"Mamma," sobbed Florence, "we are not to part?"

"We do this that we may not part," said her
mother.  "Ask no more.  Go, Florence!  My
love and my remorse go with you!"

Thus did Mrs. Dombey hide from Florence
one dark secret—that her husband was
displeased with their love for each other.  It was
for Florence's welfare that she felt compelled
to hide her affections.

From that hour Florence and she were as
they had been no more.  For days together
they would seldom meet, except at table, and
when Mr. Dombey was present.  Then Mrs. Dombey,
imperious, inflexible, and silent,
never looked at her.  Whenever Mr. Carker
was of the party, as he often was during the
progress of Mr. Dombey's recovery, she was
more distant towards her than at other times.
Yet she and Florence never encountered, when
there was no one by, but she would embrace
her as affectionately as of old, though not with
the same relenting of her proud aspect; and
often when she had been out late she would
steal up to Florence's room as she had been
used to do in the dark, and whisper "Good-night."

Then came a dreadful day not long afterwards
when it was found that Mrs. Dombey had fled
from her home.  The day was the second
anniversary of this ill-starred marriage; and the
poor, misguided woman left a note for her
husband telling him that she had gone away with
the man whom he had trusted most (and whom
she hated most) Mr. Carker.  It was a foolish
way to be revenged for the harsh treatment she
had received, but it served her purpose.
Mr. Dombey was wounded in his most vulnerable
spot—his pride.

As for Florence, she was overcome with
grief; yet in the midst of her own emotion she
could realize her father's bitterness.  Yielding
at once to the impulse of her affection and
forgetful of his past coldness, Florence hurried to
him with her arms stretched out and crying,
"Oh dear, dear papa!" tried to clasp him round
the neck.

But in his wild despair he shook her off so
roughly that she almost fell to the floor; telling
her she could join her mother, for all he cared,
as they had always been in league against him.

She did not sink down at his feet; she did
not shut out the sight of him with her trembling
hands; she did not weep nor speak one word of
reproach.  She only uttered a single low cry
of pain and then fled from the house like a
hunted animal.

Without a roof over her head—without
father or mother, she was indeed an orphan.

.. vspace:: 3

While the days went by, after Florence's
flight, what was the proud man doing?  Did
he ever think of his daughter or wonder where
she had gone?  Did he suppose she had come
home again and was leading her old life in the
weary house?  He did not utter her name or
make any search for her.  He might have
thought of her constantly, or not at all.  It
was all one for any sign he made.

But this was sure.  He did not think that
he had lost her.  He had no suspicion of the
truth that she had fled away from him.  He
had lived too long shut up in his pride, seeing
her a patient, gentle creature in his path, to
have any fear of that.  And so he waited, day
by day, until she should make her appearance
on the stairs or at the table as before.

But the days dragged slowly by and she did
not come.

The sea had ebbed and flowed through a
whole year.  Through a whole year the winds
and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless
work of Time had been performed, in storm
and sunshine.  Through a whole year the
famous House of Dombey and Son had fought
a fight for life, against doubtful rumors,
unsuccessful ventures, and most of all, against the
bad judgment of its head, who would not
contract its enterprises by a hair's breadth, and
would not listen to a word of warning that the
ship he strained so hard against the storm was
weak, and could not bear it.

For Mr. Dombey had grown strangely indifferent
and reckless, and plunged blindly into
speculation.

The year was out, and the great House was down.

One summer afternoon there was a buzz and
whisper, about the streets of London, of a great
failure.  A certain cold, proud man, well known
there, was not there, nor was he represented
there.  Next day it was noised abroad that
Dombey and Son had stopped, and next night
there was a list of bankrupts published, headed
by that name.

Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune,
lightened it, or made it heavier.  It was
understood that the affairs of the House were to
be wound up as they best could be; that
Mr. Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and
asked for no favor from any one.  That any
resumption of the business was out of the
question, as he would listen to no friendly
negotiation having that compromise in view;
that he had relinquished every post of trust or
distinction he had held as a man respected
among merchants; and that he was a broken man.

The old home where Paul had died and
whence Florence had fled away was now empty
and deserted—a wreck of what it had been.
All the furniture and hangings had been sold
to satisfy Mr. Dombey's creditors; and he now
lived there alone in one cheerless room—a man
without friends, without hope.

But at last he began to come to his senses;
to see what a treasure he had cast away in
Florence; to recall his own injustice and
cruelty toward her.

In the miserable night he thought of it; in
the dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly,
memory-haunted twilight, he remembered.  In
agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair!

"Papa! papa!"  He heard the words again,
and saw the face.  He saw it fall upon the
trembling hands, and heard the one prolonged,
low cry go upward.

Oh!  He did remember it!  The rain that
fell upon the roof, the wind that mourned
outside the door, had foreknowledge in their
melancholy sound.  He knew now what he
had done.  He knew now that he had called
down that upon his head, which bowed it lower
than the heaviest stroke of fortune.  He knew
now what it was to be rejected and deserted;
now, when every loving blossom he had withered
in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing
down in ashes on him.

He thought of her as she had been that night
when he and his bride came home.  He thought
of her as she had been in all the home events
of the abandoned house.  He thought now
that of all around him, she alone had never
changed.  His boy had faded into dust, his
proud wife had deserted him, his flatterer and
friend had been transformed into the worst of
villains, his riches had melted away, the very
walls that sheltered him looked on him as a
stranger; she alone had turned the same mild,
gentle look upon him always.  Yes, to the
latest and the last.  She had never changed to
him—nor had he ever changed to her—and
she was lost.

As, one by one, they fell away before his
mind—his baby hope, his wife, his friend, his
fortune—oh, how the mist through which he
had seen her cleared, and showed him her true
self!  How much better than this that he had
loved her as he had his boy, and lost her as he
had his boy, and laid them in their early grave
together!

As the days dragged by, it seemed to him
that he should go mad with remorse and
longing.  He haunted Paul's room and Florence's
room—so empty now—as though they were
his only dwelling-place.  He had meant to go
away, but clung to this tie in the house as the
last and only thing left to him.  He would go
to-morrow.  To-morrow came.  He would go
to-morrow.  Every night, within the knowledge
of no human creature, he came forth, and
wandered through the despoiled house like a ghost.
Many a morning when the day broke, with
altered face drooping behind the closed blind
in his window, he pondered on the loss of his
two children.  It was one child no more.  He
reunited them in his thoughts, and they were
never asunder.

Then, one day, when strange fancies
oppressed him more than usual, he paused at
Florence's door and gazed wildly down as
though suddenly awakened from a dream.

He heard a cry—a loving, pleading voice—and
there at his knees knelt Florence herself.

"Papa!  Dearest papa!  I have come back to
ask forgiveness.  I never can be happy more,
without it!"

Unchanged still.  Of all the world,
unchanged.  Raising the same face to his as on
that miserable night.  Asking *his* forgiveness!

"Dear papa, oh, don't look strangely on me!
I never meant to leave you.  I never thought
of it, before or afterwards.  I was frightened
when I went away and could not think.  Papa,
dear, I am changed.  I am penitent.  I know
my fault.  I know my duty better now.  Papa,
don't cast me off or I shall die!"

He tottered to his chair.  He felt her draw
his arms about her neck: he felt her put her
own round his; he felt her kisses on his face;
he felt her wet cheek laid against his own; he
felt—oh, how deeply!—all that he had done.

Upon the breast that he had bruised, against
the heart that he had almost broken, she laid
his face, now covered with his hands, and said,
sobbing,—

"I have been far away, dear papa, and could
not come back before this.  I have been across
the seas, and I have a home of my own over
there now.  Oh, I want you to see it!  I want
to take you there; for my home is *your*
home—always, always!  Say you will pardon me,
will come to me!"

He would have said it if he could.  He
would have raised his hands and besought *her*
for pardon, but she caught them in her own and
put them down hurriedly.

"You will come, I know, dear papa!  And I
will know by that that you forgive me.  And
we will never talk about what is past and
forgotten; never again!"

As she clung closer to him, in another burst
of tears, he kissed her on the lips, and, lifting
up his eyes, said, "Oh, my God, forgive me,
for I need it very much!"

With that he dropped his head again, lamenting
over and caressing her, and there was not a
sound in all the house for a long, long time;
they remaining clasped in one another's arms,
in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with
Florence.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE STORY OF PIP AS TOLD BY HIMSELF`:

.. _`HOW PIP HELPED THE CONVICT`:

.. class:: center x-large bold

   THE STORY OF PIP AS TOLD BY HIMSELF

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   \I.  HOW PIP HELPED THE CONVICT

.. vspace:: 2

My father's family name being Pirrip,
and my Christian name Philip, my
infant tongue could make of both
names nothing longer than Pip.  So I called
myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the
authority of his tombstone and my sister—Mrs. Joe
Gargery, who married the blacksmith.  As
I never saw my father or my mother, my first
fancies regarding what they were like were
unreasonably derived from their tombstones.

Ours was the marsh country down by the river,
within twenty miles of the sea.  My most vivid
memory of these early days was of a raw
evening about dusk.  At such a time I found out for
certain that this bleak spot where I chanced to
be wandering all alone was the churchyard;
that the low, leaden line beyond was the river;
and that the small bundle of shivers growing
afraid of it all and beginning to cry was myself—Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as
a man started up from among the graves at the
side of the church porch.

He was a fearful looking man, clad in coarse
gray, covered with mud and brambles, and with
a great clanking chain upon his leg.

"Tell us your name!" said the man.

"Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man.
"P'int out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat
in-shore among the trees a mile or more from
the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment,
turned me upside-down and emptied my pockets.
There was nothing in them but a piece of bread.
When the church came to itself—for he was
so sudden and strong that he made it go
head-over-heels before me, and I saw the steeple
under my feet—when the church came to itself,
I say, I was seated on a high tombstone,
trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

"You young dog," said the man, licking his
lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got."

I believe they were fat, though I was at that
time undersized for my years, and not strong.

"Darn *me* if I couldn't eat 'em," said the
man, with a threatening shake of his head, "and
if I ha'nt half a mind to't!"

I earnestly expressed my hope that he
wouldn't, and held tighter to the tombstone
on which he had put me; partly to keep myself
upon it; partly to keep myself from crying.

"Now lookee here!" said the man.  "Where's
your mother?"

"There, sir!" said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped
and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir!" I timidly explained, pointing to
an inscription on a stone; "that's my mother."

"Oh!" said he, coming back.  "And is that
your father alonger your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; 'late of this
parish.'"

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering.  "Who
d' ye live with—supposin' you're kindly let to
live, which I ha'nt made up my mind about?"

"My sister, sir—Mrs. Joe Gargery—wife of
Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he, and looked down
at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and at me
several times, he came closer to my tombstone,
took me by both arms, and tilted me back as
far as he could hold me, so that his eyes
looked most powerfully down into mine, and
mine looked most helplessly up into his.

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question
being whether you're to be let to live.  You
know what a file is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is?"

"Yes, sir."

After each question he tilted me over a little
more, so as to give me a greater sense of
helplessness and danger.

"You get me a file."  He tilted me again.
"And you get me some wittles.  If you
don't—!"

He tilted me again and shook me till my
teeth chattered.

"In—indeed—I will, sir," said I, "if you
will only let me go.  I'll run all the way home."

"Well, see that you come back.  But to-morrow
morning will do—early—before day.
I'll wait for you here."

As he released me, I needed no second bidding,
but scurried away as fast as I could, and
soon reached the blacksmith shop.

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than
twenty years older than I, and had established a
great reputation with herself and the neighbors
because she had brought me up "by hand."  Having
at that time to find out for myself what
the expression meant, and knowing her to have
a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the
habit of laying it upon her husband as well as
upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I
were both brought up by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister;
and I had a general impression that she must
have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand.  Joe
was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each
side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a
very undecided blue that they seemed to have
somehow got mixed with their own whites.  He
was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered,
easy-going, foolish, dear fellow—a sort of Hercules
in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes,
had such a prevailing redness of skin that I
sometimes used to wonder whether it was
possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater
instead of soap.  She was tall and bony, and
almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened
behind with two loops, and having a bib in front
that was stuck full of pins and needles.

Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a
wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our
country were—most of them, at that time.
When I ran home from the churchyard the
forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in
the kitchen.  Joe and I being fellow-sufferers,
and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a
confidence to me the moment I raised the latch
of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it,
sitting in the chimney corner.

"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times looking
for you, Pip.  And she's out now, making it a
baker's dozen."

"Is she?"

"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse,
she's got Tickler with her."

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only
button on my waistcoat round and round, and
looked in great depression at the fire.  Tickler
was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by
collision with my tickled frame.

"She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up,
and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Rampaged
out.  That's what she did," said Joe,
slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars
with the poker, and looking at it; "she Rampaged
out, Pip."

"Has she been gone long, Joe?"  I always
treated him as no more than my equal.

"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch
clock, "she's been on the Rampage, this last
spell, about five minutes, Pip.  She's a coming!
Get behind the door, old chap, and have the
jack-towel betwixt you."

I took the advice.  My sister, Mrs. Joe,
throwing the door wide open, and finding an
obstruction behind it, immediately divined the
cause, and applied Tickler to its farther
investigation.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, between
tickles.

"I have only been to the churchyard," said
I, crying and rubbing myself.

"Churchyard!" repeated my sister.  "If it
warn't for me you'd been to the churchyard
long ago, and stayed there!  Who brought
you up by hand?"

My thoughts strayed from that question as I
looked disconsolately at the fire.  For the
fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the
file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was
under to steal, from under my sister's very roof,
rose before me in the avenging coals.

"Ha!" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to
his station.  "Churchyard, indeed!  You may
well say churchyard, you two."  (One of
us, by the by, had not said it at all.)  "You'll
drive *me* to the churchyard betwixt
you, one of these days, and oh, a pr-r-recious
pair you'd be without me!"

As she applied herself to set the tea-things,
Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he
were mentally calculating what kind of pair we
should make, under such circumstances.  After
that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls
and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with
his blue eyes, as his manner always was at
squally times.

My sister had a sudden, severe way of cutting
and buttering bread, which never varied.  Now
she ripped me off a section of loaf, bidding me
eat and be thankful.  Though I was hungry, I
dared not eat; for she was a strict housekeeper
who would miss any further slices, and I must
not let that dreadful man out in the churchyard go
hungry.  So I resolved to put my hunk of bread
and butter down the leg of my trousers—a plan
which I presently found the chance to carry out.

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the
pudding for next day with a copper-stick.  I
tried it with the load upon my leg (and that
made me think afresh of the man with the load
on *his* leg), and found the tendency of exercise
to bring the bread-and-butter out at my ankle
quite unmanageable.  Happily, I slipped away
and deposited that part of my conscience in my
garret bedroom.

"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring,
and was taking a final warm in the chimney
corner before being sent up to bed; "was
that great guns, Joe?"

"Ah!" said Joe.  "There's another conwict off."

"What does that mean, Joe?" said I.

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon
herself, said snappishly, "Escaped.  Escaped."

"There was a conwict off last night," added
Joe, "after sunset-gun.  And they fired warning
of him.  And now it appears they're firing
warning of another."

"Who's firing?" said I.

"Drat that boy," interposed my sister, frowning
at me over her work, "what a questioner he
is.  Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies."

It was not very polite to herself, I thought,
as she always answered.  But she never was
polite, unless there was company.

Presently Joe said to me in a quiet kind of
whisper.  "Hulks, Pip; prison ships.  They're
firing because one of the thieves on the hulks is
got away."

Thieves!  Prison ships!  And here I was
planning to rob my sister of the bread and
butter; and honest Joe of a file!  Truly
conscience is a fearful thing, yet there was no
turning back for me.

That night the rest of the dreadful deed was
done.  Just before daybreak I crept out,
carrying the file which I had found among Joe's
tools, the slice of bread, and a pie which was
too convenient in the pantry, and which I took
in the hope it was not intended for early use
and would not be missed for some time.

I found the man with the iron waiting for
me, crouched behind a tombstone.

"Are you alone?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes, sir."

"No one following you?"

"No, sir."

"Well," said he, "I believe you.  Give me
them wittles, quick."

I had often watched a large dog of ours eating
his food; and I now noticed a decided similarity
between the dog's way of eating and the man's.
The man took strong, sharp, sudden bites, just
like the dog.  He swallowed, or rather snapped
up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and
he looked sideways here and there while he ate,
as if he thought there was danger in every
direction of somebody's coming to take the pie
away.

"Now give us hold of the file, boy," he said,
when he had finished swallowing.

I did so, and he bent to the iron like a
madman, and began filing it away in quick, fierce
rasps.  I judged this a good time to slip away,
and he paid no further attention to me.  The
last I heard of him, the file was still going.

"And where the mischief ha' you been?"
was Mrs. Joe's Christmas salutation, when I and
my conscience showed ourselves.

I said I had been down to hear the chimes.

"Ah, well!" observed Mrs. Joe.  "You might
ha' done worse."

Not a doubt of that, I thought.

We were to have a superb dinner—so Joe
slyly told me—consisting of a leg of pork and
greens, a pair of roast stuffed fowls, and a
handsome pie which had been baked the day
before.

I started when he spoke about the pie, but
his blue eyes beamed upon me kindly.

My sister having so much to do, was going to
church vicariously; that is to say, Joe and I
were going.  In his working clothes, Joe was a
well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in
his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow
in good circumstances, than anything else.
Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed
to belong to him.  On the present festive
occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe
bells were ringing, the picture of misery, in a
full suit of Sunday penitentials.  As to me, I
think my sister must have had some general
idea that I was a young offender who must be
punished each holy-day by being put into
clothes so tight that I could on no account move
my arms and legs without danger of something
bursting.

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must
have been a moving spectacle for compassionate
minds.  Yet, what I suffered outside was
nothing to what I underwent within.  The terrors
that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had
gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were
only to be equalled by the remorse with which
my mind dwelt on what my hands had done.
Under the weight of my wicked secret, I
pondered whether even the Church would be
powerful enough to shield me from the wrath to
come.

Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine
with us; and Mr. Hubble, the wheelwright, and
Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's
uncle, but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was
a well-to-do cornchandler in the nearest town,
and drove his own chaise-cart.  The dinner
hour was half-past one.

When Joe and I got home, we found the table
laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner
dressing, and the front door unlocked (it never was
at any other time) for the company to enter by,
and everything most splendid.  And still, not a
word of the robbery.

Oh, the agony of that festive dinner!  During
each helping of my plate I ate mechanically,
hardly daring to lift my eyes, and clutching
frantically at the leg of the table for support.
With each mouthful we drew nearer to that
pie—and discovery!  But as they chattered away,
I felt a faint hope that they might perhaps forget
the pie.

They did not, for presently my sister said to
Joe, "Clean plates—cold."

I got a fresh hold on the table leg.  I foresaw
I was doomed.

"You must taste," said my sister, addressing
the guests with her best grace, "you must finish
with a pie, in honor of Uncle Pumblechook."

The company murmured their compliments.
Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved
well of his fellow-creatures, said,—quite
vivaciously, all things considered,—"Well, Mrs. Joe,
we'll do our best endeavors; let us have a cut at
this same pie."

My sister went out to get it.  I heard her
steps proceed to the pantry.  I saw Mr. Pumblechook
balance his knife.  I saw reawakening
appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle.  I
heard Mr. Hubble remark that "a bit of savory
pie would lay atop of anything you could
mention, and do no harm," and I heard Joe say
"you shall have some, Pip."  I have never been
absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell
of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily
hearing of the company.  I felt that I could bear no
more, and that I must run away.  I released the
leg of the table, and ran for my life.

But I ran no farther than the house door, for
there I ran headforemost into a party of soldiers
with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair
of handcuffs to me, saying, "Here you are, look
sharp, come on!"

The vision of a file of soldiers caused the
dinner party to rise from the table in confusion, and
caused Mrs. Joe, re-entering the kitchen
empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her
wondering lament of "Gracious goodness, gracious me,
what's gone—with the—pie!"

"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," said the
sergeant, "but as I have mentioned at the door
to this smart young shaver" (which he hadn't),
"I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I
want the blacksmith."

"And pray, what might you want with him?"
retorted my sister, quick to resent his being
wanted at all.

"Missis," returned the gallant sergeant,
"speaking for myself, I should reply, the honor
and pleasure of his fine wife's acquaintance;
speaking for the king, I answer, a little job
done."

This was received as rather neat in the
sergeant; insomuch that Mr. Pumblechook cried
audibly, "Good again!"

"You see, blacksmith," said the sergeant,
who had by this time picked out Joe with his
eye, "we have had an accident with these, and
I find the lock of one of 'em goes wrong, and the
coupling don't act pretty.  As they are wanted
for immediate service, will you throw your eye
over them?"

Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced
that the job would necessitate the lighting of his
forge fire, and would take nearer two hours than one.

"Will it?  Then will you set about it at once,
blacksmith," said the off-hand sergeant, "as it's
on his Majesty's service.  And if my men can
bear a hand anywhere, they'll make themselves
useful."  With that, he called to his men, who
came trooping into the kitchen one after another,
and piled their arms in a corner.

All these things I saw without then knowing
that I saw them, for I was in an agony of
apprehension.  But, beginning to perceive that the
handcuffs were not for me, and that the military
had so far got the better of the pie as to put it in
the background, I collected a little more of my
scattered wits.

.. _`PIP BRINGS THE CONVICT SOME FOOD.`:

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   :alt: PIP BRINGS THE CONVICT SOME FOOD.

   PIP BRINGS THE CONVICT SOME FOOD.

The soldiers were out hunting for the
convicts that had escaped.  And as soon as Joe
had mended the handcuffs, they fell in line and
started again for the marshes.  Joe caught an
appealing look from me, and timidly asked if
he and I might go along with them.  The
consent was given and away we went.

After a rough journey over bogs and through
briars, a loud shout from the soldiers in front
announced that one of the fugitives had been
caught.  We ran hastily up and peered into a
ditch.  It was my convict.

He was hustled into the handcuffs and
hustled up a hill where stood a rough hut or
sentry-box, and here we halted to rest.

My convict never looked at me, except once.
While we were in the hut, he stood before the
fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his
feet by turns upon the hob.  Suddenly he
turned to the sergeant and remarked:

"I wish to say something respecting this
escape.  It may prevent some persons laying
under suspicion alonger me."

"You can say what you like," returned the
sergeant, standing coolly looking at him with
his arms folded, "but you have no call to say
it here.  You'll have opportunity enough to
say about it, and hear about it, before it's done
with, you know."

"I know, but this is another p'int, a separate
matter.  A man can't starve; at least *I* can't.
I took some wittles, up at the village over
yonder—where the church stands a'most out
on the marshes."

"You mean stole," said the sergeant.

"And I'll tell you where from.  From the
blacksmith's."

"Hallo!" said the sergeant, staring at Joe.

"Hallo, Pip!" said Joe, staring at me.

"It was some broken wittle—that's what it
was—and a dram of liquor, and a pie."

"Have you happened to miss such an article
as a pie, blacksmith?" asked the sergeant,
confidentially.

"My wife did, at the very moment when you
came in.  Don't you know, Pip?"

"So," said my convict, turning his eyes on
Joe in a moody manner, and without the least
glance at me; "so you're the blacksmith, are
you?  Then I'm sorry to say I've eat your pie."

"God knows you're welcome to it—so far
as it was ever mine," returned Joe, with a
saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe.  "We don't
know what you have done, but we wouldn't
have you starve to death for it, poor miserable
fellow-creatur.  Would us, Pip?"

Something that I had noticed before clicked
in the man's throat again, and he turned his
back.  The boat had returned, and his guard
were ready, so we followed him to the landing-place
made of rough stakes and stones, and saw
him put into the boat, which was rowed by a
crew of convicts like himself.  No one seemed
surprised to see him, but they looked at him
stolidly and rowed him back to the hulks as a
matter of course.

My state of mind regarding the pie was
curious.  I do not recall that I felt any
tenderness of conscience in reference to Mrs. Joe,
when the fear of being found out was lifted off
me.  But I loved Joe—perhaps for no better
reason in those early days than because the
dear fellow let me love him—and, as to him,
my inner self was not so easily composed.  It
was much upon my mind (particularly when I
first saw him looking about for his file) that I
ought to tell Joe the whole truth.  Yet I did
not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that
if I did he would think me worse than I was.
The fear of losing Joe's confidence and of
thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at
night staring drearily at my forever lost
companion and friend, tied up my tongue.  And so
the whole truth never came out.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PIP AND ESTELLA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \II.  PIP AND ESTELLA

.. vspace:: 2

At this time I was only an errand boy
around the forge, and my education
was limited to spelling out the names
on the tombstones.  So in the evenings they
sent me to school to Mr. Wopsle's aunt, a
worthy woman who used to go to sleep regularly
from six to seven while her small class was
supposed to study.

But I was lucky enough to find a friend in
her granddaughter, Biddy.  She was about my
own age, and, while her shoes were generally
untied and her hands sometimes dirty, her heart
was in the right place and she had a good head.
So with her help I struggled through my letters
as if they had been a bramble-bush, getting
considerably worried and scratched by each
letter in turn.  Then came the dreaded nine
figures to add to my troubles.  But at last I
learned to read and cipher.

I do not know which was the prouder, Joe or
I, when I wrote him my first letter (which was
hardly needed, as he sat beside me while I
wrote it).

"I say, Pip, old chap!" he cried, opening his
eyes very wide, "what a scholar you are!  Ain't you?"

"I should like to be," I answered, looking at
the slate with satisfaction.

Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle
Pumblechook on market-days, to assist him in
buying such household stuffs and goods as
required a woman's judgment; Uncle
Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no
confidences in his domestic servant.  On this
particular evening she came home from such a
trip, bringing Uncle Pumblechook with her.

"Now," said she, unwrapping herself with
haste and excitement, and throwing her bonnet
back on her shoulders where it hung by the
strings, "if this boy ain't grateful this night, he
never will be!"

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly
could, who was wholly uninformed why he
ought to assume that expression.

"You have heard of Miss Havisham up town,
haven't you?" continued my sister, addressing
Joe.  "She wants this boy to go and play
there.  And of course he's going.  And he
had *better* play there," said my sister, shaking
her head at me as an encouragement to be
extremely light and sportive, "or I'll work him!"

I had heard of Miss Havisham up town—everybody
for miles round had heard of Miss
Havisham up town—as an immensely rich and
grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house
barricaded against robbers, and who led a life
of seclusion.

"Well to be sure!" said Joe, astounded.  "I
wonder how she come to know Pip!"

"Noodle!" cried my sister.  "Who said she
knew him?  Couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook
if he knew of a boy to go and play there?
And couldn't Uncle Pumblechook, being always
considerate and thoughtful of us, mention this
boy that I have been a willing slave to?  And
couldn't Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible
that for anything we can tell, this boy's fortune
may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's,
offer to take him into town to-night in his own
chaise-cart, and to keep him to-night, and to
take him with his own hands to Miss
Havisham's to-morrow morning?  And Lor-a-mussy
me!" cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in
sudden desperation, "here I stand talking to
mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook
waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door,
and the boy grimed with dirt from the hair of
his head to the sole of his foot!"

With that, she pounced on me, like an eagle
on a lamb, and my face was squeezed into
wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put
under taps of water-butts, and I was soaped and
kneaded, and towelled, and thumped, and
harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite
beside myself.

When my ablutions were completed, I was
put into clean linen of the stiffest character, like
a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed
up in my tightest and fearfullest suit.  I was then
delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who
formally received me as if he were the Sheriff,
saying pompously, "Boy, be forever grateful
to all friends, but especially unto them which
brought you up by hand!"

"Good-bye, Joe!"

"God bless you, Pip, old chap!"

I had never parted from him before, and what
with my feelings and what with soap-suds, I
could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart.
But they twinkled out one by one, without
throwing any light on the questions as to why
on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's,
and what on earth I was expected to play at.

I spent the night at Uncle Pumblechook's,
and the next morning after breakfast we
proceeded to Miss Havisham's.  It was a dismal
looking house with a great many iron bars to it.
Some of the windows had been walled up, and
the others were rustily barred.  There was a
courtyard in front, which was also barred; so
we had to wait, after ringing the bell, for some
one to open it.

Presently a window was raised, and a clear
voice demanded, "What name?"

"Pumblechook," was the reply.

The voice returned, "Quite right," and the
window was shut again, and a young lady came
across the courtyard, with keys in her hand.

"This," said Mr. Pumblechook, "is Pip."

"This is Pip, is it?" returned the young lady,
who was very pretty and seemed very proud;
"come in, Pip."

Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when
she stopped him with the gate.

"Oh!" she said.  "Did you wish to see Miss
Havisham?"

"If Miss Havisham wished to see me,"
returned Mr. Pumblechook, discomfited.

"Ah!" said the girl; "but you see she don't."

She said it so finally, and in such an
undiscussible way, that Mr. Pumblechook, though in
a condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest.

We went into the house by a side door—the
great front entrance had two chains across it
outside—and the first thing I noticed was that
the passages were all dark, and that she had left
a candle burning there.  She took it up, and we
went through more passages and up a staircase,
and still it was all dark, and only the candle
lighted us.

At last we came to the door of a room and
she said, "Go in."

I answered, more in shyness than politeness,
"After you, miss."

To this she returned, "Don't be ridiculous,
boy; I am not going in."  And scornfully
walked away, and—what was worse—took
the candle with her.

This was very uncomfortable, and I was half
afraid.  However, the only thing to do being
to knock at the door, I knocked, and was
told from within to enter.  I entered, therefore,
and found myself in a pretty large room, well
lighted with wax candles.  No glimpse of
daylight was to be seen in it.  It was a
dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though
much of it was of forms and uses then quite
unknown to me.  But prominent in it was a
draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and
that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's
dressing-table.

In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the
table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the
strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.

She was dressed in rich materials,—satins
and lace and silks,—all of white.  Her shoes
were white.  And she had a long white veil
dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers
in her hair, but her hair was white.  Some bright
jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands,
and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table.
Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore,
and half-packed trunks, were scattered about.
She had not quite finished dressing, for she had
but one shoe on,—the other was on the table
near her hand,—her veil was but half arranged,
her watch and chain were not put on, and her
handkerchief, gloves, some flowers, and a
prayer-book lay confusedly heaped about the
looking-glass.

"Who is it?" said the lady at the table.

"Pip, ma'am."

"Pip?"

"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am.  Come—to play."

"Look at me," said Miss Havisham.  "You
are not afraid of a woman who has never seen
the sun since you were born?"

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling
the enormous lie comprehended in the answer "No."

"I am tired," said Miss Havisham.  "I want
diversion, and I have done with men and women.
Play."

I looked foolish and bewildered, not knowing
what to do.

"I sometimes have sick fancies," she went on,
"and I have a sick fancy that I want to see
some play.  There, there!" with an impatient
movement of the fingers of her right hand;
"play, play, play!"

For a moment, with the fear of my sister's
working me before my eyes, I had a desperate
idea of starting round the room in the assumed
character of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart.
But I felt myself so unequal to the performance
that I gave it up, and stood looking at
Miss Havisham in what I suppose she took for
a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when
we had taken a good look at each other,

"Are you sullen and obstinate?"

"No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and
very sorry I can't play just now.  If you
complain of me I shall get into trouble with my
sister, so I would do it if I could; but it's so
new here, and so strange, and so fine, and
melancholy—"  I stopped, fearing I might say
too much.

"Call Estella," she commanded, looking at
me.  "You can do that."

To stand in a strange house calling a scornful
young lady by her first name was almost as bad
as playing to order.  But she answered at last.

"My dear," said Miss Havisham, "let me see
you play cards with this boy."

"What do you play, boy?" asked Estella,
with the greatest disdain.

"Nothing but 'beggar my neighbor,' Miss."

"Beggar him," said Miss Havisham to Estella.
So we sat down to cards.

It was then I began to understand that
everything in the room had stopped, with the watch
and the clock, a long time ago.  I noticed that
Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on
the spot from which she had taken it up.  As
Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table
again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once
white, now yellow, had never been worn.

"He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!" said
Estella with disdain, before our first game was
out.  "And what coarse hands he has!  And
what thick boots!"

I had never thought of being ashamed of my
hands before; but now I began to consider
them.  Her contempt for me was so strong
that I caught it.

She won the game, and I dealt.  I misdealt,
as was only natural, when I knew she was lying
in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced
me for a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.

"You say nothing of her," remarked Miss
Havisham to me, as she looked on.  "She says
many hard things of you, but you say nothing
of her.  What do you think of her?"

"I don't like to say," I stammered.

"Tell me in my ear," said Miss Havisham,
bending down.

"I think she is very proud," I replied, in a
whisper.

"Anything else?"

"I think she is very pretty."

"Anything else?"

"I think she is very insulting."  (She was
looking at me then with a look of supreme
aversion.)

"Anything else?"

"I think I should like to go home."

"You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham
aloud; "play the game out."

I played the game to an end with Estella, and
she beggared me.  She threw the cards down
on the table when she had won them all, as
if she despised them for having been won of me.

"When shall I have you here again?" said
Miss Havisham.  "Let me think.  I know
nothing of days of the week, or of weeks of
the year.  Come again after six days.  You hear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Estella, take him down.  Let him have
something to eat, and let him roam and look
about him while he eats.  Go, Pip."

I followed the candle down, as I had followed
the candle up, and she stood it in the place
where we had found it.  Until she opened the
side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking
about it, that it must necessarily be night-time.
The rush of the daylight quite confounded me,
and made me feel as if I had been in the
candle-light of the strange room many hours.

When I reached home, my sister was very
curious to know all about Miss Havisham and
what I had seen and done at her house.  Uncle
Pumblechook, too, came hurrying over, armed
with many questions.

I was naturally a truthful boy—as boys go—but
I knew instinctively that I could not make
myself understood about that strange visit.  So
I didn't try.  When he fired his first question,
as to What was Miss Havisham like?

"Very tall and dark," I told him.

"Is she, uncle?" asked my sister.

Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which
I at once inferred that he had never seen Miss
Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.

"Good!" said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly.
"Now, boy!  What was she a doing of when
you went in to-day?" he continued.

"She was sitting," I answered, "in a black
velvet coach."

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one
another—as they well might—and both
repeated, "In a black velvet coach?"

"Yes," said I.  "And Miss Estella—that's
her niece, I think—handed her in cake and
wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate.
And we all had cake and wine on gold plates.
And I got up behind the coach to eat mine,
because she told me to."

"Was anybody else there?" asked Mr. Pumblechook.

"Four dogs," said I.

"Large or small?"

"Immense," said I.  "And they fought for
veal cutlets out of a silver basket."

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one
another again in utter amazement.  I was
perfectly frantic—a reckless witness under the
torture—and would have told them anything.

"Where *was* this coach, in the name of
gracious?" asked my sister.

"In Miss Havisham's room."  They stared
again.  "But there weren't any horses to it."  I
added this saving clause, in the moment of
rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers which
I had had wild thoughts of harnessing.

"Can this be possible, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe.
"What can the boy mean?"

"I'll tell you, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook.
"My opinion is, it's a sedan-chair.  She's
flighty, you know—very flighty—quite flighty
enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair."

"Did you ever see her in it, uncle?" asked
Mrs. Joe.

"How could I?" he returned, forced to the
admission, "when I never see her in my life.
Never clapped eyes upon her!"

"Goodness, uncle!  And yet you have
spoken to her!"

"Just through the door," he replied testily.
"Now, boy, what did you play?"

"We played with flags."

"Flags!" echoed my sister.

"Yes," said I.  "Estella waved a blue flag,
and I waved a red one, and Miss Havisham
waved one sprinkled all over with little gold
stars, out at the coach-window.  And then we
all waved our swords and hurrahed."

"Swords!" repeated my sister.  "Where
did you get swords from?"

"Out of a cupboard," said I.  "And I saw
pistols in it—and jam—and pills.  And there
was no daylight in the room, but it was all
lighted up with candles."

"That's true, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook,
with a grave nod.  "That's the state of the case,
for that much I've seen myself."  And then they
both stared at me, and I at them, and plaited the
right leg of my trousers with my right hand.

If they had asked me any more questions I
should undoubtedly have betrayed myself, for
I was even then on the point of mentioning that
there was a balloon in the yard, and should
have hazarded the statement but for my
invention being divided between that phenomenon
and a bear.  They were so much occupied,
however, in discussing the marvels I had
already presented for their consideration, that I
escaped.  The subject still held them when Joe
came in from his work to have a cup of tea.
To whom my sister, more for the relief of her
own mind than for the gratification of his,
related my pretended experiences.

Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and
roll them all round the kitchen in helpless
amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but
only as regarded him—not in the least as
regarded the other two.  Towards Joe, and Joe
only, I considered myself a young monster,
while they sat debating what results would come
to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance and
favor.  They had no doubt that Miss Havisham
would "do something" for me; their doubts
related to the form that something would take.
My sister stood out for "property."  Mr. Pumblechook
was in favor of a handsome premium
for binding me apprentice to some genteel
trade,—say, the corn and seed trade, for
instance.  Joe fell into the deepest disgrace with
both, for offering the bright suggestion that I
might only be presented with one of the dogs
who had fought for the veal cutlets.  "If a fool's
head can't express better opinions than that,"
said my sister, "and you have got any work
to do, you had better go and do it."  So he went.

After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and
when my sister was washing up, I stole into the
forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had
done for the night.  Then I said, "Before the
fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell you
something."

"Should you, Pip?" said Joe, drawing his
shoeing-stool near the forge.  "Then tell us.
What is it, Pip?"

"Joe," said I, taking hold of his rolled-up
shirt sleeve, and twisting it between my finger
and thumb, "you remember all that about
Miss Havisham's?"

"Remember?" said Joe.  "I believe you!  Wonderful!"

"It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true."

"What are you telling of, Pip?" cried Joe,
falling back in the greatest amazement.  "You
don't mean to say it's—"

"Yes, I do; it's lies, Joe."

"But not all of it?  Why sure you don't
mean to say, Pip, that there was no black
welwet co—ch?"  For, I stood shaking my
head.  "But at least there was dogs, Pip?
Come, Pip," said Joe persuasively, "if there
warn't no weal cutlets, at least there was dogs?"

"No, Joe."

"*A* dog?" said Joe.  "A puppy?  Come?"

"No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind."

As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe
contemplated me in dismay.  "Pip, old chap!
This won't do, old fellow!  I say!  Where do
you expect to go to?"

"It's terrible, Joe; ain't it?"

"Terrible?" cried Joe.  "Awful!  What possessed you?"

"I don't know what possessed me, Joe," I
replied, letting his shirt sleeve go, and sitting
down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head;
"but I wish you hadn't taught me to call
knaves at cards, Jacks; and I wish my boots
weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse."

And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable,
and that I hadn't been able to explain myself
to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, and that there
had been a beautiful young lady at Miss
Havisham's who was dreadfully proud, and that she
had said I was common, and much more to that
effect.

"There's one thing you maybe sure of, Pip,"
said Joe, after some rumination, "namely, that
lies is lies.  Howsever they come, they didn't
ought to come, and they come from the father
of lies, and work round to the same.  Don't you
tell no more of 'em, Pip.  *That* ain't the way to
get out of being common, old chap.  And as to
being common, I don't make it out at all clear.
You are oncommon in some things.  You're
oncommon small.  Likewise you're a oncommon
scholar."

"No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe."

"Why, see what a letter you wrote last night.
Wrote in print even!  I've seen letters—Ah! and
from gentlefolks!—that I'll swear weren't
wrote in print," said Joe.

"I have learnt next to nothing, Joe.  You
think much of me.  It's only that."

"Well, Pip," said Joe, "be it so or be it son't,
you must be a common scholar afore you can
be a oncommon one, I should hope!  The king
upon his throne, with his crown upon his 'ed,
can't sit and write his acts of Parliament in print,
without having begun, when he were a
unpromoted prince, with the alphabet—Ah!"
added Joe, with a shake of the head that was
full of meaning, "and begun at A too, and
worked his way to Z!"

There was some hope in this piece of wisdom,
and it rather encouraged me.

"You're not angry with me, Joe?"

"No, old chap.  But you might bear in mind
about them dog fights and weal cutlets when
you say your prayers to-night.  That's all, old
chap, and don't never do it no more."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HOW PIP FELL HEIR TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \III.  HOW PIP FELL HEIR TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS

.. vspace:: 2

The happy idea occurred to me a
morning or two later when I woke, that the
best step I could take towards making
myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy
everything she knew.  In pursuance of this
idea, I mentioned to Biddy, when I went to
Mr. Wopsle's aunt's at night, that I had a
particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and
that I should feel very much obliged to her if
she would impart all her learning to me.  Biddy,
who was the most obliging of girls, immediately
said she would, and indeed began to carry out
her promise within five minutes.

The books at the school were few and ragged,
but we attacked them all valiantly during the
course of the winter, and even refreshed our
budding minds with newspaper scraps.  And
with every new piece of knowledge I could
fancy myself saying to Miss Estella, "Now am
I common?"

At the appointed time I returned to Miss
Havisham's, and my hesitating ring at the gate
brought out Estella.

"You are to come this way to-day," she said
after admitting me, and took me to quite another
part of the house.

We went in at a door, which stood open, and
into a gloomy room with a low ceiling on the
ground floor at the back.  There was some
company in the room, and Estella said to me
as she joined it, "You are to go and stand there,
boy, till you are wanted."  "There," being the
window, I crossed to it, and stood "there," in a
very uncomfortable state of mind, looking out.

Presently she brought a candle and led the
way down a dark passage to a staircase.  As we
went up the stairs we met a man coming down.
He was large and bald, with bushy black
eyebrows and deep-set eyes which were disagreeably
keen.  He was nothing to me at the time,
and yet I couldn't help observe him.

He stopped and looked at me.

"How do *you* come here?" he asked.

"Miss Havisham sent for me, sir," I explained.

"Well!  Behave yourself.  I have a pretty
large experience of boys, and you're a bad
set of fellows.  Now mind!" said he, biting the
side of his great forefinger as he frowned at me,
"you behave yourself!"

With those words he released me—which I was
glad of, for his hand smelt of scented soap—and
went his way downstairs.  I wondered whether
he could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he
couldn't be a doctor, or he would have a quieter
manner.  There was not much time to consider
the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's
room, where she and everything else were
just as I had left them.  Estella left me standing
near the door, and I stood there until Miss
Havisham cast her eyes upon me from the
dressing-table.

"So!" she said, without being startled or
surprised; "the days have worn away, have they?"

"Yes, ma'am.  To-day is—"

"There, there, there!" with the impatient
movement of her fingers.  "I don't want to
know.  Are you ready to play?"

I was obliged to answer in some confusion,
"I don't think I am, ma'am."

"Not at cards again?" she demanded with a
searching look.

"Yes, ma'am; I could do that, if I was wanted."

"Since this house strikes you old and grave,
boy," said Miss Havisham, impatiently, "and
you are unwilling to play, are you willing to
work?"

I could answer this inquiry with a better heart
than I had been able to find for the other
question, and I said I was quite willing.

"Then go into that opposite room," said she,
pointing at the door behind me with her withered
hand, "and wait there till I come."

I did so, and after hearing mice scamper about
the faintly lighted room for a few minutes, Miss
Havisham entered and laid a hand upon my
shoulder.  In her other hand she had a
crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she
looked like the Witch of the place.

"This," said she, pointing to the long table
with her stick, "is where I will be laid when I
am dead.  They shall come and look at me here."

With some vague misgiving that she might
get upon the table then and there and die at
once, the complete realization of the ghastly
wax-work at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.

"What do you think that is?" she asked me,
again pointing with her stick; "that, where
those cobwebs are?"

"I can't guess what it is, ma'am."

"It's a great cake.  A bride-cake.  Mine!"

She looked all around the room in a glaring
manner, and then said, leaning on me while her
hand twitched my shoulder, "Come, come,
come!  Walk me, walk me!"

From this I made out that the work I had to
do was to walk Miss Havisham round and round
the room.  So I started at once, she following
at a fitful speed, twitching the hand upon my
shoulder.  After a while she said, "Call
Estella," and I did so.  Then the company I had
noticed before filed in and paid their
respects, which Miss Havisham hardly seemed
to hear.

While Estella was away lighting them down,
Miss Havisham still walked with her hand on
my shoulder, but more and more slowly.  At
last she stopped before the fire, and said, after
muttering and looking at it some seconds,

"This is my birthday, Pip."

I was going to wish her many happy returns,
when she lifted her stick.

"I don't suffer it to be spoken of.  I don't
suffer those who were here just now or any one
to speak of it.  They come here on the day, but
they dare not refer to it."

Of course *I* made no further effort to refer
to it.

"On this day of the year, long before you
were born, this heap of decay," stabbing with
her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the
table but not touching it, "was brought here.
It and I have worn away together.  The mice
have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth
of mice have gnawed at me."

She held the head of her stick against her
heart as she stood looking at the table; she in
her once white dress, all yellow and withered;
the once white cloth all yellow and withered;
everything around, in a state to crumble under
a touch.

"When the ruin is complete," said she, with a
ghastly look, "and when they lay me dead, in
my bride's dress on the bride's table—which
shall be done, and which will be the finished
curse upon him—so much the better if it is
done on this day!"

She stood looking at the table as if she stood
looking at her own figure lying there.  I
remained quiet.  Estella returned, and she too
remained quiet.  It seemed to me that we
continued thus a long time.  In the heavy air of the
room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in
its remoter corners, I even had an alarming
fancy that Estella and I might presently crumble
to dust.

And thus passed my second visit to Miss
Havisham's.

On my next visit, the following week, I saw a
garden-chair—a light chair on wheels, that you
pushed from behind.  I entered, that same day,
on a regular occupation of pushing Miss
Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of
walking with her hand upon my shoulder) round her
own room, and across the landing, and round
the other room.  Over and over and over again,
we would make these journeys, and sometimes
they would last as long as three hours at a
stretch.  I insensibly fall into a general mention
of these journeys as numerous, because it was at
once settled that I should return every alternate
day at noon for these purposes, and because I
am now going to sum up a period of at least
eight or ten months.

As we began to be more used to one another,
Miss Havisham talked more to me, and asked
me such questions as, what had I learned and
what was I going to be?  I told her I was going
to be apprenticed to Joe, I believed; and I
enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting
to know everything, in the hope that she might
offer some help towards that desirable end.  But
she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to
prefer my being ignorant.  Neither did she ever
give me any money nor anything but my daily
dinner.

Estella was always there to let me in and out.
Sometimes she would coldly tolerate me;
sometimes she would condescend to me; sometimes
she would be quite familiar with me; sometimes
she would say she hated me.  But always my
admiration for her grew apace, and I was the
more firmly resolved not to be common.

There was a song Joe used to hum fragments
of at the forge, of which the burden was Old
Clem.  This was not a very ceremonious way
of rendering homage to a patron saint; for I
believe Old Clem stood in that relation towards
smiths.  It was a song that imitated the
measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere
lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's
respected name.  Thus, you were to hammer
boys round—Old Clem!  With a thump and
a sound—Old Clem!  Beat it out, beat it
out—Old Clem!  With a clink for the
stout—Old Clem!  Blow the fire, blow the fire—Old
Clem!  Roaring dryer, soaring higher—Old
Clem!  One day soon after the appearance
of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly
saying to me, with the impatient movement of
her fingers, "There, there, there!  Sing!"  I was
surprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed
her over the floor.  It happened so to catch
her fancy that, she took it up in a low brooding
voice as if she were singing in her sleep.  After
that, it became customary with us to have it as
we moved about, and Estella would often join
in; though the whole strain was so subdued,
even when there were three of us, that it made
less noise in the grim old house than the lightest
breath of wind.

What could I become with these surroundings?
How could my character fail to be
influenced by them?  Is it to be wondered at
if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were,
when I came out into the natural light from the
misty yellow rooms?

Perhaps I might have talked it all over with
Joe, had it not been for those enormous tales
about coaches, dogs, and veal cutlets.  But I
felt a natural shrinking from having Miss
Havisham and Estella discussed, which had
come upon me in the beginning, and which
grew much more potent as time went on.  I
reposed complete confidence in no one but
Biddy; and so I told her everything.  Why it
came natural for me to do so, and why Biddy
had a deep concern in everything I told her, I
did not know then, though I think I know now.

We went on in this way for a long time, and
it seemed likely that we should continue to go
on in this way for a long time, when, one day,
Miss Havisham stopped short as she and I were
walking, she leaning on my shoulder; and said
with some displeasure,

"You are growing tall, Pip!"

She said no more at the time; but she
presently stopped and looked at me again; and
presently again; and after that, looked
frowning and moody.  On the next day of my
attendance, when our usual exercise was over,
and I had landed her at her dressing-table, she
stayed me with a movement of her impatient
fingers:

"Tell me the name again of that blacksmith
of yours."

"Joe Gargery, ma'am."

"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?"

"Yes, Miss Havisham."

"You had better be apprenticed at once.
Would Gargery come here with you, and bring
your indentures, do you think?"

I signified that I had no doubt he would take
it as an honor to be asked.

"Then let him come."

"At any particular time, Miss Havisham?"

"There, there!  I know nothing about
times.  Let him come soon, and come alone
with you."

So, on my very next visit, I conducted Joe,
stiffly arrayed in his Sunday clothes, into Miss
Havisham's presence.  She asked him several
questions about himself and my apprenticeship,
while the poor fellow twisted his hat in his
hand and persisted in answering *me*.  I am
afraid I was the least bit ashamed of him, when
I saw that Estella stood at the back of Miss
Havisham's chair, and that her eyes laughed
mischievously.

Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she
understood what he really was, better than I
had thought possible, seeing what an awkward
figure he cut; and took up a little bag from the
table beside her.

"Pip has earned a premium here," she said,
"and here it is.  There are five-and-twenty
guineas in this bag.  Give it to your master, Pip."

As if he were absolutely out of his mind
with the wonder awakened in him by her
strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even
at this pass, persisted in addressing me.

"This is wery liberal on your part, Pip,"
said Joe, "and it is as such received and
grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor
near nor nowheres.  And now, old chap, may
we do our duty!  May you and me do our
duty, both on us, by one and another, and by
them which your liberal present—have—conweyed—to
be—for the satisfaction of mind—of—them
as never—" here Joe showed that
he felt he had fallen into frightful difficulties,
until he triumphantly rescued himself with the
words, "and from myself far be it!"  These
words had such a round and convincing sound
for him that he said them twice.

"Good-bye, Pip!" said Miss Havisham, after
my papers were signed.  "Let them out,
Estella."

"Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?" I asked.

"No.  Gargery is your master now.  Gargery!
One word!"

Thus calling him back as I went out of the
door, I heard her say to Joe, in a distinct
emphatic voice, "The boy has been a good boy
here, and that is his reward.  Of course, as an
honest man, you will expect no other and no more."

How Joe got out of the room, I have never
been able to determine; but I know that when
he did get out he was steadily proceeding
upstairs instead of coming down, and was deaf
to all remonstrances until I went after him and
laid hold of him.  In another minute we were
outside the gate, and it was locked, and Estella
was gone.  When we stood in the daylight alone
again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to
me, "Astonishing!"  And there he remained
so long, saying, "Astonishing!" at intervals, so
often, that I began to think his senses were
never coming back.  At length he prolonged
his remark into "Pip, I do assure you this is
as-TON-ishing!" and so, by degrees, became able
to walk away.

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed
of home.  There may be black ingratitude in
the thing, and the punishment may be retributive
and well deserved; but that it is a miserable
thing, I can testify.

Home had never been a pleasant place to me,
because of my sister's temper.  But, Joe had
sanctified it, and I believed in it.  I had believed
in the best parlor as a most elegant place; I
had believed in the front door as a mysterious
portal of the Temple of State whose solemn
opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast
fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste
though not magnificent apartment; I had
believed in the forge as the glowing road to
manhood and independence.  Within a single year
all this was changed.  Now, it was all coarse
and common, and I would not have had Miss
Havisham and Estella see it on any account.

How much of my ungracious condition of
mind may have been my own fault, how much
Miss Havisham's, how much my sister's, is now
of no moment to me or to any one.  The change
was made in me; the thing was done.

Once, it had seemed to me that when I should
at last roll up my shirt-sleeves and go into the
forge, Joe's apprentice, I should be distinguished
and happy.  Now that the reality was here, I
only felt that I was dusty with the dust of
small-coal, and that I had a weight upon my daily
remembrance to which the anvil was a feather.
I remember that at a later period of my
"time," I used to stand about the churchyard
on Sunday evenings, when night was falling,
comparing my own perspective with the windy
marsh view, and making out some likeness
between them by thinking how flat and low both
were, and how on both there came an unknown
way and a dark mist and then the sea.  I was
quite as dejected on the first working-day of
my apprenticeship as in that after-time; but I
am glad to know that I never breathed a
murmur to Joe while my indentures lasted.  It is
about the only thing I *am* glad to know of
myself in that connection.

For, though it includes what I proceed to
add, all the merit was Joe's.  It was not because
I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that
I never ran away and went for a soldier or a
sailor.  It was not because I had a strong sense
of the virtue of industry, but because of Joe,
that I worked with tolerable zeal against the
grain.

As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's
aunt's room, my education under that lady
ended.  Not, however, until Biddy had imparted
to me everything she knew, from the little
catalogue of prices to a comic song she had once
bought for a half-penny.  Although the only
coherent part of the latter piece were the
opening lines:

   |  When I went to Lunnon town, sirs,
   |      Too rul loo rul
   |      Too rul loo rul
   |  Was 't I done very brown, sirs?
   |      Too rul loo rul
   |      Too rul loo rul

—still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this
composition by heart with the utmost gravity; nor
do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except
that I thought (as I still do) the amount of Too
rul somewhat in excess of the poetry.

Thus matters went until I reached the fourth
year of my apprenticeship; and they bade fair
to end that way, but for an unusual event.

I had gone with Joe one Saturday night to a
neighboring tavern to join some friends.  In
the course of the conversation, a strange
gentleman, who had been listening to us, stepped
between us and the fire, and said:

"I understand that one of you is a blacksmith,
by name, Joseph Gargery.  Which is the man?"

"Here is the man," said Joe.

"You have an apprentice," pursued the
stranger, "commonly known as Pip.  Is he here?"

"Here," I answered.

The stranger did not recognize me, but I did
recognize him as the man I had once met on
the stair at Miss Havisham's.

"I wish to have a private talk with you both,"
he said.  "Perhaps we had better go to your
house."

So, in a wondering silence we left the inn and
walked home, where Joe, vaguely recognizing
the occasion to be important, opened the front
door and ushered us into the state parlor.

The stranger told us that he was a lawyer
in London, and was now acting as confidential
agent for some one else.  He wished to purchase
my apprenticeship papers from Joe, if Joe were
willing to release me.

"Lord forbid that I should want anything for
not standing in Pip's way," said Joe, staring.

"Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the
purpose," returned the lawyer.  "The question is,
Would you want anything?  Do you want anything."

"The answer is," returned Joe, sternly, "No."

"Then I am instructed to communicate to
him," said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at
me, sideways, "that he will come into a handsome
property.  Further, that it is the desire of
the present possessor of that property, that he
be immediately removed from his present
sphere of life and from this place, and be brought
up as a gentleman—in a word, as a young
fellow of great expectations."

My dream was out; my wild fancy was
surpassed by sober reality; Miss Havisham was
going to make my fortune on a grand scale!—at
least, so I thought at the time.

"Now, Mr. Pip," pursued the lawyer, "I
address the rest of what I have to say to you.
You are to understand, first, that it is the
request of the person from whom I take my
instructions, that you always bear the name of
Pip.  You will have no objection, I dare say, to
that easy condition.  But if you have any
objection, this is the time to mention it."

I gasped, but had no objection.

"The second condition," he resumed, "is that
you are not to know the name of your benefactor,
for the present.  I will act as your guardian
and see that you are educated properly.
You desire an education, don't you?"

I replied that I had always longed for it.

"Good.  Then we will see to getting you a
tutor.  But first you should have some new
clothes to come away in.  When will you be
ready to leave?  Say this day week.  You'll
want some money.  Shall I leave you twenty
guineas?"

He produced a long purse, with the greatest
coolness, and counted them out on the table
and pushed them over to me.  This was the first
time he had taken his leg from the chair.  He
sat astride of the chair when he had pushed the
money over, and sat swinging his purse and
eyeing Joe.

"Well, Joseph Gargery?  You look dumbfoundered?"

"I *am*!" said Joe, in a very decided manner.

"It was understood that you wanted nothing
for yourself, remember?"

"It were understood," said Joe.  "And it
*are* understood.  And it ever will be similar
according."

"But what," said the lawyer, swinging his
purse, "what if it was in my instructions to make
you a present, as compensation?"

"As compensation what for?" Joe demanded.

"For the loss of his services."

Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the
touch of a woman.  I have often thought of him
since, like the steam-hammer, that can crush a
man or pat an egg-shell, in his combination of
strength with gentleness.  "Pip is that hearty
welcome," said Joe, "to go free with his services,
to honor and fortun', as no words can tell him.
But if you think as Money can make compensation
to me for the loss of the little child—what
come to the forge—and ever the best of
friends—"

Oh, dear, good Joe, whom I was so ready to
leave and so unthankful to, I see you again, with
your muscular blacksmith's arm before your
eyes, and your broad chest heaving, and your
voice dying away.  Oh, dear, good, faithful,
tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your
hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day as if it
had been the rustle of an angel's wing!

But at the time I was lost in the mazes of my
future fortunes, and could not retrace the
by-paths we had trodden together.  I begged Joe
to be comforted.  Joe scooped his eyes with
his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on
gouging himself, but said not another word.

After the lawyer had taken his leave, Joe and
I went into the kitchen, where we found Biddy and
my sister, and told them of my good fortune.

They dropped their sewing and looked at me.
Joe held his knees and looked at me.  I looked
at them, in turn.  After a pause they heartily
congratulated me; but there was a certain touch
of sadness in their congratulations that I rather
resented.

Now that I was actually going away I became
quite gloomy.  I did not know why, but I sat in
the chimney corner looking at the fire, my elbow
on my knee; and while the others tried to make
the conversation cheerful, I grew gloomier than ever.

But the bright sunlight of the next morning
dispelled my doubts and fears, and I began to
count the days eagerly.  I went down to Trabb's,
the tailor's, and got measured for a wonderful
suit of clothes, much to the consternation of
Trabb's boy, who thought himself equal to any
blacksmith that ever lived.  Then I went to the
hatter's and the bootmaker's and the hosier's,
and felt rather like Mother Hubbard's dog,
whose outfit required the services of so many
trades.  I also went to the coach-office and took
my place for seven o'clock Saturday morning.
And everywhere about the village the news of
my great expectations preceded me and I was
heartily stared at.

Uncle Pumblechook was especially officious
at this time.  He acted as though he were the
sole cause of all this.

"To think," said he, swelling up, "that I
should have been the humble instrument of this
proud reward."

He thought, like all the rest of us, that Miss
Havisham was my unknown benefactor.  It was
a natural mistake, as she had been kind to me
in her way; and I had seen the lawyer at her
house.  But it was a mistake after all and led to
other unhappy blunders ere I learned the truth.

For, many years afterward, I found that "my
convict"—the man I had helped down in the
churchyard—was none other than the friend
who had left me this fortune.  He had escaped
again from the hulks and, coming into a
considerable property, had arranged with the
lawyer to use it in making a gentleman out of
the little boy he had found crying on the
tombstone.  But, as I say, none of us knew it
or suspected it at first.

And now, those six days which were to have
run out so slowly, had run out fast and were
gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face
more steadily than I could look at it.  As the
six evenings had dwindled away to five, to four,
to three, to two, I had become more and more
appreciative of the society of Joe and my sister
and Biddy.  On this last evening, I dressed
myself out in my new clothes, for their delight,
and sat in my splendor until bedtime.  We had
a hot supper on the occasion, graced by the
inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to
finish with.  We were all very low, and none
the higher for pretending to be in spirits.

It was a hurried breakfast, the next morning,
with no taste in it.  I got up from the meal,
saying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only
just occurred to me, "Well!  I suppose I must
be off!" and then I kissed my sister, and kissed
Biddy, and threw my arms around Joe's neck.
Then I took up my little portmanteau and
walked out.  The last I saw of them was, when
I presently heard a scuffle behind me, and,
looking back, saw Joe throwing an old shoe
after me and Biddy throwing another old shoe.
I stopped then, to wave my hat, and dear old
Joe waved his strong right arm above his head,
crying huskily "Hooroar!" and Biddy put her
apron to her face.

I walked away at a good pace, thinking it
was easier to go than I had supposed it would
be, and reflecting that it would never have done
to have an old shoe thrown after the coach, in
sight of all the High-street.  I whistled and
made nothing of going.  But the village was
very peaceful and quiet, and the light mists
were solemnly rising, as if to show me the
world, and I had been so innocent and little
there, and all beyond was so unknown and great,
that in a moment with a strong heave and sob
I broke into tears.  It was by the finger-post at
the end of the village, and I laid my hand upon
it, and said, "Good-bye, oh, my dear, dear
friend!"

So subdued was I by those tears, that when I
was on the coach, and it was clear of the town,
I deliberated with an aching heart whether I
would not get down when we changed horses,
and walk back, and have another evening at
home, and a better parting.  But while I
deliberated, we had changed and changed again, and
it was now too late and too far to go back, and
I went on.  And the mists had all solemnly risen
now, and the world lay spread before me.  My
boyhood was over.  Henceforth I was to play a
man's part—a man with Great Expectations.





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.. _`THE STORY OF LITTLE DORRIT`:

.. _`THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA`:

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   THE STORY OF LITTLE DORRIT

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.. _`LITTLE DORRIT.`:

.. figure:: images/img-266.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
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   :alt: LITTLE DORRIT.

   LITTLE DORRIT.

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   \I.  THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA

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Some years ago when the laws of England
were harsher than they are now, there
were debtors' prisons, or big, gloomy
jails into which men were put, if they couldn't
pay what they owed.  This was cruel and
unjust, for the prisoner was of course cut off from
the chance to earn any more money; and so he
might linger there for years or even his whole
life long, if some friend did not come to his
relief.  But otherwise the prisoner was given
many liberties not found in ordinary jails.  His
family might live with him, if they chose, and
come and go as they pleased.

One of the largest of these debtors' prisons
was called the "Marshalsea."  One day a
gentleman was brought there who had lost his
money in business; but so confident was he of
speedily regaining his liberty, that he would
not unpack his valise, at first.  His name was
William Dorrit, an easy-going man who had
spent his money freely and paid little attention
to his tradesmen's bills.  Now that he had
fallen upon evil days, he thought that his
friends would be glad to help him.  But as the
days and weeks passed with no prospect of aid,
he was persuaded not only to unpack his
belongings but also to have his wife and two
children brought to live with him.

The two children, Fanny and Edward—commonly
called "Tip"—were so young when
they were brought to the Marshalsea, that they
soon forgot any earlier life, and played very
happily with other children in the prison yard.
Not long after, a little sister was added to their
family.  She was christened Amy, but was
so tiny that everybody called her "Little
Dorrit."

Being born in the prison, Little Dorrit was
petted and made much of.  Every one there
seemed to claim her, and visitors were proudly
shown "the Child of the Marshalsea."

The turnkey, who was a kind-hearted man,
took an especial interest in her.

"By rights," he remarked, when she was first
shown to him, "I ought to be her godfather."

Mr. Dorrit looked at the honest fellow for a
moment, and thought that he would suit better
than some of their false friends.

"Perhaps you wouldn't object to really being
her godfather?" he said.

"Oh, I don't object, if you don't," replied
the turnkey.

Thus it came to pass that she was christened
one Sunday afternoon, when the turnkey, being
relieved, went up to the font of Saint George's
church, and promised and vowed on her behalf,
as he himself related when he came back, "like
a good 'un."

This invested the turnkey with a new proprietary
share in the child, over and above his
former official one.  When she began to walk
and talk, he became fond of her; bought a
little arm-chair and stood it by the high fender
of the lodge fireplace; liked to have her
company when he was on the lock; and used to
bribe her with cheap toys to come and talk to
him.  The child, for her part, soon grew so
fond of the turnkey, that she would come
climbing up the lodge steps of her own accord
at all hours of the day.  When she fell asleep
in the little arm-chair by the high fender, the
turnkey would cover her with his pocket
handkerchief; and when she sat in it dressing and
undressing a doll—which soon came to be
unlike dolls on the other side of the lock—he
would contemplate her from the top of his
stool, with exceeding gentleness.  Witnessing
these things, the inmates would express an
opinion that the turnkey, who was a bachelor,
had been cut out by nature for a family man.
But the turnkey thanked them, and said, "No,
on the whole it was enough for him to see other
people's children there."

At what period of her early life the little
creature began to perceive that it was not the
habit of all the world to live locked up in
narrow yards, surrounded by high walls with
spikes at the top, would be a difficult question
to settle.  But she was a very, very little
creature indeed, when she had somehow gained
the knowledge, that her clasp of her father's
hand was to be always loosened at the door
which the great key opened; and that while her
own light steps were free to pass beyond it, his
feet must never cross that line.  A pitiful and
plaintive look, with which she had begun to
regard him when she was still extremely young,
was perhaps a part of this discovery.

Wistful and wondering, she would sit in
summer weather by the high fender in the
lodge, looking up at the sky through the
barred window, until bars of light would arise,
when she would turn her eyes away.

"Thinking of the fields," the turnkey said
once, after watching her, "ain't you?"

"Where are they?" she inquired.

"Why, they're—over there, my dear," said
the turnkey, with a vague flourish of his key.
"Just about there."

"Does anybody open them, and shut them?
Are they locked?"

The turnkey was at a loss.  "Well!" he
said, "not in general."

"Are they very pretty, Bob?"  She called
him Bob, by his own particular request and
instruction.

"Lovely.  Full of flowers.  There's buttercups,
and there's daisies, and there's"—the
turnkey hesitated, being short of names—"there's
dandelions, and all manner of games."

"Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?"

"Prime," said the turnkey.

"Was father ever there?"

"Hem!" coughed the turnkey.  "Oh, yes, he
was there, sometimes."

"Is he sorry not to be there now?"

"N—not particular," said the turnkey.

"Nor any of the people?" she asked, glancing
at the listless crowd within.  "Oh, are you
quite sure and certain, Bob?"

At this difficult point of the conversation
Bob gave in, and changed the subject; always
his last resource when he found his little friend
getting him into a political, social, or theological
corner.  But this was the origin of a series
of Sunday excursions that these two curious
companions made together.  They used to issue
from the lodge on alternate Sunday afternoons
with great gravity, bound for some meadows or
green lanes that had been elaborately appointed
by the turnkey in the course of the week; and
there she picked grass and flowers to bring
home, while he smoked his pipe.  Afterwards
they would come back hand in hand, unless
she was more than usually tired, and had fallen
asleep on his shoulder.

In those early days the turnkey first began
profoundly to consider a question which cost
him so much mental labor, that it remained
undetermined on the day of his death.  He
decided to will and bequeath his little property
of savings to his godchild, and the point arose
how could it be so "tied up" that she alone
should benefit by it.  He asked the knotty
question of every lawyer who came through the
lodge gate on business.

"Settle it strictly on herself," the gentleman
would answer.

"But look here," quoth the turnkey.  "Supposing
she had, say a brother, say a father, say
a husband, who would be likely to make a grab
at that property when she came into it—how
about that?"

"It would be settled on herself, and they
would have no more legal claim on it than you,"
would be the professional answer.

"Stop a bit," said the turnkey.  "Supposing
she was tender-hearted, and they came over
her.  Where's your law for tying it up then?"

The deepest character whom the turnkey
sounded was unable to produce his law for
tying such a knot as that.  So, the turnkey
thought about it all his life, and died without
a will after all.

But that was long afterwards, when his
god-daughter was past sixteen.  She was only eight
when her mother died, and from that time the
protection that her wondering eyes had
expressed towards her father became embodied
in action, and the Child of the Marshalsea took
upon herself a new relation.

At first, such a baby could do little more
than sit with him, deserting her livelier place
by the high fender, and quietly watching him.
But this made her so far necessary to him that
he became accustomed to her, and began to be
sensible of missing her when she was not there.
Through this little gate she passed out of
childhood into the care-laden world.

What her pitiful look saw, at that early time,
in her father, in her sister, in her brother, in
the jail; how much, or how little of the
wretched truth it pleased God to make visible
to her, lies hidden with many mysteries.  It is
enough that she was inspired to be something
which was not what the rest were, and for the
sake of the rest.

And while the mark of the prison was seen
only too clearly in her vain, selfish sister, and
weak, wayward brother, Little Dorrit's life was
singularly free from taint; her heart was full
of service and love.

And so, in spite of her small stature and
want of strength, she toiled and planned, and
soon became the real head of this poor, fallen
house.

At thirteen, she could read and keep accounts—that
is, could put down in words and figures
how much the bare necessaries that they wanted
would cost, and how much less they had to buy
them with.  She had been, by snatches of a few
weeks at a time, to an evening school outside,
and got her sister and brother sent to day
schools during three or four years.  There was
no instruction for any of them at home; but
she knew well—no one better—that her
broken-spirited father could no longer help them.

To these scanty means of improvement, she
added another of her own contriving.  Once,
among the curious crowd of inmates, there
appeared a dancing-master.  Her sister Fanny
had a great desire to learn to dance, and seemed
to have a taste that way.  At thirteen years
old, the Child of the Marshalsea presented
herself to the dancing-master, with a little bag in
her hand, and said timidly, "If you please, I
was born here, sir."

"Oh!  You are the young lady, are you?"
said the man, surveying the small figure and
uplifted face.

"Yes, sir."

"And what can I do for you?"

"Nothing for me, sir, thank you," anxiously
undrawing the strings of the little bag; "but
if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as
to teach my sister cheap—"

"My child, I'll teach her for nothing," said
the dancing-master, shutting up the bag.

He was as good-natured a master as ever
danced to the Insolvent Court, and he kept his
word.  Fanny was so apt a pupil, and made
such wonderful progress that he continued to
teach her after he was released from prison.
In time, he obtained a place for her at a small
theatre.  It was at the same theatre where her
uncle—who was also now a poor man—played
a clarinet for a living; and Fanny left the
Marshalsea and went to live with him.

The success of this beginning gave Little
Dorrit courage to try again, this time on her
own behalf.  She had long wanted to learn
how to sew, and watched and waited for a
seamstress to come to the prison.  At last
one came, and Little Dorrit went to call upon her.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," she said, looking
timidly round the door of the milliner,
whom she found in tears and in bed; "but I
was born here."

Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as
they arrived; for the milliner sat up in bed,
drying her eyes, and said, just as the
dancing-master had said,

"Oh!  *You* are the child, are you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I am sorry I haven't got anything for you,"
said the milliner, shaking her head.

"It's not that, ma'am.  If you please I want
to learn needlework."

"Why should you do that," returned the
milliner, "with me before you?  It has not
done me much good."

"Nothing—whatever it is—seems to have
done anybody much good who comes here," she
returned in all simplicity; "but I want to learn,
just the same."

"I am afraid you are so weak, you see," the
milliner objected.

"I don't think I am weak, ma'am."

"And you are so very, very little, you see,"
continued the milliner.

"Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed,"
returned the Child of the Marshalsea; and so
began to sob over that unfortunate defect of
hers, which came so often in her way.  The
milliner—who was not morose or hard-hearted,
only newly insolvent—was touched, took her
in hand with good-will, found her the most
patient and earnest of pupils, and made her a
cunning workwoman in course of time.

And so, presently, Little Dorrit had the
immense satisfaction of going out to work by the
day, and of supplying her father with many
little comforts which otherwise he would not
have enjoyed.

But her hardest task was in getting her
brother out of prison and into some useful
employment.  The life there had been anything
but good for him; and at eighteen he was idle
and shiftless, not caring to lift a finger for
himself.  In her dilemma, Little Dorrit went to
her old friend, the turnkey.

"Dear Bob," said she, "what is to become of
poor Tip?"

The turnkey scratched his head.  Privately
he had a poor opinion of the young man.

"Well, my dear," he answered, "something
ought to be done with him.  Suppose I try to
get him into the law?"

"That would be so good of you, Bob!"

The turnkey was as good as his word, and by
dint of buttonholing every lawyer who came
through the gate on business, he found Tip a
place as clerk, where the pay was not large, but
the prospects good.

Tip idled away in the law office for six
months, then came back to the prison one evening
with his hands in his pockets and told his
sister he was not going back again.

"Not going back!" she exclaimed.

"I am so tired of it," said Tip, "that I have
cut it."

Tip tired of everything.  With intervals of
Marshalsea lounging, his small second mother,
aided by her trusty friend, got him into a variety
of situations.  But whatever Tip went into,
he came out of tired, announcing that he had
cut it.

Nevertheless, the brave little creature did so
fix her heart on her brother's rescue, that while
he was ringing out these doleful changes, she
pinched and scraped enough together to ship
him for Canada.  When he was tired of nothing
to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even that,
he graciously consented to go to Canada.  And
there was grief in her bosom over parting with
him, and joy in the hope of his being put in a
straight course at last.

"God bless you, dear Tip.  Don't be too
proud to come and see us, when you have made
your fortune."

"All right!" said Tip, and went.

But not all the way to Canada; in fact, not
farther than Liverpool.  After making the
voyage to that port from London, he found
himself so strongly impelled to cut the vessel,
that he resolved to walk back again.  Carrying
out which intention, he presented himself
before her at the expiration of a month, in rags,
without shoes, and much more tired than ever.

At length he found a situation for himself,
and disappeared for months.  She never heard
from him but once in that time, though it was
as well for her peace of mind that she did not.
He was making trades for a tricky horse dealer.

One evening she was alone at work—standing
up at the window, to save the twilight
lingering above the wall—when he opened the
door and walked in.

She kissed and welcomed him; but was
afraid to ask him any question.  He saw how
anxious and timid she was, and appeared sorry.

"I am afraid, Amy, you'll be vexed this
time.  Upon my life I am!"

"I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip.
Have you come back?"

"Why—yes.  But that's not the worst of it."

"Not the worst of it?"

"Don't look so startled, Amy.  I've come
back in a new way.  I'm one of the prisoners
now.  I owe forty pounds."

For the first time in all those years, she sank
under her cares.  She cried, with her clasped
hands lifted above her head, that it would kill
their father if he ever knew it; and fell down
at Tip's graceless feet.

It was easier for Tip to bring her to her
senses, than for her to bring *him* to understand
what a pitiable thing he had done.  But he
agreed to help keep it a secret from their
father; and Little Dorrit toiled harder than
ever, in the hope of one day getting him out
again.

Thus passed the life of the Child of the
Marshalsea until she became a young woman.





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.. _`HOW THE PRISON GATES WERE OPENED`:

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   \II.  HOW THE PRISON GATES WERE OPENED

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Among the ladies for whom Little Dorrit
sewed by the day was a Mrs. Clennam,
a cold, stern person who lived in a cold,
stern house.  Yet she gave the child plenty of
work and paid her fairly well.  So Little Dorrit
was often to be found in some gloomy corner
there, sewing away busily and adding nothing
at all to the few far-away sounds of the quiet
old rooms.

Mrs. Clennam lived alone, except for a dried-up
servant or two, and she herself had lost the
use of her limbs.  So it is no wonder that the
house was gloomy, and that Mrs. Clennam's son
Arthur found it so, when he returned from a
long visit in India.  Arthur Clennam was a
young man who had ideas of his own, and who
had disappointed his mother by refusing to
continue his father's business.  They were not in
sympathy—which made the house seem all the
colder.  But he was kind, open-hearted, and
impulsive.

Though timid Little Dorrit kept as much
in the dark corners as possible, Arthur soon
noticed her, and asked one of the old servants
who she was.  He could learn nothing except
that she was a seamstress who came by the day
to sew, and who went away every night, no one
knew where.  The child interested him, and
he resolved to follow her one evening and learn
where she lived.  He did so, and was amazed
to see her enter the gate of a large forbidding
building,—he did not know what building, as
he had been long abroad.

Just then he saw an old man, in a threadbare
coat, once blue, come tottering along,
carrying a clarinet in a limp, worn-out case.
As this old man was about to enter the
same gate, Arthur stopped him with a question.

"Pray, sir," said he, "what is this place?"

"Ay!  This place?" returned the old man,
staying a pinch of snuff on its road, and
pointing at the place without looking at it.  "This
is the Marshalsea, sir."

"The debtors' prison?"

"Sir," said the old man, with the air of
deeming it not quite necessary to insist upon
that name, "the debtors' prison."

He turned himself about, and went on.

"I beg your pardon," said Arthur, stopping
him once more, "but will you allow me to ask
you another question?  Can any one go in here?"

"Any one can *go in*," replied the old man;
"but it is not every one who can go out."

"Pardon me once more.  Are you familiar
with the place?"

"Sir," returned the old man, squeezing his
little packet of snuff in his hand, and turning
upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt
him, "I am."

"I beg you to excuse me.  I am not impertinently
curious, but have a good object.  Do
you know the name of Dorrit here?"

"My name, sir," replied the old man most
unexpectedly, "is Dorrit."

Arthur pulled off his hat to him.  "Grant
me the favor of half a dozen words.  I have
recently come home to England after a long
absence.  I have seen at my mother's—Mrs. Clennam
in the city—a young woman working
at her needle, whom I have only heard
addressed or spoken of as Little Dorrit.  I have
felt sincerely interested in her, and have had a
great desire to know something more about
her.  I saw her, not a minute before you came
up, pass in at that door."

The old man looked at him attentively.
"Are you in earnest, sir?"

"I do assure you that I am."

"I know very little of the world, sir,"
returned the other, who had a weak and quavering
voice.  "I am merely passing on, like the
shadow over the sun-dial.  It would be worth
no man's while to mislead me; it would really
be too easy—too poor a success, to yield any
satisfaction.  The young woman whom you
saw go in here is my brother's child.  My
brother is William Dorrit; I am Frederick.
You say you have seen her at your mother's
(I know your mother befriends her), you have
felt an interest in her, and you wish to know
what she does here.  Come and see."

He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.

"My brother," said the old man, pausing on
the step, and slowly facing round again, "has
been here many years; and much that happens
even among ourselves, out of doors, is kept
from him for reasons that I needn't enter upon
now.  Be so good as to say nothing of my
niece's working at her needle.  If you keep
within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong.
Now!  Come and see."

Arthur followed him down a narrow entry,
at the end of which a key was turned, and a
strong door was opened from within.  It
admitted them into a lodge, or lobby, across which
they passed, and so through another door and
a grating into the prison.  The old man always
plodding on before, turned round, in his slow,
stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the
turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion.
The turnkey nodded; and the companion passed
in without being asked whom he wanted.

The night was dark; and the prison lamps in
the yard, and the candles in the prison windows
faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old
curtain and blind, had not the air of making
it lighter.  A few people loitered about, but
the greater part of the population was within
doors.  The old man taking the right-hand side
of the yard, turned in at the third or fourth
doorway, and began to ascend the stairs.

"They are rather dark, sir, but you will not
find anything in the way," he said.

He paused for a moment before opening the
door on the second story.  He had no sooner
turned the handle, than the visitor saw Little
Dorrit, and understood the reason of her dining
alone, as she always preferred to do.

She had brought the meat home that she
should have eaten herself, and was already
warming it on a gridiron over the fire, for her
father, who, clad in an old gray gown and a
black cap, was awaiting his supper at the table.
A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife,
fork, and spoon, salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass,
and pewter ale-pot.  Such zests as his cayenne
pepper and pickles in a saucer were not wanting.

She started, colored deeply, and turned
white.  The visitor, more with his eyes than
by the slight impulsive motion of his hand,
entreated her to be reassured and to trust him.

"I found this gentleman," said the
uncle—"Mr. Clennam, William, son of Amy's
friend—at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going
by, of paying his respects, but hesitating
whether to come in or not.  This is my brother
William, sir."

"I hope," said Arthur, very doubtful what
to say, "that my respect for your daughter may
explain and justify my desire to be presented
to you, sir."

"Mr. Clennam," returned the other, rising,
taking his cap off in the flat of his hand, and
so holding it, ready to put on again, "you do
me honor.  You are welcome, sir."  With a
low bow.  "Frederick, a chair.  Pray sit
down, Mr. Clennam."

He put his black cap on again as he had
taken it off, and resumed his own seat.  There
was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage
in his manner.

These were the ceremonies with which he
received all visitors.

"You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir.
I have welcomed many gentlemen to these
walls.  Perhaps you are aware—my daughter
Amy may have mentioned—that I am the
Father of this place."

"I—so I have understood," said Arthur,
dashing at the assertion.

"You know, I dare say, that my daughter
Amy was born here.  A good girl, sir, a dear
girl, and long a comfort and support to me.
Amy, my dear, put the dish on; Mr. Clennam
will excuse the primitive customs to which
we are reduced here.  Is it a compliment
to ask you if you would do me the honor, sir, to—"

"Thank you," returned Arthur.  "I have dined."

She filled her father's glass, put all the
little matters on the table ready to his hand,
and then sat beside him while he ate his
supper.  She put some bread before herself,
and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur
saw she was troubled and took nothing.  Her
look at her father, half admiring him and
proud of him, half-ashamed for him, all
devoted and loving, went to his inmost heart.

The Father of the Marshalsea condescended
towards his brother as an amiable, well-meaning
man; a private character, who had not
arrived at distinction.

"Frederick," said he, "you and Fanny sup
at your lodgings to-night, I know.  What have
you done with Fanny, Frederick?"

"She is walking with Tip."

"Tip—as you may know—is my son, Mr.
Clennam.  He has been a little wild, and
difficult to settle, but his introduction to the
world was rather"—he shrugged his shoulders
with a faint sigh, and looked round the room—"a
little adverse.  Your first visit here, sir?"

"My first."

"You could hardly have been here since your
boyhood without my knowledge.  It very seldom
happens that anybody—of any pretensions—any
pretensions—comes here without being
presented to me."

"As many as forty or fifty in a day have been
introduced to my brother," said Frederick,
faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.

"Yes!" the Father of the Marshalsea
assented.  "We have even exceeded that number.
On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite
a reception!"

Thus the old man prattled on, proud of his
queer distinction, and yet showing traces of
the fine gentleman he once was.  And while
he listened, Arthur felt his heart throb with
sympathy for the brave girl, sitting silent
across the table, who had so long borne the
burdens of this ruined family upon her frail
shoulders.

He could not say anything to her, here, but
when he rose to take his leave, he asked her
by a look to come with him to the gate.  He
felt he must make some explanation for thus
intruding and learning her secret.

"Pray forgive me," he said, when they
paused alone at the gate.  "I followed you
to-night from my mother's.  I should not have
done so, but, believe me, it was only in the
hope of doing you some service.  What I have
seen here, in this short time, has increased
ten-fold my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you."

She seemed to take courage while he spoke
to her.

"You are very good, sir.  You speak very
earnestly to me.  But I—but I wish you had
not watched me."

He understood the emotion with which she
said it to arise in her father's behalf; and he
respected it, and was silent.

"Mrs. Clennam has been of great service to
me.  I don't know what we should have done
without the employment she has given me.  I
am afraid it may not be a good return to become
secret with her.  I can say no more to-night,
sir.  I am sure you mean to be kind to us.
Thank you, thank you."

She was so agitated, and he was so moved
by compassion for her, and by deep interest in
her story as it dawned upon him, that he could
scarcely tear himself away.  But the stoppage
of the bell, and the quiet in the prison, were
a warning to depart; and with a few hurried
words of kindness he left her gliding back to
her father.

The next day, Arthur missed Little Dorrit
at his home, and wondered if she might be ill.
The weather was stormy, but she was not usually
hindered by that.  So he walked out toward the
prison to look for her; and was presently
rewarded by seeing her hurrying along in the face
of the gale.

She had just reached the iron bridge, some
distance from the gates, when his voice caused
her to stop short.  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-colored 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 Arthur
Clennam, very nearly adding, "my poor child."

She hurriedly declined, thanking him, and
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.

"But I am glad to have seen you, sir," she
added shyly.  "I did not want you to think
that we were ungrateful for your interest and
kindness, last night.  And, besides, I had
something else to say—"

She paused as if unable to go on.

"To say to me—" he prompted.

"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.
He is very much respected.  Everybody who
comes in is glad to know him.  He is more
courted than any one 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.  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
many good friends there, and have spent many
happy hours."

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 was not sure of any names, but
she had heard her father mention several people
with whom he said he once had dealings.  She
told him these names, and Clennam made a
careful note of them.

"It can do no harm," he thought, "to see
some of these people."

The thought did not come so quietly but that
she quickly guessed 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.

But presently an incident happened which
showed him a new side to her life—still of
helpfulness and service.

They were come into the High Street, where
the prison stood, when a voice cried, "Little
mother, little mother!"

Little Dorrit stopped, looking back, when an
excited figure of a strange kind bounced against
them, 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 began to pick up the potatoes,
in which both the others helped.  Maggy picked
up very few potatoes, and a great quantity of
mud.  She was a curious, overgrown creature
of about eight-and-twenty, with a vacant
smiling face and a tattered shawl.  She seemed
twice as large as the child to whom she
evidently looked for protection and called "little
mother."

Arthur Clennam looked with the expression
of one saying, "May I ask who this is?"  Little
Dorrit, whose hand Maggy had begun to fondle,
answered in words.  They were under a gateway
into which the majority of the potatoes had
rolled.

"This is Maggy, sir."

"Maggy, sir," echoed the personage
presented.  "Little mother!"

"She is the granddaughter—"

"Granddaughter," echoed Maggy.

"Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long
time.  Maggy, how old are you?"

"Ten, mother," said Maggy.

"You can't think how good she is, sir," said
Little Dorrit, with infinite tenderness.

"Good *she* is," echoed Maggy, transferring
the pronoun in a most expressive way from
herself to her little mother.

"Or how clever," said Little Dorrit.  "She
goes on errands as well as any one."  Maggy
laughed.  "And is as trustworthy as the Bank
of England."  Maggy laughed.  "She earns
her own living entirely.  Entirely, sir!" in a
lower and triumphant tone.  "Really does!"

"What is her history!" asked Clennam.

"Think of that, Maggy!" said Little Dorrit,
taking Maggy's two large hands and clapping
them together.  "A gentleman from thousands
of miles away, wanting to know your history!"

"*My* history?" cried Maggy.  "Little mother."

"She means me," said Little Dorrit, rather
confused; "she is very much attached to me.
Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as
she should have been; was she, Maggy?  When
Maggy was ten years old," she continued, "she
had a bad fever, sir, and has never grown any
older since."

"Ten years old," said Maggy, nodding her
head.  "But what a nice hospital!  So
comfortable, wasn't it?  Oh, so nice it was.
Such a Ev'nly place!"

"She had never been at peace before, sir,"
continued the young girl, turning towards
Arthur for an instant and speaking low, "and
she always runs off upon that."

"Such beds there is there!" cried Maggy.
"Such lemonades!  Such oranges!  Such
d'licious broth and wine!  Such Chicking!  Oh,
*ain't* it a delightful place to go and stop at!"

"So Maggy stopped there as long as she
could," said Little Dorrit, in her former tone
of telling a child's story, the tone designed for
Maggy's ear; "and at last, when she could stop
there no longer, she came out.  Then, because
she was never to be more than ten years old,
however long she lived—"

"However long she lived," echoed Maggy.

"And because she was very weak—indeed,
was so weak that when she began to laugh she
couldn't stop herself—which was a great
pity—"

Maggy grew mighty grave of a sudden.

"Her grandmother did not know what to do
with her, and for some years was very unkind
to her indeed.  At length, in course of time,
Maggy began to take pains to improve herself,
and to be very attentive and very industrious;
and by degrees was allowed to come in and out
as often as she liked, and got enough to do to
support herself, and does support herself.  And
that," said Little Dorrit, clapping the two
great hands together again, "is Maggy's
history, as Maggy knows!"

Ah! that was all the history, as Little Dorrit
told it.  But Arthur, reading between the
lines, saw in Maggy's absolute love and
devotion the weeks and months of toil and care on
the part of a pitying faithful child whose own
burden seemed great enough without carrying
others.  The dirty gateway with the wind and
rain whistling through it, and the basket of
muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or
taken up, never seemed the common hole it
really was, when he looked back to it by these
lights.  Never, never!

.. vspace:: 2

Thereafter, Arthur Clennam, who was a man
of some means, devoted a great part of his time
to tracing out the Dorrit records.  He went
from one government office to another—a long,
weary round of them—before he could get any
light on the matter.  He employed an agent
whose specialty was to search out lost estates.
And at last, after several months, their
combined efforts were rewarded.

Mr. Dorrit was found to be heir-at-law to a
large estate that had long lain unknown,
unclaimed, and growing greater.  His right to it
was cleared up by this skilful agent; so that
all Mr. Dorrit had to do, now, would be to
discharge his debts, and he would be a free man.

When Arthur was convinced of this surprising
fortune, he hastened first to Little Dorrit,
whom he wished to see alone.  But before he
could say a word, his face told her that
something unusual was afoot.

Hastily dropping her sewing, she cried,
"Mr. Clennam!  What's the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing!  That is—nothing bad.
I have come to tell you good news."

"Good fortune?"

"Wonderful fortune!"

Her lips seemed to repeat the words, but no
sound came.

"Dear Little Dorrit," he said, "your father—"

The ice of the pale face broke at the word,
and little lights of expression passed all over it.
They were all expressions of pain.  Her breath
was faint and hurried.  Her heart beat fast, but
he saw that the eyes appealed to him to go on.

"Your father can be free within this week.
He does not know it; we must go to him from
here, to tell him of it.  Your father will be
free within a few days.  Remember we must go
to him, from here, to tell him of it!"

That brought her back.  Her eyes were
closing, but they opened again.

"This is not all the good fortune.  This is
not all the wonderful good fortune, Little
Dorrit.  Shall I tell you more?"

Her lips shaped "Yes."

"He will be a rich man: A great sum of
money is waiting to be paid over to him as
his inheritance; you are all henceforth very
wealthy.  Bravest and best of children, I thank
Heaven that you are rewarded!"

She turned her head towards his shoulder,
and raised her arm towards his neck; then cried
out, "Father!  Father!  Father!" and swooned away.

The housekeeper came running in at this,
and Little Dorrit was soon revived, smiling
bravely at her own weakness.  But the news
had been too much for her.  It was the dream
of her lifetime—come true!

"Come!" she exclaimed, "we must not lose
a moment, but must hasten to my father!"

When the turnkey, who was on duty, admitted
them into the lodge, he saw something
in their faces which filled him with astonishment.
He stood looking after them, when they
hurried into the prison, as though he perceived
that they had come back accompanied by a
ghost apiece.  Two or three debtors whom they
passed, looked after them too, and presently
joining the turnkey, formed a little group on
the lodge steps, in the midst of which there
originated a whisper that the Father was going
to get his discharge.  Within a few minutes it
was heard in the remotest room in the prison.

Little Dorrit opened the door from without,
and they both entered.  Her father was sitting
in his old gray gown, and his old black cap, in
the sunlight by the window, reading his
newspaper.  His glasses were in his hand, and he
had just looked round; surprised at first, no
doubt, by her step upon the stairs, not expecting
her until night; surprised again, by seeing
Arthur Clennam in her company.  As they
came in, the same unwonted look in both of
them, which had already caught attention in
the yard below, struck him.  He did not rise
or speak, but laid down his glasses and his
newspaper on the table beside him, and looked
at them with his mouth a little open, and his
lips trembling.  When Arthur put out his
hand, he touched it, but not with his usual
state; and then he turned to his daughter, who
had sat down close beside him with her hands
upon his shoulder, and looked attentively in
her face.

"Father!  I have been made so happy this
morning!"

"You have been made so happy, my dear?"

"By Mr. Clennam, father.  He brought me
such joyful and wonderful intelligence about you!"

Her agitation was great, and the tears rolled
down her face.  He put his hand suddenly to
his heart, and looked at Clennam.

"Compose yourself, sir," said Clennam, "and
take a little time to think.  To think of the
brightest and most fortunate accidents of life.
We have all heard of great surprises of joy.
They are not at an end."

"Mr. Clennam?  Not at an end?  Not at an
end for—"  He touched himself upon the
breast, instead of saying "me."

"No," returned Clennam.

He looked at Clennam, and, so looking at
him, seemed to change into a very old haggard
man.  The sun was bright upon the wall
beyond the window, and on the spikes at the top.
He slowly stretched out the hand that had
been upon his heart, and pointed at the wall.

"It is down," said Clennam.  "Gone!"

He remained in the same attitude, looking
steadfastly at him.

"And in its place," said Clennam, slowly
and distinctly, "are the means to possess and
enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut
out.  Mr. Dorrit, there is not the smallest
doubt that within a few days you will be free,
and highly prosperous.  I congratulate you with
all my soul on this change of fortune, and on the
happy future into which you are soon to carry
the treasure you have been blessed with here—the
best of all the riches you can have elsewhere—the
treasure in the dear child at your side."

With those words, he pressed Mr. Dorrit's
hand and released it; and his daughter, laying
her face against his, encircled him in the hour
of his prosperity with her arms, as she had in
the long years of his adversity encircled him
with her love and toil and truth; and poured
out her full heart in gratitude, hope, joy,
blissful ecstasy, and all for him.

"I shall see him, as I never saw him yet.  I
shall see my dear father, with the dark cloud
cleared away.  I shall see him, as my poor
mother saw him long ago.  Oh, my dear, my
dear!  Oh, father, father!  Oh, thank God,
thank God!"

Mr. Dorrit came slowly out of the daze into
which he had seemed to fall.  To divert his
mind, Arthur told him how the good fortune
had been found through the skill of an agent.

"He shall be rewarded!" he exclaimed,
starting up.  "Every one shall be—ha!—handsomely
rewarded!  Every cent I owe shall
be paid.  Oh! can this be true?  A freeman,
and all my debts paid!  Give me my purse, Amy!"

He clutched it as if it were already overflowing
with gold, and paced rapidly up and down
the room.  Just then a great cheering arose in
the prison yard.

"The news has spread already," said
Clennam, looking down from the window.
"Will you show yourself to them, Mr. Dorrit?
They are very earnest, and evidently wish it."

"I—hum—ha—I confess I could have
desired, Amy, my dear," he said, jogging about
in a more feverish flutter than before, "to have
made some change in my dress first, and to have
bought a—hum—a watch and chain.  But if
it must be done as it is, it—-ha—it must be
done.  Fasten the collar of my shirt, my dear.
Mr. Clennam, would you oblige me—hum—with
a blue neckcloth you will find in that
drawer at your elbow.  Button my coat across
at the chest, my love.  It looks—ha—it looks
broader, buttoned."

With his trembling hand he pushed his gray
hair up, and then, taking Clennam and his
daughter for supporters, appeared at the
window leaning on an arm of each.  The inmates
cheered him very heartily, and he kissed his
hand to them with great urbanity and protection.
When he withdrew into the room again,
he said "Poor creatures!" in a tone of much
pity for their miserable condition.

Presently he said, unexpectedly:

"Mr. Clennam, I beg your pardon.  Am I to
understand, my dear sir, that I could—ha—could
pass through the lodge at this moment,
and—hum—take a walk?"

"I think not, Mr. Dorrit," was the unwilling
reply.  "There are certain forms to be
completed; and although your detention here is
now in itself a form, I fear it has to be observed
for a few hours longer."

"A few hours, sir," he returned in a sudden
passion.  "You talk very easily of hours,
sir!  How long do you suppose, sir, that an
hour is to a man who is choking for want of air?"

It was the cry of a man who had been
imprisoned for nearly a quarter of a century.

Little Dorrit had been thinking too.  After
softly putting his gray hair aside, and touching
his forehead with her lips, she looked towards
Arthur, who came nearer to her, and pursued in
a low whisper the subject of her thoughts.

"Mr. Clennam, will he pay all his debts
before he leaves here?"

"No doubt.  All."

"All the debts for which he has been imprisoned
here, all my life and longer?"

"No doubt."

There was something of uncertainty and
remonstrance in her look; something that was
not all satisfaction.  He wondered to detect it,
and said:

"Are you not glad?"

"It seems to me hard," said Little Dorrit,
"that he should have lost so many years and
suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts
as well.  It seems to me hard that he should
pay in life and money both."

"My dear child—" Clennam was beginning.

"Yes, I know I am wrong," she pleaded
timidly, "don't think any worse of me; it has
grown up with me here."

The prison, which could spoil so many things,
had tainted Little Dorrit's mind no more than
this.  It was the first speck Clennam had ever
seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw,
of the prison atmosphere upon her.

He thought this, and forebore to say another
word.  With the thought, her purity and goodness
came before him in their brightest light.
The little spot made them the more beautiful.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD`:

.. _`MY EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS`:

.. class:: center x-large bold

   THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   \I.  MY EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS

.. vspace:: 2

The first things that I seem to remember
are the figure of my mother with her
pretty hair and youthful face, and
Peggotty, our faithful servant, large of figure,
black of eye, and with cheeks and arms so hard
and red that I wondered the birds didn't peck
them in preference to apples.  I believe I can
remember these two at a little distance apart,
dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or
kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from
the one to the other.  My father I never saw,
for he died before I was born.

What else do I remember?  Let me see.
There comes to me a vision of our quaint cosy
little home, the "Rookery."  On the ground
floor is Peggotty's kitchen, opening into a back
yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in the
centre, without any pigeons in it; a great
dog-kennel in a corner, without any dog; and a
quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me,
walking about, in a ferocious manner.  There is
one cock who gets upon a post to crow, and
seems to take particular notice of me as I look
at him through the kitchen window, who makes
me shiver, he is so fierce.  Of the geese
outside the gate who come waddling after me with
their long necks stretched out when I go that
way, I dream fearfully at night.

Here is a long passage leading from Peggotty's
kitchen to the front door.  A dark storeroom
opens out of it, and that is a place to be
run past at night; for I don't know what may
be among those tubs and jars and old tea-chests,
in which there is the smell of soap, pickles,
pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one whiff.
Then there are the two parlors: the parlor in
which we sit of an evening, my mother and
I and Peggotty—for Peggotty is quite our
companion, when her work is done and we
are alone—and the best parlor where we sit
on a Sunday; grandly but not so comfortably.

And now I see the outside of our house, with
the latticed bedroom windows standing open to
let in the sweet-smelling air, and the ragged old
rooks'-nests still dangling in the elm trees at the
bottom of the front garden.  Now I am in the
garden at the back, beyond the yard where the
empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are—a
very preserve of butterflies, as I remember it,
with a high fence, and a gate and padlock;
where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and
richer than fruit has ever been since, in any other
garden, and where my mother gathers some in
a basket, while I stand by, bolting gooseberries
slyly, and trying to look unmoved.

A great wind rises, and the summer is gone
in a moment.  We are playing in the winter
twilight, dancing about the parlor.  When my
mother is out of breath and rests herself in an
elbow-chair, I watch her winding her bright curls
round her fingers and straightening her waist,
and nobody knows better than I do that she likes
to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty.

That is among my very earliest impressions,—that,
and a sense that we were both a little
afraid of Peggotty, and submit ourselves in most
things to her direction.

Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the
parlor fire, alone.  I had been reading to
Peggotty about crocodiles.  I must not have read
very clearly, for I remember she had a cloudy
impression that they were a sort of vegetable.
I was tired of reading, and sleepy; but having
leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother
came home from spending the evening at a
neighbor's, I would rather have died upon my
post than have gone to bed.

We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun
with alligators, when the bell rang.  We went
out to the door; and there was my mother
looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with
her a gentleman with beautiful black hair and
whiskers, who had walked home with us from
church last Sunday.

As my mother stooped down on the threshold
to take me in her arms and kiss me, the
gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little
fellow than a monarch—or something like that.

"What does that mean?" I asked him, over
her shoulder.

He patted me on the head; but somehow, I
didn't like him or his deep voice, and I was
jealous that his hand should touch my mother's
in touching me—which it did.  I put it away
as well as I could.  My mother gently chid me
for being rude; and, keeping me close to her
shawl, turned to thank the gentleman for
bringing her home.

From the moment that I first saw the
gentleman with the black whiskers, I held a deep
instinctive dislike to him.  And I am sure Peggotty
agreed with me, from some remarks I chanced
to hear her utter to my mother.  But
Mr. Murdstone—that was his name—began coming
often to the Rookery, and exerted himself always
to be agreeable to me, calling me a fine boy and
patting me on the head; so I tried to think
myself very ungrateful.  But still I could not
make myself like him.  The sight of him made
me fear that something was going to happen—I
didn't know what.

Not long after that, when Peggotty and I
were sitting alone, she darning and I reading
farther in the crocodile book,—for my mother
was out, as she often was, with Mr. Murdstone,—she
bit off a thread and asked:

"Master Davy, how should you like to go
along with me and spend a fortnight at my
brother's at Yarmouth?  Wouldn't that be a
treat?"

"Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?"
I inquired doubtfully.

"Oh, what an agreeable man he is!" cried
Peggotty, holding up her hands.  "Then there's
the sea; and the boats and ships; and the
fishermen; and the beach; and 'Am to play with—"

Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, but she
spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar.

I was flushed by her summary of delights, and
replied that it would indeed be a treat, but what
would my mother say?

"Why, then, I'll as good as bet a guinea," said
Peggotty, intent upon my face, "that she'll let
us go.  I'll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever
she comes home.  There now!"

"But what's she to do while we're away?"
said I, putting my small elbows on the table to
argue the point.  "She can't live by herself."

If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a
sudden, in the heel of that stocking, it must
have been a very little one indeed, and not worth
darning.

"I say!  Peggotty!  She can't live by herself,
you know."

"Oh, bless you!" said Peggotty, looking at
me again at last.  "Don't you know?  She's
going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Grayper.
Mrs. Grayper's going to have a lot of company."

Oh!  If that was it, I was quite ready to go.  I
waited, in the utmost impatience, until my mother
came home from Mrs. Grayper's (for it was
that identical neighbor), to ascertain if we
could get leave to carry out this great idea.
Without being nearly so much surprised as I
had expected, my mother entered into it readily;
and it was all arranged that night, and my
board and lodging during the visit were to be
paid for.

The day soon came for our going.  It was
such an early day that it came soon, even to
me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half
afraid that an earthquake or a fiery mountain,
or some other accident might stop the expedition.
We were to go in a carrier's cart, which
departed in the morning after breakfast.  I
would have given any money to have been
allowed to wrap myself up over-night, and sleep
in my hat and boots.

It touches me nearly now, although I tell it
lightly, to recollect how eager I was to leave my
happy home; to think how little I suspected
what I did leave for ever.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier
began to move, my mother ran out at the gate,
and called to him to stop, that she might kiss
me once more.  I am glad to dwell upon the
earnestness and love with which she lifted up
her face to mine.

As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone
came up to where she was, and chided her
for being so moved.  I was looking back round
the awning of the cart, and wondered what
business it was of his.  Peggotty, who was also
looking back on the other side, seemed anything but
satisfied, as the face she brought back into the
cart denoted.

The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the
world, I thought, as he shuffled along with his
head down.  But Peggotty had brought along a
basket of refreshments which would have lasted
us handsomely for a journey three times as long.
And at last we drove up to the Yarmouth tavern,
where we found Ham awaiting us.  He was a
huge, strong fellow, about six feet high, with a
simple, good-natured face.

He put me upon his shoulder, and my box
under his arm, and trudged away easily down a
lane littered with shipbuilders' odds and ends,
past forges, yards and gas works, till we came
out upon an open waste of sand, with the sea
pounding upon it and eating away at it.  Then
Ham said,

"Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy!"

I looked in all directions, as far as I could,
and away at the sea, but no house could *I* make
out.  There was a black barge, or some other
kind of boat, not far off, high and dry on the
ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for
a chimney and smoking very cosily; but nothing
else in the way of a house that was visible to me.

"That's not it?" said I.  "That ship-looking
thing?"

"That's it, Mas'r Davy," returned Ham.

If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and
all, I suppose I could not have been more
charmed with the idea of living in it.  There
was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was
roofed in, and there were little windows in it;
but the charm of it was that it was a *real boat*
which had no doubt been upon the water
hundreds of times, and which had never been
intended to be lived in on dry land.

It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as
possible.  There was a table, and a Dutch clock,
and a chest of drawers, and a tea-tray with a
painting on it.  The tray was kept from tumbling
down by a Bible; and the tray, if it had tumbled
down, would have smashed a quantity of cups
and saucers and a tea-pot around the book.  On
the walls there were some colored pictures,
framed and glazed, of scripture subjects.  There
were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling
whose use I did not know; and some lockers
and boxes scattered around, which served for seats.

One thing I particularly noticed in this
delightful house was the smell of fish, which was
so searching that when I took out my
pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it smelt
exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster.  On
my whispering this to Peggotty, she informed
me that her brother dealt in lobsters, crabs, and
crawfish; and I afterwards found that a heap of
these creatures, in a state of wonderful confusion
with one another, and never leaving off pinching
whatever they laid hold of, were usually to be
found in a little wooden lean-to where the pots
and kettles were kept.

We were welcomed by a very civil woman in
a white apron, whom I had seen courtesying at
the door when I was on Ham's back, about a
quarter of a mile off; likewise by a most beautiful
little girl with a necklace of blue beads, who
wouldn't let me kiss her when I offered to, but
ran away and hid herself.

By and by, when we had dined in a sumptuous
manner off boiled fish, melted butter, and
potatoes, with a chop for me, a hairy man with
a very good-natured face came home.  As he
called Peggotty "Lass," and gave her a hearty
smack on the cheek, I had no doubt that he was
her brother; and so he turned out—being
presently introduced to me as Mr. Peggotty, the
master of the house.

"Glad to see you, sir," said Mr. Peggotty.
"You'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us
ready."

I thanked him and replied that I was
sure I should be happy in such a delightful
place.

The civil woman with the white apron was
Mrs. Gummidge, an old widowed lady who
kept the boat-house in fine order.  The little
girl was Emily, a niece of Mr. Peggotty's.  She
had never seen her father, just as I had never
seen mine—which was our first bond of
sympathy.  She had lost her mother, too; and as
we played together happily in the sand, I told
her all about my mother and how we had only
each other and I was going to grow up right
away to take care of her.

Of course I was quite in love with little
Emily.  I am sure I loved her quite as truly as
one could possibly love.  And I made her
confess that she loved me.  So when the golden
days flew by and the time of parting drew near,
our agony of mind was intense.  The farewells
were very tearful; and if ever in my life I had a
void in my heart, I had one that day.

I am ashamed to confess that the delightful
fortnight by the sea had driven out all thoughts
of home.  But no sooner were we on the return
journey, than the home longing came crowding
in upon me tenfold.  I grew so excited to see
my mother, that it seemed as if I couldn't wait
for that blundering old cart.  But Peggotty,
instead of sharing in these transports, tried to
check them, though very kindly, and looked
confused and out of sorts.

The Rookery would come, however, in spite
of her, when the carrier's horse pleased—and
did.  How well I recollect it, on a cold, gray
afternoon, with a dull sky threatening rain!

The door opened, and I sprang in, half laughing
and half crying as I looked for my mother.
It was not she who met me, but a strange
servant.

"Why, Peggotty!" I said, ruefully, "isn't
she come home?"

"Yes, yes, Master Davy," said Peggotty.
"She's come home.  Wait a bit, Master Davy,
and I'll—I'll tell you something."

"Peggotty!" said I, quite frightened.
"What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter, bless you, Master
Davy dear!" she answered, with an air of
cheerfulness.

"Something's the matter, I'm sure.  Where's
mamma?"

"Master Davy," said Peggotty, untying her
bonnet with a shaking hand, and speaking in a
breathless sort of way; "what do you think?
You have got a Pa!"

I trembled, and turned white.  Something—I
don't know what, or how—connected with
my father's grave in the churchyard, and the
raising of the dead, seemed to strike me like an
unwholesome wind.

"A new one," said Peggotty.

"A new one?" I repeated.

Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing
something that was very hard, and, putting
out her hand, said,

"Come and see him."

"I don't want to see him."

"And your mamma," said Peggotty.

I ceased to draw back, and we went straight
to the best parlor, where she left me.  On one
side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other,
Mr. Murdstone.  My mother dropped her
work, and arose hurriedly but timidly, I thought.
"Now, Clara, my dear," said Mr. Murdstone,
"recollect! control yourself.  Davy boy, how
do you do?"

I gave him my hand.  Then I went and
kissed my mother; she kissed me, patted me
gently on the shoulder, and sat down again to
her work.  I could not look at her, I could not
look at him.  I knew quite well that he was
looking at us both; and I turned to the window
and looked out there, at some shrubs that were
drooping their heads in the cold.

As soon as I could, I crept upstairs.  My
old dear bedroom was changed, and I was to
lie a long way off.  I rambled downstairs to
find anything that was like itself, so altered it
all seemed; and roamed into the yard.  I very
soon started back from there, for the empty
dog-kennel was filled up with a great
dog—deep-mouthed and black-haired like Him—and
he was very angry at the sight of me, and
sprang out to get at me.





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.. _`I FALL INTO DISGRACE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \II.  I FALL INTO DISGRACE

.. vspace:: 2

That first lonely evening when I crept
off alone, feeling that no one wanted
me, was the most miserable of my
life.  I rolled up in a corner of my bed and
cried myself to sleep.

Presently I was awakened by somebody saying,
"Here he is!" and uncovering my hot head.
My mother and Peggotty had come to look for
me, and it was one of them who had done it.

"Davy," said my mother, "what's the matter?"

I thought it very strange that she should ask
me, and answered, "Nothing."  I turned over
on my face, I recollect, to hide my trembling
lip, which answered her with greater truth.

"Davy," said my mother.  "Davy, my child!"

I dare say, no words she could have uttered
would have affected me so much, then, as her
calling me her child.  I hid my tears in the
bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand,
when she would have raised me up.

Then I felt the touch of a hand that I knew
was neither hers nor Peggotty's, and slipped to
my feet at the bedside.  It was Mr. Murdstone's
hand, and he kept it on my arm as he said:

"What's this?  Clara, my love, have you
forgotten?  Firmness, my dear!"

"I am very sorry, Edward," said my mother.
"I meant to be very good."

"Go below, my dear," he answered.  "David
and I will come down together."

When we two were left alone, he shut the
door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me
standing before him, looked steadily into my eyes.

"David," he said, making his lips thin, by
pressing them together, "if I have an obstinate
horse or dog to deal with, what do you think
I do?"

"I don't know."

"I beat him.  I make him wince and smart.
I say to myself, 'I'll conquer that fellow'; and
if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I
should do it.  What is that upon your face?"

"Dirt," I said.

He knew it was the mark of tears as well
as I.  But if he had asked the question twenty
times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my
baby heart would have burst before I would have
told him so.

"You have a good deal of intelligence for a
little fellow," he said, with a grave smile that
belonged to him, "and you understood me very
well, I see.  Wash that face, sir, and come down
with me."

"Clara, my dear," he said, when I had done
his bidding, and he walked me into the parlor,
with his hand still on my arm; "you will not be
made uncomfortable any more, I hope.  We
shall soon improve our youthful humors."

What a little thing will change the current of
our lives!  I might have been made another
creature perhaps by a kind word just then.  A
word of welcome home, of assurance that it *was*
home, might have made me respect my new
father instead of hate him.  But the word was
not spoken, and the time for it was gone.

From that time my life was a lonely one.
My mother petted me in secret, but plainly stood
in awe of Mr. Murdstone; and even the dauntless
Peggotty must needs keep her peace.  His
word alone was law.

After a time his sister, Miss Murdstone, came
to live with us.  And from the second day of
her arrival she took charge of the household
keys, and managed things with a firmness second
only to her brother himself.

There had been some talk of my going to
boarding-school.  Mr. and Miss Murdstone had
originated it, and my mother had of course
agreed with them.  Nothing, however, was
concluded on the subject yet, and in the meantime
I learned my lessons at home.

Shall I ever forget those lessons!  They were
presided over nominally by my mother, but
really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were
always present, and found them a favorable
occasion for giving my mother lessons in that
miscalled firmness which was the bane of both
our lives.  I believe I was kept at home for that
purpose.  I had been apt enough to learn, and
willing enough, when my mother and I had lived
alone together.  I can faintly remember learning
the alphabet at her knee.  To this day, when
I look upon the fat black letters in the primer,
the puzzling novelty of their shapes and the easy
good-nature of O and Q and S seem to present
themselves again before me as they used to do.
But they recall no feeling of disgust or
reluctance.  On the contrary, I seem to have walked
along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book,
and to have been cheered by the gentleness
of my mother's voice and manner all the way.

But these solemn lessons which succeeded I
remember as the death-blow to my peace, and a
grievous daily drudgery and misery.  They were
very long, very numerous, very hard,—and I
was generally as much bewildered by them as
I believe my poor mother was herself.

Let me remember how it used to be, and bring
one morning back again.

I come into the second-best parlor after
breakfast with my books and an exercise-book
and a slate.  My mother is ready for me at her
writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone
in his easy-chair by the window, though
he pretends to be reading a book, or as Miss
Murdstone, sitting near my mother, stringing
steel beads.  The very sight of these two has
such an influence over me that I begin to feel
the words I have been at infinite pains to get
into my head all sliding away and going I don't
know where.  I wonder where they do go, by
the bye?

I hand the first book to my mother.  Perhaps
it is a grammar, perhaps a history or geography.
I take a last drowning look at the page as I give
it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing
pace while I have got it fresh.  I trip over a word.
Mr. Murdstone looks up.  I trip over another
word.  Miss Murdstone looks up.  I redden,
tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop.  I
think my mother would show me the book if
she dared, but she does not dare, and she says
softly:

"Oh, Davy!  Davy!"

"Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, "be firm
with the boy.  Don't say 'Oh, Davy, Davy!'  That's
childish.  He knows his lesson, or he
does not know it."

"He does *not* know it," Miss Murdstone interposes,
awfully.

"I am really afraid he does not," says my mother.

"Then you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone,
"you should just give him the book back
and make him know it."

"Yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is
what I intend to do, my dear Jane.  Now, Davy,
try once more, and don't be stupid."

The natural result of this treatment was to
make me sullen, dull, and dogged; and my
temper was not improved by the sense that I
was daily shut out from my mother.

One morning, after about six months of these
lessons, when I went into the parlor with my
books, I found my mother looking anxious, Miss
Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone
binding something round the bottom of a
cane,—a lithe and limber cane, which he left off
binding when I came in, and poised and switched
in the air.

"Now, David," he said, "you must be far
more careful to-day than usual."  He gave the
cane another poise and another switch, and laid
it down beside him with an expressive look and
took up his book.

This was a good freshener to my presence of
mind as a beginning.  I felt the words of my
lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by
line, but by the entire page.  I tried to lay hold
of them; but they seemed, if I may so express
it, to have put skates on and to skim away from
me with a smoothness there was no checking.

We began badly, and went on worse.  I had
come in, with an idea that I was very well
prepared, but it turned out to be quite a mistake.
Book after book was added to the heap of
failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of
us all the time.  And when we came to the last,
my mother burst out crying.

"Clara!" said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice.

Mr. Murdstone laid down his book and stood
up, cane in hand.

"David, you and I will go upstairs," he said.

He walked me up to my room slowly and
gravely, and when we got there, suddenly
twisted my head under his arm.

"Mr. Murdstone!  Sir!" I cried to him.
"Don't!  Pray don't beat me!  I have tried
to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and
Miss Murdstone are by.  I can't indeed!"

"Can't you, indeed, David?" he said.  "We'll
try that."

He had my head as in a vice, but I twined
round him somehow, and stopped him for a
moment, entreating him not to beat me.  It
was only for a moment that I stopped him, for
he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in
the same instant I caught his hand in my mouth,
and bit it through.  It sets my teeth on edge to
think of it!

He beat me then, as if he would have beaten
me to death.  Above all the noise we made, I
heard them running up the stairs, and crying
out—I heard my mother crying out—and
Peggotty.  Then he was gone; and the door
was locked outside; and I was lying, torn and
sore and raging, upon the floor.

How well I recollect, when I became quiet,
what an unnatural stillness seemed to reign
through the whole house!  How well I remember,
when my smart and passion began to cool,
how wicked I began to feel!

I sat listening for a long while, but there was
not a sound.  I crawled up from the floor, and
saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and
ugly that it almost frightened me.  My stripes
were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh,
when I moved; but they were nothing to the
guilt I felt.  It lay like lead upon my breast.

For five days I was imprisoned thus within
my room, seeing no one except Miss Murdstone,
who came to bring me food.  They live like
years in my remembrance.  On the fifth night
I heard my name softly whispered through the
keyhole.

I groped my way to the door, and, putting my
own lips to the keyhole, whispered,

"Is that you, Peggotty, dear?"

"Yes, my own precious Davy," she replied.
"Be as soft as a mouse, or the Cat'll hear us."

I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone,
her room being close by.

"How's mamma, dear Peggotty?  Is she very
angry with me?"

I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her
side of the keyhole, as I was doing on mine,
before she answered, "No.  Not very."

"What is going to be done with me, Peggotty,
dear?  Do you know?"

"School.  Near London."

"When, Peggotty?"

"To-morrow."

"Sha'n't I see mamma?"

"Yes," said Peggotty.  "Morning."

Then she stole away, fearful of surprises.
In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as
usual, and told me I was going to school, which
was not altogether such news to me as she
supposed.  She also informed me that when I was
dressed, I was to come down stairs into the
parlor, and have my breakfast.  There I found
my mother, very pale and with red eyes, into
whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from
my suffering soul.

"Oh, Davy!" she said.  "That you could
hurt any one I love!  Try to be better, pray to
be better!  I forgive you; but I am so grieved,
Davy, that you should have such bad passions
in your heart."

They had persuaded her that I was a wicked
fellow, and she was more sorry for that than for
my going away.  I felt it sorely.  I tried to eat
my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped
upon my bread and butter, and trickled into
my tea.  I saw my mother look at me
sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss
Murdstone, and then look down, or look away.

"Master Copperfield's box there?" said Miss
Murdstone, when wheels were heard at the gate.

I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she;
neither she nor Mr. Murdstone appeared.  My
former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the
door; the box was taken out to his cart and
lifted in.

"Clara!" said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note.

"Yes, my dear Jane," returned my mother.
"Good-bye, Davy.  You are going for your own
good.  Good-bye, my child.  You will come
home in the holidays, and be a better boy.
God bless you!"

Miss Murdstone was good enough to take
me out to the cart, and to say on the way that
she hoped I would repent, before I came to a
bad end; and then I got into the cart, and the
lazy horse walked off with it.

We had not gone half a mile when I was
astonished to see Peggotty burst from a hedge
and climb into the cart.  Not a word did she
say, but she squeezed me tight, crammed a bag
of cakes into my pockets, and put a purse into
my hand.  After a final squeeze she got down
from the cart and ran away as quickly as she
had come.

My pocket-handkerchief was now so wet that
the carrier proposed spreading it out upon the
horse's back to dry.  We did so, and I then had
leisure to look at the purse.  It had three bright
shillings in it from Peggotty, and—more
precious still—two half-crowns folded together
in a bit of paper, on which was written, in
my mother's hand, "For Davy.  With my love."

I was so overcome by this that I asked the
carrier to reach me my handkerchief again, but
he said I had better let it dry first.  I thought
so too, and wiped my eyes on my sleeve this time.

Then the cakes came in for consideration.  I
offered the carrier one which he ate at a gulp,
without the slightest change of expression.

"Did *she* make 'em?" asked the carrier, whose
name, by the way, was Barkis.

"Peggotty, you mean, sir?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Barkis.  "Her."

"Yes, she makes all our pastry, and does all
our cooking."

Mr. Barkis said nothing for some moments.  Then—

"Perhaps you might be writin' to her, later on?"

"Yes, indeed," I said.

"Then you just say to her that Barkis is
willin'.  Would you?"

"Yes, sir," I replied, considerably puzzled by
the message.  And I did deliver it the very first
time I wrote to Peggotty.  I did not then know
that the carrier meant, by being "willing," he
wanted to marry my good Peggotty and was
too shy to say so for himself.

At Yarmouth I changed to the coach for
London; and at London, to still another coach for
Salem, the school.  And so, after a long,
wearisome journey, I reached my new destination.
Another leaf of my life was turned over, and a
fresh one begun.





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.. _`SCHOOL.  STEERFORTH AND TRADDLES`:

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   \III.  SCHOOL.  STEERFORTH AND TRADDLES

.. vspace:: 2

Salem House was a square brick building
with wings.  The schoolroom was
very long, with three rows of desks running
the length of it and bristling all around
with pegs for hats and slates.  Scraps of
copy-books and exercises littered the floor.  The
other students had not yet returned from their
holidays when I took my first peep into this
room, in company with Mr. Mell, one of the
tutors.

Presently I chanced to see a pasteboard sign
lying upon a desk and bearing these words:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   "TAKE CARE OF HIM.
   HE BITES."

.. vspace:: 2

I hurriedly climbed upon the desk, fearful
of a dog underneath; but saw none.

"What are you doing there?" asked Mr. Mell.

"I beg your pardon, sir," I replied.  "If you
please, I'm looking for the dog."

"Dog?  What dog?"

I pointed to the sign.

"No, Copperfield," he said gravely.  "That's
not a dog; that's a boy.  My instructions are
to put this sign on your back.  I'm sorry to do
so, but must do it."

With that, he took me down, and tied the
placard, which was neatly constructed for the
purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and
wherever I went, afterwards, I had the
consolation of carrying it.

What I suffered nobody can imagine.  Whether
it was possible for people to see me or not, I
always fancied that somebody was reading it.
It was no relief to turn round and find nobody;
for wherever my back was, there I imagined
somebody always to be, until at last I positively
began to have a dread of myself as the boy who
*did* bite.

Mr. Creakle, the master of the school, was a
short, thick-set man, and bald on the top of his
head.  He had a little nose and large chin.  He
had lost his voice and spoke almost in a whisper,
which surprised me greatly, for his face always
looked angry, and the exertion of talking made
his thick veins stick out so that he looked
angrier still.

When the boys began to come back I found
my ordeal, on account of the sign on my back,
not quite so great as I had feared; and it was
chiefly on account of the first fellow to arrive,
Tommy Traddles.  Dear Tommy Traddles!
You made a friend of a poor, lonesome,
frightened boy that day, who will always be loyal
to you so long as he lives.

Traddles was a jolly looking boy who laughed
heartily when he first saw the card, as at a great
joke; and he saved me from any further shyness
by introducing me to every boy and saying
gaily, "Look here!  Here's a game!"  Happily,
too, most of the boys came back low-spirited,
and were not very boisterous at my
expense.  Some of them certainly did dance
about me like wild Indians and could not resist
patting me, lest I should bite, and saying, "Lie
down, sir!" and calling me Towzer.  But on
the whole I got through rather easily.

I was not considered as being formally received
into the school, however, until J. Steerforth
arrived.  Before this boy, who was reputed
to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking,
and at least half-a-dozen years my senior, I
was carried as before a magistrate.  He inquired,
under a shed in the playground, into the
particulars of my punishment, and was pleased
to express his opinion that it was "a jolly
shame"; for which I became bound to him
ever afterwards.

Then Steerforth asked how much money I
had; and when I told him, he suggested that it
was the proper thing for a new boy to stand
treat to the others.  I agreed, but felt helpless;
whereupon he kindly volunteered to get the
things for me and smuggle them into my room.
I was a little uneasy about spending my
mother's half-crowns, but didn't dare say so.
I handed them over to him and he procured
the feast and laid it out on my bed, saying,

"There you are, young Copperfield, and a
royal spread you've got!"

I couldn't think of doing the honors of the
feast, at my time of life, while he was by; my
hand shook at the very thought of it.  I begged
him to do me the favor of presiding; and my
request being seconded by the other boys he
acceded to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing
round the viands with perfect fairness, I must
say.  As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the
rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds
and on the floor.

How well I recollect our sitting there, talking
in whispers, or their talking, and my respectfully
listening, I ought rather to say; the moonlight
falling a little way into the room, through
the window, painting a pale window on the
floor, and the greater part of us in shadow,
except when Steerforth struck a match, when
he wanted to look for anything on the board,
and shed a blue glare over us that was gone
directly.

I heard all kinds of things about the school.
I heard that Mr. Creakle was a tartar and
thrashed the boys unmercifully—all except
Steerforth, upon whom he didn't dare lay his
hand.  I heard that Mr. Creakle was very
ignorant, and that Mr. Mell, who was not a bad
sort of fellow, was poorly paid.  All this and
much more I heard in the whispers of that
moonlit room, before we finally betook
ourselves to bed.

From that time on, big handsome Steerforth
took me under his protection, and, for my part,
I was his willing slave.  I would tell him tales
which I had imbibed from my early reading, while
he would help me do my sums and keep the
other boys from tormenting me.  Why he, the
fine head-boy, should have taken notice of me
at all, I don't know.  But I remember I all
but worshipped him with his easy swagger and
lordly air.

The other boy to whom I always owed
allegiance was Traddles.  Poor jolly Traddles!  In
a tight, sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs
look like German sausages, he was at once the
merriest and most miserable of all boys.  He
was always being caned by that fierce
Mr. Creakle, who made all our backs tingle, except
Steerforth's.  After Traddles had got his daily
caning he would cheer up somehow and get
comfort by drawing skeletons all over his slate.
He was always drawing these skeletons, just as
he was always getting caned.  And they did
comfort him somehow, for presently he would
begin to laugh again before his tears were dry.

He was very honorable, Traddles was, and
held it as a solemn duty in the boys to stand by
one another.  He suffered for this on several
occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth
laughed in church, and the Beadle thought
it was Traddles, and took him out.  I see him
now, going away in custody, despised by the
congregation.  He never said who was the real
offender, though he smarted for it next day, and
was imprisoned so many hours that he came
forth with a whole churchyard full of skeletons
swarming all over his Latin Dictionary.  But
he had his reward.  Steerforth said there was
nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and we all
felt that to be the highest praise.  For my part,
I could have gone through a good deal to have
won such a reward.

Although Mr. Creakle's school was not noted
for scholarship, I can confess without vanity
that I did make good progress.  I was naturally
fond of books and a great reader; and now
I had the first fair chance at learning things.
In this I found Mr. Mell, the quiet, gentle tutor,
a constant friend to me.  I shall always remember
him with gratitude.

But Steerforth, I am sorry to say, did not
like the tutor and took no pains to hide his
poor opinion.  Since many of the other boys
followed Steerforth's lead, poor Mr. Mell was
not popular.  Still, nothing especial came of it
until one memorable day when Mr. Creakle
was absent.  The boys seized the chance to be
uproarious, and Mr. Mell could not control
them.  Finally even his patience was exhausted,
and he sprang to his feet and pounded his desk
with a book.

"Silence!" he cried.  "This noise must
cease!  It's maddening!  How can you treat
me this way, boys?"

It was my book that he struck his desk with;
and as I stood beside him, following his eye as
it glanced round the room, I saw the boys all
stop, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid,
and some sorry perhaps.

Steerforth's place was at the bottom of the
school, at the opposite end of the long room.
He was lounging with his back against the wall,
and his hands in his pockets, and looked at
Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up as if he were
whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him.

"Silence, Mr. Steerforth!" said Mr. Mell.

"Silence yourself," said Steerforth, turning
red.  "Whom are you talking to?"

"Sit down," said Mr. Mell.

"Sit down yourself," said Steerforth, "and
mind your business."

There was a titter, and some applause;
but Mr. Mell was so white that there was silence.

"If you think, Steerforth," said Mr. Mell,
"that you can make use of your position of
favoritism here to disobey rules and insult a
gentleman—"

"A what?—where is he?" said Steerforth.

Here somebody cried out, "Shame, J. Steerforth!
Too bad!"  It was Traddles, whom
Mr. Mell instantly routed by bidding him hold
his tongue.

—"To insult one who is not fortunate in life,
sir, and who never gave you the least offence,"
continued Mr. Mell, his lip trembling, "you
commit a mean and base action.  You can sit
down or stand up as you please, sir.
Copperfield, go on."

"Young Copperfield," said Steerforth, coming
forward, "stop a bit.  I tell you what,
Mr. Mell, once for all.  When you take the liberty
of calling men mean and base, or anything
of that sort, you are an impudent beggar.  You
are always a beggar, you know; but when you
do that, you are an impudent beggar."

I am not clear whether he was going to
strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell was going to strike
him, or there was any such intention on either
side.  I saw a rigidity come upon the whole
school as if they had been turned into stone,
and found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us.
Mr. Mell, with his elbows on his desk and his
face in his hands, sat for some moments quite
still.

"Mr. Mell," said Mr. Creakle, shaking him
by the arm; and his whisper was very audible
now; "you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?"

"No, sir," said Mr. Mell.

Mr. Creakle looked hard at him and then
turned to Steerforth.

"Now, sir, will you tell me what this is about?"

Steerforth evaded the question for a little
while; looking in scorn and anger on his
opponent, and remaining silent.  I could not help
thinking what a fine-looking fellow he was, and
how homely and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed
to him.

"What did he mean by talking about favorites,
then?" said Steerforth at length.

"Favorites?" repeated Mr. Creakle, with the
veins in his forehead swelling quickly.  "Who
talked about favorites?"

"He did," said Steerforth.

"And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?"
demanded Mr. Creakle, turning angrily on his
assistant.

"I meant, Mr. Creakle," he returned, in a low
voice, "as I said; that no pupil had a right to
avail himself of his position of favoritism to
degrade me."

"To degrade *you*?" said Mr. Creakle.  "My
stars!  But give me leave to ask you, Mr. What's
your name, whether, when you talk about
favorites, you showed proper respect to me?  To me,
sir," said Mr. Creakle, darting his head at him
suddenly and drawing it back again, "the principal
of this establishment and your employer."

"It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to
admit," said Mr. Mell.  "I should not have done
so if I had been cool."

Here Steerforth struck in.

"Then he said I was mean, and then he said
I was base, and then I called him a beggar.  If
*I* had been cool, perhaps I shouldn't have called
him a beggar.  But I did, and I am ready to take
the consequences of it."

Without considering, perhaps, whether there
were any consequences to be taken, I felt quite
in a glow at this gallant speech.  It made an
impression on the boys, too, for there was a low
stir among them, though no one spoke a word.

"I am surprised, Steerforth,—although your
candor does you honor," said Mr. Creakle, "does
you honor, certainly,—I am surprised, Steerforth,
I must say, that you should attach such
an epithet to any person employed and paid in
Salem House, sir."

Steerforth gave a short laugh.

"That's not an answer, sir," said Mr. Creakle,
"to my remark.  I expect more than that from
you, Steerforth."

If Mr. Mell looked homely in my eyes before
the handsome boy, it would be quite impossible
to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked.

"Let him deny it," said Steerforth.

"Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?" cried
Mr. Creakle.  "Why, where does he go a begging?"

"If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's
one," said Steerforth.  "It's all the same."

"What do you mean?"

"Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify
myself," said Steerforth, "and to say what I
mean,—what I have to say is, that his mother
lives on charity in an almshouse."

Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant with a
severe frown and labored politeness:

"Now you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell.
Have the goodness, if you please, to set
him right before the assembled school."

"He is right, sir, without correction," returned
Mr. Mell, in the midst of a dead silence; "what
he has said is true."

"Be so good then as to declare publicly, will
you," said Mr. Creakle, putting his head on one
side and rolling his eyes round the school,
"whether it ever came to my knowledge until
this moment?"

"I believe not directly," he returned.

"Why, you *know* not," said Mr. Creakle.
"Don't you, man?"

"Sir, I think you knew my circumstances
when I came here, and that a bare living wage—"

"I think, if you come to that," said
Mr. Creakle, with his veins swelling again bigger
than ever, "that you've been in a wrong
position altogether, and mistook this for a charity
school.  Mr. Mell, we'll part if you please.  The
sooner the better."

"There is no time," answered Mr. Mell, rising,
"like the present."

"Sir, to you!" said Mr. Creakle.

"I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and of
all of you," said Mr. Mell, glancing round the
room and patting me gently on the shoulder.
"James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you
is that you may come to be ashamed of what
you have done to-day.  At present I would
prefer to see you anything rather than a friend
to me or to any one in whom I feel an interest."

Then Mr. Mell walked out with his property
under his arm.

Mr. Creakle made a speech, in which he
thanked Steerforth for asserting (though
perhaps too warmly) the independence and
respectability of Salem House; and which he wound
up by shaking hands with Steerforth, while we
gave three cheers,—I did not quite know what
for, but I suppose for Steerforth, and so joined
in them ardently, though I felt miserable.
Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for being
discovered in tears instead of cheers on account
of Mr. Mell's departure: and went back to his
sofa or wherever he had come from.

When he had gone there was an awkward
silence.  Somehow we all felt uncomfortable or
ashamed.  As for Steerforth, he said he was
angry with Traddles and glad he had caught it.

Poor Traddles, who was relieving himself as
usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't
care.  Mr. Mell was ill-used.

"Who has ill-used him, you girl?" said Steerforth.

"Why, *you* have," returned Traddles.

"What have I done?" said Steerforth.

"What have you done?" retorted Traddles.

"Hurt his feelings and lost him his situation."

"His feelings!" repeated Steerforth, disdainfully.
"His feelings will soon get the better of
it, I'll be bound.  His feelings are not like
yours, Miss Traddles.  As to his situation,—which
was a precious one, wasn't it?—do you
suppose I am not going to write home and take
care that he gets some money?  Polly?"

We thought this intention very noble in
Steerforth, whose mother was a widow, and rich, and
would do almost anything, it was said, that he
asked her.  We were all extremely glad to see
Traddles so put down, and exalted Steerforth to
the skies.  But as I look back at it now, I should
rather have been Traddles that day than any
other boy in the room.  And I think the other
boys will say so too.

.. vspace:: 2

I pass over all that happened at school, until
the anniversary of my birthday came round in
March.  Except that Steerforth was more to be
admired than ever, I remember nothing.  He
was going away at the end of the half-year, if
not sooner, and was more spirited and independent
than ever; but beyond this I remember
nothing.  The great event by which that time is
marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed
up all lesser recollections, and to exist alone.

It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned
in from the playground, when Mr. Creakle
entered and said:

"David Copperfield is to go into the parlor."

I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and
brightened at the order.  Some of the boys
about me put in their claim not to be forgotten
in the distribution of the good things, as I got
out of my seat with great alacrity.  But when I
reached the parlor I saw no one except
Mrs. Creakle, who held an open letter in her hand
and looked at me gravely.

"You are too young to know how the world
changes every day," said Mrs. Creakle, "and
how the people in it pass away.  But we all
have to learn it, David; some of us when we
are young, some of us when we are old, some
of us at all times of our lives."

I looked at her earnestly.

"When you came away from home," said Mrs. Creakle,
after a pause, "were they all well?"  After
another pause, "Was your mamma well?"

I trembled without distinctly knowing why,
and still looked at her earnestly, making no
attempt to answer.

"Because," said she, "I grieve to tell you
that I hear this morning your mamma is very ill."

A mist arose between Mrs. Creakle and me,
and her figure seemed to move in it for an
instant.  Then I felt the burning tears run down
my face, and it was steady again.

"She is very dangerously ill," she added.

I knew all now.

"She is dead."

There was no need to tell me so.  I had
already broken out into a desolate cry, and felt
an orphan in the wide world.

She was very kind to me.  She kept me
there all day, and left me alone sometimes;
and I cried and wore myself to sleep, and
awoke and cried again.

The next night I left Salem House, after a
tender adieu to Steerforth, Traddles, and all the
rest.  I little thought that I left the school
never to return.

When I reached home I was in Peggotty's
arms before I got to the door, and she took me
into the house.  Her grief burst out when she
first saw me; but she controlled it soon, and
spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the
dead could be disturbed.  She had not been in
bed, I found, for a long time.  She sat up at
night still, and watched.  As long as her poor
dear pretty was above the ground, she said, she
would never desert her.

Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I
went into the parlor where he was, but sat by
the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in
his elbow-chair.  Miss Murdstone, who was
busy at her writing-desk, which was covered
with letters and papers, gave me her cold
finger-nails, and asked me, in an iron whisper,
if I had been measured for my mourning.

I will not dwell upon the dull, sorrowful days
before and after my dear mother's funeral.  The
house had been cold and quiet enough before,
but was now almost terrifying.  And had it not
been for Peggotty I do not know how I should
have stood it.

But soon even she was denied me.  Miss
Murdstone had never liked her, and now lost
no time in dismissing her from our service.
The single ray of light in this gloomy time is
a little visit I was allowed to make with her to
Yarmouth, to our old friends, Mr. Peggotty,
Ham, and Emily.  The latter was much grown
now, but prettier than ever, and shyer about
letting me kiss her.

And Barkis, the honest carrier, after having
been "willing" all this time, was hugely
gratified to gain a favorable answer from Peggotty.
They were married while I was there, and I was
glad to leave my faithful old nurse so well
provided for.

Then I returned home—no, I cannot say that
word—to Mr. and Miss Murdstone.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \IV.  I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT

.. vspace:: 2

And now I fell into a state of neglect,
which I cannot look back upon
without sorrow.  I was as one alone—apart
from all friendly notice, apart from the
society of all other boys of my own age, apart
from all companionship but my own spiritless
thoughts,—which seems to cast its gloom upon
this paper as I write.

What would I have given to have been sent
to the hardest school that ever was kept—to
have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere?
No such hope dawned upon me.  They disliked
me; and they steadily overlooked me.  I think
Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about
this time; but it is little to the purpose.  He
could not bear me; and in putting me from him
he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion
that I had any claim upon him—and succeeded.

I was not actively ill-used.  I was not beaten,
or starved; but day by day I was made to feel
that I was in the way, and an altogether useless
member of society.  Finally Mr. Murdstone
called me to him one day, and told me that he
could not afford to send me to school, but that
I must go to work for myself.  He had a
partner in the wine trade in London, and I was to
be given a position there.

Accordingly, Miss Murdstone packed me off
without loss of time; and I went to work—at
ten years old—washing bottles in a vile-smelling
warehouse down by the water-side.

There were three or four of us boys, counting
me; and I was shown how to work by an older
lad whose name was Mick Walker, and who
wore a ragged apron and paper cap.  He
introduced me to another boy by the queer name of
Mealy Potatoes.  I discovered, later, that this
youth had started out with another name, but
had been given this one on account of a pale,
mealy complexion.

No words can express the secret agony of my
soul as I sank into this companionship;
compared these associates with those of my happier
childhood—not to say with Steerforth, Traddles,
and the rest of those boys; and felt my
hopes of growing up to be a learned and
distinguished man crushed in my bosom.  The
feeling of being utterly without hope; of the shame
I felt in my position; of the misery it was to
believe that what I had learned would pass away
from me, little by little, never to be brought
back any more; cannot be written.  As often
as Mick Walker went away in the course of that
forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in
which I was washing the bottles.  But I was
careful never to let the others see me in tears.

I was given the splendid salary of seven
shillings[#] a week for my services, and out of that I
had to feed and clothe myself.  My lodgings
were provided for, at the home of a Mr. Micawber,
a portly, dignified man with a large,
shiny bald head and rusty, genteel clothes.
Mr. Micawber was perpetually dodging
creditors while he waited for "something to turn
up," as he expressed it.  But in his way he was
kind to me.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] About $1.68.

.. vspace:: 2

Still I had no one upon earth to go to for
friendship or advice, I must needs skimp and
save to be sure of having enough bread and
cheese to eat; and no one lifted a finger to
help me, a frightened little stranger in a large,
terrifying city.  I look back upon it now as a
horrible dream.  I know that I worked from
morning till night with common men and boys,
a shabby child.  I know that I lounged about
the streets poorly clothed and half starved.  I
know that but for the mercy of God, I might
easily have been—for any other care that was
taken of me—a little thief or vagabond.

But in these darkest days a bright idea came
to me—I don't know when or how, but come
it did, and refused to depart.  I remembered
having heard of an aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood,
my dear father's sister.  I had heard both my
mother and Peggotty speak of her, with some
awe, it is true, as being a rather eccentric
woman, who did not like boys, but still I
resolved to find her.  So I wrote to Peggotty and
asked the address, and also for the loan of half
a guinea.  I had resolved to run away and appeal
to my aunt for protection.

Peggotty's answer soon came with much love
and the half guinea.  She told me that Miss
Betsey lived near Dover, but she couldn't say exactly
where.  This was vague enough, but didn't deter
me in the slightest.  I worked my week out at
the warehouse, and, bidding Mick Walker and
Mealy Potatoes good-bye, ran away forthwith.
I may have had the notion of running all the
way to Dover when I started.  I had a small
box of clothes and the half guinea, but a carter
robbed me of both of them the first day.  So,
reduced to a few odd pence, I made but slow
progress on foot, and sleeping out in the open
by night.

For six days I trudged my weary way, pawning
my coat for food, and not daring to ask aid
from any one, for fear of being seized and sent
back to London.  But at last I limped in upon
the bare white downs near Dover, sunburnt and
in rags.

By dint of inquiries I was directed to Miss
Betsey Trotwood's house, and I lost no time in
going there—a sorry enough figure, as you may
imagine.  It was a neat little cottage looking
out from some cliffs upon the sea.

As I stood at the gate peeping in and wondering
how I had best proceed, a tall, slim lady
came out of the house.  She had a handkerchief
tied over her cap, a pair of gardener's gloves on
her hands, and carried a pruning-knife.

"Go away!" said Miss Betsey (for it was
none other), shaking her head when she saw
me, and making a distant chop in the air with
her knife.  "Go along!  No boys here!"

I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as
she marched to a corner of her garden, and
stooped to dig a root.  Then, without a scrap
of courage, but with a great deal of desperation,
I went softly in and stood beside her, touching
her with my finger.

"If you please, ma'am," I began.

She started and looked up.

"If you please, aunt."

"EH?" exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of
amazement I have never heard approached.

"If you please, aunt, I am your nephew."

"Oh, Lord!" said my aunt, and sat flat down
in the garden-path.

"I am David Copperfield, of the Rookery.  I
used to hear my dear mamma speak of you
before she died.  I have been neglected and
mistreated, and so I ran away and came to you.
I was robbed at first setting out, and have
walked all the way, and have never slept in a
bed since I began the journey."

Here my self-support gave way all at once;
and with a movement of my hands, intended to
show her my ragged state, and call it to witness
that I had suffered something, I broke into a
passion of crying, which I suppose had been
pent up within me all the week.

My aunt, with every sort of expression, sat
on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to
cry; when she got up in a great hurry, collared
me, and took me into the parlor.  Her first
proceeding there was to unlock a tall press,
bring out several bottles, and pour some of the
contents of each into my mouth.  I think they
must have been taken out at random, for I am
sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and
salad dressing.  Then she rang the bell.

"Janet," she said, when her servant came in,
"go upstairs, give my compliments to
Mr. Dick, and say I wish to speak to him."

Mr. Dick proved to be a pleasant-faced man
of whimsical ways, but upon whose advice my
aunt greatly relied.  As he proposed now that
I be given a bath and put to bed, my aunt lost
no time in following these ideas.

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready,
when my aunt, to my great alarm, became in
one moment rigid with wrath, and had hardly
voice to cry out, "Janet!  Donkeys!"

Upon which, Janet came running up the
stairs as if the house were in flames, darted out
on a little piece of green in front, and warned
off two donkeys that had presumed to set hoof
upon it; while my aunt, rushing out of the
house, seized the bridle of a third animal, led
him forth from those sacred precincts, and
boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance.

To this hour I don't know whether my aunt
had any lawful right of way over that patch of
green; but she had settled it in her own mind
that she had, and it was all the same to her.
The one great outrage of her life, demanding
to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a
donkey over that spot.  No matter what she
was doing or saying, a donkey turned the
current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon
him straight.  Jugs of water and watering-pots
were kept in secret places ready to be discharged
on the offending boys; sticks were laid in
ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all
hours; and incessant war prevailed.

Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to
the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious
of the donkeys, understanding how the case
stood, stubbornly delighted in coming that
way.  I only know that there were three alarms
before the bath was ready; and that on the
occasion of the last and most desperate of all,
I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a
sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy
head against her own gate, before he realized
what was the matter.  These interruptions
were the more ridiculous to me, because she
was giving me broth out of a tablespoon at the
time (having firmly persuaded herself that
I was actually starving, and must receive
food at first in very small quantities), and,
while my mouth was yet open to receive the
spoon, she would put it back into the basin,
cry "Janet!  Donkeys!" and go out to the
assault.

The bath was a great comfort.  For I began
to be sensible of acute pains in my limbs from
lying out in the fields, and was now so tired
and low that I could hardly keep myself awake
for five minutes together.  When I had bathed
they enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trousers
belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two
or three great shawls.  What sort of bundle I
looked like, I don't know, but I felt a very hot
one.  Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I
soon fell asleep.

The next morning at breakfast my aunt said,
with a determined shake of her head, "Well,
I've written to him."

"To whom?" I ventured.

"To Mr. Murdstone."

"Does he know where I am, aunt?" I inquired, alarmed.

"I have told him," said my aunt, with a nod.

"Shall I—be—given up to him?" I faltered.

"I don't know," said my aunt.  "We shall see."

"Oh!  I can't think what I shall do," I
exclaimed, "if I have to go back to Mr. Murdstone!"

"I don't know anything about it," said my
aunt, shaking her head.  "I can't say, I am
sure.  We shall see."

My spirits sank under these words, and I
became very downcast and heavy of heart.

For the next few days I felt like a criminal
condemned to die; although my aunt and
Mr. Dick both were very kind to me.  Finally the
day of the expected visit from Mr. Murdstone
arrived, but without bringing him till late in
the afternoon.  Our dinner had been postponed;
but it was growing so late that my aunt had
ordered it to be got ready, when she gave a
sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation,
I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a side-saddle,
ride deliberately over the sacred piece of green,
and stop in front of the house, looking about her.

"Go along with you!" cried my aunt, shaking
her head and her fist out of the window.
"You have no business there.  How dare you
trespass?  Go along!  Oh, you bold-faced thing!"

My aunt was so exasperated by the coolness
with which Miss Murdstone looked about her,
that I really believe she did not know what to
do.  I hastened to tell her who it was, and that
Mr. Murdstone was following behind, but it
made no difference.  She glared at them as they
entered the room in a most terrible way.

"Oh!" said my aunt, "I was not aware at
first to whom I had the pleasure of objecting.
But I don't allow anybody to ride over that turf.
I make no exceptions.  I don't allow anybody
to do it."

"Your regulation is rather awkward to
strangers," said Miss Murdstone.

"*Is* it!" said my aunt.

Mr. Murdstone here cleared his throat and
began, "Miss Trotwood—"

"I beg your pardon," observed my aunt, with
a keen look.  "You are the Mr. Murdstone."

"I am," said Mr. Murdstone.

"You'll excuse my saying, sir," returned my
aunt, "that I think it would have been a much
better and happier thing if you had left that
poor child alone."

Mr. Murdstone colored, and Miss Murdstone
looked as though she could bite nails.

"I received your letter," said Mr. Murdstone,
"and thought it best to see you personally about
this unhappy boy who has run away from his
friends and his position.  I need not tell you
that he has always given us great trouble and
uneasiness.  He is sullen and stubborn and has
a violent temper.  I thought it best that you
should know this."

"It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm
anything stated by my brother," said Miss
Murdstone; "but I beg to observe, that, of all
the boys in the world, I believe this is the worst
boy."

"Strong!" said my aunt, shortly.

"But not at all too strong for the facts,"
returned Miss Murdstone.

"Ha!" said my aunt.  "Well, sir?"

"Upon the death of his mother," continued
Mr. Murdstone, scowling, "I obtained a
respectable place for him—"

"Was it the sort of place you would have put
a boy of your own in?" asked my aunt.

"If he had been my brother's own boy,"
returned Miss Murdstone, striking in, "his
character, I trust, would have been altogether
different."

"Or if the poor child, his mother, had been
alive, he would still have gone into the
respectable business, would he?" said my aunt.

"I believe," said Mr. Murdstone, with a nod
of his head, "that Clara would have disputed
nothing which myself and my sister were agreed
was for the best."

"Humph!" said my aunt.  "Well, sir, what next?"

"Merely this, Miss Trotwood," he returned.
"I am here to take David back—to take him
back unconditionally, and to deal with him as
I think right.  I am not here to make any
promise to anybody.  You may possibly have
some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in
his running away.  Your manner induces me
to think it possible.  Now I must caution you
that if you abet him once, you abet him for good
and all.  I cannot trifle, or be trifled with.  I
am here, for the first and last time, to take him
away.  Is he ready to go?  If he is not, my
doors are shut against him henceforth, and
yours, I take it for granted, are opened to him."

To this address my aunt had listened with
the closest attention, sitting perfectly upright,
with her hands folded on one knee, and looking
grimly on the speaker.  When he had finished,
she turned her eyes so as to command Miss
Murdstone, and said,

"Well, ma'am, have you got anything to remark?"

"Indeed, Miss Trotwood," said Miss Murdstone,
"all that I could say has been so well
said by my brother, that I have nothing to add
except my thanks for your politeness."

This ironical remark, however, was wholly lost.

"And what does the boy say?" said my aunt.
"Are you ready to go, David?"

I answered no, and entreated her not to let
me go.  I said that neither Mr. nor Miss Murdstone
had ever liked me, or had ever been kind
to me.  That they had made my mamma, who
always loved me dearly, unhappy about me, and
that I knew it well, and that Peggotty knew it.
And I begged and prayed my aunt—I forget
in what terms now, but I remember that they
affected me very much then—to befriend and
protect me, for my father's sake.

"Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "what shall I do
with this child?"

"Have him measured for a suit of clothes,
directly," said Mr. Dick, in his usual sudden way.

"Mr. Dick," said my aunt, triumphantly,
"give me your hand, for your common sense is
invaluable."

Having shaken it with great cordiality, she
pulled me towards her, and said to Mr. Murdstone:

"You can go when you like; I'll take my
chance with the boy.  If he's all you say he
is, at least I can do as much for him then as
you have done.  But I don't believe a word of it."

"Miss Trotwood," rejoined Mr. Murdstone,
shrugging his shoulders, as he rose, "if you
were a gentleman—"

"Bah! stuff and nonsense!" said my aunt.
"Don't talk to me!"

"How exquisitely polite!" exclaimed Miss
Murdstone, rising.  "Overpowering, really!"

"Do you think I don't know," said my aunt,
turning a deaf ear to the sister, and continuing
to address the brother, and to shake her head at
him, "what kind of life you must have led that
poor, little woman you cajoled into marrying
you?  Do you think I don't know what a woeful
day it was for her and her boy when *you* first
came in her way?"

And thereupon she read him such a lecture
as I warrant he had never listened to before in
his life, nor ever would again.  He bit his lip
in silence while she lectured, and all the color
left his face.  Miss Murdstone tried to
interrupt the flow of words repeatedly, with no
success at all.  When she had ended—

"Good day, sir," said my aunt, "and good-bye!
Good day to you, too, ma'am," turning
suddenly upon his sister.  "Let me see you
ride a donkey over *my* green again, and as sure
as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll
knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!"

It would require a painter, and no common
painter too, to depict my aunt's face as she
delivered herself of this very unexpected
sentiment, and Miss Murdstone's face as she heard
it.  But the manner of the speech, no less than
the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone,
without a word in answer, discreetly put her
arm through her brother's, and walked haughtily
out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the
window looking after them, prepared, I have
no doubt, to carry her threat into instant
execution.

No attempt at defiance being made, however,
her face gradually relaxed, and became so
pleasant that I was emboldened to kiss and
thank her; which I did with great heartiness,
and with both my arms clasped round her neck.
I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook
hands with me a great many times, and hailed
this happy close of the proceedings with
repeated bursts of laughter.

"You'll consider yourself guardian, jointly
with me, of this child, Mr. Dick," said my aunt.

"I shall be delighted," said Mr. Dick, "to
be the guardian of David's son."

"Very good," returned my aunt, "that's
settled.  I have been thinking, do you know,
Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?"

"Yes, to be sure.  Trotwood Copperfield,"
said Mr. Dick.

My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that
some ready-made clothes, which were purchased
for me the next day, were marked "Trotwood
Copperfield," in her own handwriting, and in
indelible marking-ink, before I put them on.

Thus I began my new life, in a new name,
and with everything new about me.  Now that
the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many
days, like one in a dream.  I never thought
that I had a curious couple of guardians in my
aunt and Mr. Dick.  I never thought of
anything about myself, distinctly.  While a
remoteness had come upon the old life—which
seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable
distance.

In my new life I was to realize some of my
youthful ambitions.  I was to struggle, perhaps,
but I was to succeed.  And I was to find that
my aunt—for all her gruff exterior—had a
heart of gold.

But whatever there was of happiness or of
sorrow, of success or of failure, in my new life,
does not belong to these pages.  The identity
of the child, and of the boy, David Copperfield,
is now forever merged in the personality of
Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire, the Prospective Man.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

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   THE "SILVER FOX FARM" SERIES

.. vspace:: 2

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   BY JAMES OTIS

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THE WIRELESS STATION AT SILVER FOX FARM.

Illustrated by Charles Copeland.  8vo.

A bright, vividly written narrative of the adventures of
Paul Simpson and Ned Bartlett in helping the former's father
start a farm for raising silver foxes on Barren Island, twelve
miles off the Maine coast.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent bold

THE AEROPLANE AT SILVER FOX FARM.

Illustrated by Charles Copeland.  8vo.

An absorbing story of the building and working of an
aeroplane on Barren Island.

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.. class:: noindent bold

BUILDING AN AIRSHIP AT SILVER FOX FARM.

Illustrated by Charles Copeland.  8vo.

Encouraged by their success in aeroplane-building, the boys
of Silver Fox Farm go in for a full-fledged airship.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent bold

AIRSHIP CRUISING FROM SILVER FOX FARM.

Illustrated by Charles Copeland.  8vo.

A further account of the marvels performed by the Silver
Fox Farmers, including the story of the thrilling rescue of a
shipwrecked yachting party by means of their great air-cruiser.

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BOY SCOUT BOOKS

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BOY SCOUTS IN THE MAINE WOODS.
BOY SCOUTS IN A LUMBER CAMP.

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12mo, illustrated.

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OTHER BOOKS BY JAMES OTIS

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FOUND BY THE CIRCUS.

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12mo, illustrated.

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Joel Hurford
Joey at the Fair
Two Stowaways

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12mo, illustrated.

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.. class:: noindent bold white-space-pre-line

A Short Cruise
How the Twins Captured a Hessian
Aunt Hannah and Seth
How Tommy Saved the Barn
Our Uncle the Major
Christmas at Deacon Hackett's

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8vo, illustrated.

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.. class:: noindent bold

Dorothy's Spy

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12mo, illustrated.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center bold white-space-pre-line

THOMAS \Y. CROWELL COMPANY
NEW YORK


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THE BAR B SERIES

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By EDWIN \L. SABIN

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BAR B BOYS;

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OR, THE YOUNG COW-PUNCHERS

A picturesque story of Western ranch life.  Illustrated
by Charles Copeland.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center bold

RANGE AND TRAIL

The Bar B Boys in winter and on the long trail from
New Mexico to the home ranch.  Illustrated by Clarence
Rowe.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center bold

CIRCLE K;

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OR, FIGHTING FOR THE FLOCK

The ranchmen are here engaged in the sheep industry,
and the story has the same real Western flavor.
Illustrated by Clarence Rowe.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center bold

OLD FOUR-TOES;

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OR, HUNTERS OF THE PEAKS

The two boys, Phil and Chet, Grizzly Dan and others,
figure in this fascinating account of hunting, trapping,
and Indian encounters.  Illustrated by Clarence Rowe.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center bold

TREASURE MOUNTAIN;

.. class:: center

OR, THE YOUNG PROSPECTORS

Tells of the locating of an old gold mine near the top
of a mountain peak.  One of the liveliest books in the
series.  Illustrated by Clarence Rowe.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center bold

SCARFACE RANCH;

.. class:: center

OR, THE YOUNG HOMESTEADERS

Two young heroes here take up some government land
and engage most successfully in cattle raising on their
own account.  Illustrated by Clarence Rowe.

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Each Volume 8vo, cloth.

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Also by MR. SABIN

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center bold

PLUCK ON THE LONG TRAIL;

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OR, BOY SCOUTS IN THE ROCKIES

A stirring narrative of packing, trailing, and camping
In the West.  Illustrated by Clarence Rowe.  12mo, cloth.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center bold white-space-pre-line

THOMAS \Y. CROWELL COMPANY
NEW YORK

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