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Thorstein Veblen - "The Theory of the Leisure Class*"

Hermann Hesse - "Siddhartha"

S. A. Reilly, Attorney - "OUR LEGAL HERITAGE"

Martin Ward. - "At the Back of the North Wind, by George MacDonald"

The Old Curiosity Shop

C >> Charles Dickens >> The Old Curiosity Shop




Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at
last at the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an
admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an
important item of the curiosities, and were fully impressed with
the belief that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The
chests were taken out with all convenient despatch, and taken in to
be unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by George and another man
in velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented with turnpike
tickets, were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of red
festoons and other ornamental devices in upholstery work) to the
best advantage in the decoration of the room.

They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were.
As the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the
envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred
herself to assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her
grandfather also was of great service. The two men being well used
to it, did a great deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out
the tin tacks from a linen pocket like a toll-collector's which she
wore for the purpose, and encouraged her assistants to renewed
exertion.

While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose
and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight
in the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all
over, but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare--
dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg,
and a pair of pumps in the winter of their existence--looked in at
the door and smiled affably. Mrs Jarley's back being then towards
him, the military gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her
myrmidons were not to apprise her of his presence, and stealing up
close behind her, tapped her on the neck, and cried playfully
'Boh!'

'What, Mr Slum!' cried the lady of the wax-work. 'Lot! who'd have
thought of seeing you here!'

''Pon my soul and honour,' said Mr Slum, 'that's a good remark.
'Pon my soul and honour that's a wise remark. Who would have
thought it! George, my faithful feller, how are you?'

George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing
that he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering
lustily all the time.

'I came here,' said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley--
''pon my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It
would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little
inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and--
'Pon my soul and honour,' said the military gentleman, checking
himself and looking round the room, 'what a devilish classical
thing this is! by Gad, it's quite Minervian.'

'It'll look well enough when it comes to be finished,' observed Mrs Jarley.

'Well enough!' said Mr Slum. 'Will you believe me when I say it's
the delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've
exercised my pen upon this charming theme? By the way--any
orders? Is there any little thing I can do for you?'

'It comes so very expensive, sir,' replied Mrs Jarley, 'and I
really don't think it does much good.'

'Hush! No, no!' returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand. 'No fibs.
I'll not hear it. Don't say it don't do good. Don't say it. I
know better!'

'I don't think it does,' said Mrs Jarley.

'Ha, ha!' cried Mr Slum, 'you're giving way, you're coming down.
Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask
the old lottery-office-keepers--ask any man among 'em what my
poetry has done for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of
Slum. If he's an honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and
blesses the name of Slum--mark that! You are acquainted with
Westminster Abbey, Mrs Jarley?'

'Yes, surely.'

'Then upon my soul and honour, ma'am, you'll find in a certain
angle of that dreary pile, called Poets' Corner, a few smaller
names than Slum,' retorted that gentleman, tapping himself
expressively on the forehead to imply that there was some slight
quantity of brain behind it. 'I've got a little trifle here, now,'
said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which was full of scraps of paper,
'a little trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the moment, which
I should say was exactly the thing you wanted to set this place on
fire with. It's an acrostic--the name at this moment is Warren,
and the idea's a convertible one, and a positive inspiration for
Jarley. Have the acrostic.'

'I suppose it's very dear,' said Mrs Jarley.

'Five shillings,' returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a
toothpick. 'Cheaper than any prose.'

'I couldn't give more than three,' said Mrs Jarley.

'--And six,' retorted Slum. 'Come. Three-and-six.'

Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet's insinuating manner, and
Mr Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a
three-and-sixpenny one. Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the
acrostic, after taking a most affectionate leave of his patroness,
and promising to return, as soon as he possibly could, with a fair
copy for the printer.

As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the
preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed
shortly after his departure. When the festoons were all put up as
tastily as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered,
and there 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, divers sprightly effigies of
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 intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary
earnestness at nothing.

When Nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight,
Mrs Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and
the child, and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre,
formally invested Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for
pointing out the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her
in her duty.

'That,' said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a
figure at the beginning of the platform, 'is an unfortunate Maid of
Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her
finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood
which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of
the period, with which she is at work.'

All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and
the needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.

'That, ladies and gentlemen,' said Mrs Jarley, 'is jasper
Packlemerton of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen
wives, and destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet
when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and
virtue. On being brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry
for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let
'em off so easy, and hoped all Christian husbands would pardon him
the offence. Let this be a warning to all young ladies to be
particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice.
Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling,
and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared when
committing his barbarous murders.'

When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without
faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the
thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of
dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the
woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and
other historical characters and interesting but misguided
individuals. And so well did Nell profit by her instructions, and
so apt was she to remember them, that by the time they had been
shut up together for a couple of hours, she was in full possession
of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly competent
to the enlightenment of visitors.

Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy
result, and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the
remaining arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage
had been already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with
the inscription she had already seen (Mr Slum's productions), and
a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley
herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company
with his Majesty King George the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary
Queen of Scots, an anonymous gentleman of the Quaker persuasion,
and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the bill for the
imposition of the window duty. The preparations without doors had
not been neglected either; a nun of great personal attractions was
telling her beads on the little portico over the door; and a
brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest
possible complexion, was at that moment going round the town in a
cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.

It now only remained that Mr Slum's compositions should be
judiciously distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find
their way to all private houses and tradespeople; and that the
parody commencing 'If I know'd a donkey,' should be confined to the
taverns, and circulated only among the lawyers' clerks and choice
spirits of the place. When this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had
waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill
composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly proved that
wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged the
sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable lady sat down
to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing
campaign.




CHAPTER 29


Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of
the various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition,
little Nell was not forgotten. The light cart in which the Brigand
usually made his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and
streamers, and the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the
miniature of his beloved as usual, Nell was accommodated with a
seat beside him, decorated with artificial flowers, and in this
state and ceremony rode slowly through the town every morning,
dispersing handbills from a basket, to the sound of drum and
trumpet. The beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and
timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country
place. The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest in
the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be
important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief
attraction. Grown-up folks began to be interested in the
bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in
love, and constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed
in small-text, at the wax-work door.

This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest
Nell should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone
again, and kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the
figures every half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring
audiences. And these audiences were of a very superior
description, including a great many young ladies' boarding-schools,
whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at great pains to conciliate, by
altering the face and costume of Mr Grimaldi as clown to represent
Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when engaged in the composition of
his English Grammar, and turning a murderess of great renown into
Mrs Hannah More--both of which likenesses were admitted by Miss
Monflathers, who was at the head of the head Boarding and Day
Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private
View with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from
their extreme correctness. Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and
without his boots, represented the poet Cowper with perfect
exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, white
shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord
Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it. Miss
Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to
reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select:
observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite
incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a
Dean and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.

Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the
lady of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not
only a peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for
making everybody about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it
may be remarked, is, even in persons who live in much finer places
than caravans, a far more rare and uncommon one than the first, and
is not by any means its necessary consequence. As her popularity
procured her various little fees from the visitors on which her
patroness never demanded any toll, and as her grandfather too was
well-treated and useful, she had no cause of anxiety in connexion
with the wax-work, beyond that which sprung from her recollection
of Quilp, and her fears that he might return and one day suddenly
encounter them.

Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare 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
wax-work 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. Then there were so many of them with their great glassy
eyes--and, as they stood one behind the other all about her bed,
they looked so like living creatures, and yet so unlike in their
grim stillness and silence, that she had a kind of terror of them
for their own sakes, and would often lie watching their dusky
figures until she was obliged to rise and light a candle, or go and
sit at the open window and feel a companionship in the bright
stars. At these times, she would recall the old house and the
window at which she used to sit alone; and then she would think of
poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes,
and she would weep and smile together.

Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to
her grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of
their former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the
change in their condition and of their late helplessness and
destitution. When they were wandering about, she seldom thought of
this, but now she could not help considering what would become of
them if he fell sick, or her own strength were to fail her. He was
very patient and willing, happy to execute any little task, and
glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state, with no
prospect of improvement--a mere child--a poor, thoughtless,
vacant creature--a harmless fond old man, susceptible of tender
love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions,
but alive to nothing more. It made her very sad to know that this
was so--so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat idly by,
smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he
caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was
fond of doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple
questions, yet patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost
conscious of it too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant--
so sad it made her to see him thus, that she would burst into
tears, and, withdrawing into some secret place, fall down upon her
knees and pray that he might be restored.

But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this
condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her
solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials
for a young heart. Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to
come.

One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather
went out to walk. They had been rather closely confined for some
days, and the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance.
Clear of the town, they took a footpath which struck through some
pleasant fields, judging that it would terminate in the road they
quitted and enable them to return that way. It made, however, a
much wider circuit than they had supposed, and thus they were
tempted onward until sunset, when they reached the track of which
they were in search, and stopped to rest.

It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark
and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up
masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed
here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon
the earth. The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun
went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds
coming up against it, menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops
of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing
onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over
all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder,
then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour
seemed to have gathered in an instant.

Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and
the child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in
which they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst
forth in earnest, and every moment increased in violence. Drenched
with the pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and
bewildered by the glare of the forked lightning, they would have
passed a solitary house without being aware of its vicinity, had
not a man, who was standing at the door, called lustily to them to
enter.

'Your ears ought to be better than other folks' at any rate, if you
make so little of the chance of being struck blind,' he said,
retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the
jagged lightning came again. 'What were you going past for, eh?'
he added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to
a room behind.

'We didn't see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,' Nell
replied.

'No wonder,' said the man, 'with this lightning in one's eyes,
by-the-by. You had better stand by the fire here, and dry
yourselves a bit. You can call for what you like if you want
anything. If you don't want anything, you are not obliged to give
an order. Don't be afraid of that. This is a public-house, that's
all. The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.'

'Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?' asked Nell.

'I thought everybody knew that,' replied the landlord. 'Where have
you come from, if you don't know the Valiant Soldier as well as the
church catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves--
Jem Groves--honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral
character, and has a good dry skittle-ground. If any man has got
anything to say again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and
Jem Groves can accommodate him with a customer on any terms from
four pound a side to forty.

With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to
intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred
scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at
society in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and,
applying a half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips,
drank Jem Groves's health.

The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the
room, for a barrier against the heat of the fire. It seemed as if
somebody on the other side of this screen had been insinuating
doubts of Mr Groves's prowess, and had thereby given rise to these
egotistical expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by
giving a loud knock upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a
reply from the other side.

'There an't many men,' said Mr Groves, no answer being returned,
'who would ventur' to cross Jem Groves under his own roof. There's
only one man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that
man's not a hundred mile from here neither. But he's worth a dozen
men, and I let him say of me whatever he likes in consequence--he
knows that.'

In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice
bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.' And the same
voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in
brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was
made of.'

'Nell, they're--they're playing cards,' whispered the old man,
suddenly interested. 'Don't you hear them?'

'Look sharp with that candle,' said the voice; 'it's as much as I
can do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter
closed as quick as you can, will you? Your beer will be the worse
for to-night's thunder I expect. --Game! Seven-and-sixpence to
me, old Isaac. Hand over.'

'Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?' whispered the old man again,
with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.

'I haven't seen such a storm as this,' said a sharp cracked voice
of most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had
died away, 'since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen
times running on the red. We all said he had the Devil's luck and
his own, and as it was the kind of night for the Devil to be out
and busy, I suppose he was looking over his shoulder, if anybody
could have seen him.'

'Ah!' returned the gruff voice; 'for all old Luke's winning through
thick and thin of late years, I remember the time when he was the
unluckiest and unfortunatest of men. He never took a dice-box in
his hand, or held a card, but he was plucked, pigeoned, and cleaned
out completely.'

'Do you hear what he says?' whispered the old man. 'Do you hear
that, Nell?'

The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance
had undergone a complete change. His face was flushed and eager,
his eyes were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and
thick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently that
she shook beneath its grasp.

'Bear witness,' he muttered, looking upward, 'that I always said
it; that I knew it, dreamed of it, felt it was the truth, and that
it must be so! What money have we, Nell? Come! I saw you with
money yesterday. What money have we? Give it to me.'

'No, no, let me keep it, grandfather,' said the frightened child.
'Let us go away from here. Do not mind the rain. Pray let us go.'

'Give it to me, I say,' returned the old man fiercely. 'Hush,
hush, don't cry, Nell. If I spoke sharply, dear, I didn't mean it.
It's for thy good. I have wronged thee, Nell, but I will right
thee yet, I will indeed. Where is the money?'

'Do not take it,' said the child. 'Pray do not take it, dear. For
both our sakes let me keep it, or let me throw it away--better let
me throw it away, than you take it now. Let us go; do let us go.'

'Give me the money,' returned the old man, 'I must have it. There--
there--that's my dear Nell. I'll right thee one day, child,
I'll right thee, never fear!'

She took from her pocket a little purse. He seized it with the
same rapid impatience which had characterised his speech, and
hastily made his way to the other side of the screen. It was
impossible to restrain him, and the trembling child followed close
behind.

The landlord had placed a light upon the table, and was engaged in
drawing the curtain of the window. The speakers whom they had
heard were two men, who had a pack of cards and some silver money
between them, while upon the screen itself the games they had
played were scored in chalk. The man with the rough voice was a
burly fellow of middle age, with large black whiskers, broad
cheeks, a coarse wide mouth, and bull neck, which was pretty freely
displayed as his shirt collar was only confined by a loose red
neckerchief. He wore his hat, which was of a brownish-white, and
had beside him a thick knotted stick. The other man, whom his
companion had called Isaac, was of a more slender figure--
stooping, and high in the shoulders--with a very ill-favoured
face, and a most sinister and villainous squint.

'Now old gentleman,' said Isaac, looking round. 'Do you know
either of us? This side of the screen is private, sir.'

'No offence, I hope,' returned the old man.

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