II. OUT IN THE WIDE WORLDIt 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.[image]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.III. AT THE END OF THE JOURNEYIt 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!"[#] About $175."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.THE STORY OF PAUL AND FLORENCE DOMBEYI. THE HOUSE OF DOMBEY AND SONPaul 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, youarestrong 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.
II. OUT IN THE WIDE WORLD
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.
[image]NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER.
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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.
III. AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY
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!"
[#] About $175.
"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.
THE STORY OF PAUL AND FLORENCE DOMBEY
I. THE HOUSE OF DOMBEY AND SON
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, youarestrong 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.