Chapter 44

The Old Curiosity Shop

by Charles Dickens

The throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no
symptom of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs;
and undisturbed in their business speculations, by the roar of carts
and waggons laden with clashing wares, the slipping of horses' feet
upon the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the rain on windows
and umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more impatient passengers, and
all the noise and tumult of a crowded street in the high tide of its
occupation: while the two poor strangers, stunned and bewildered by
the hurry they beheld but had no part in, looked mournfully on;
feeling, amidst the crowd, a solitude which has no parallel but in
the thirst of the shipwrecked mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the
billows of a mighty ocean, his red eyes blinded by looking on the
water which hems him in on every side, has not one drop to cool his
burning tongue.

They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and
watched the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a
ray of encouragement or hope. Some frowned, some smiled, some
muttered to themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating
the conversation in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore
the cunning look of bargaining and plotting, some were anxious and
eager, some slow and dull; in some countenances, were written gain;
in others, loss. It was like being in the confidence of all these
people to stand quietly there, looking into their faces as they
flitted past. In busy places, where each man has an object of his
own, and feels assured that every other man has his, his character
and purpose are written broadly in his face. In the public walks and
lounges of a town, people go to see and to be seen, and there the
same expression, with little variety, is repeated a hundred times.
The working-day faces come nearer to the truth, and let it out more
plainly.

Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude
awakens, the child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a
wondering interest, amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness of
her own condition. But cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and lack of
any place in which to lay her aching head, soon brought her thoughts
back to the point whence they had strayed. No one passed who seemed
to notice them, or to whom she durst appeal. After some time, they
left their place of refuge from the weather, and mingled with the
concourse.

Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with
fewer people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their
own breasts, and the same indifference from all around. The lights
in the streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, for with
their help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster. Shivering
with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the
child needed her utmost firmness and resolution even to creep
along.

Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were
peaceful country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered
and thirsted, with less suffering than in its squalid strife! They
were but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very sight
of which increased their hopelessness and suffering.

The child had not only to endure the accumulated hardships of
their destitute condition, but to bear the reproaches of her
grandfather, who began to murmur at having been led away from their
late abode, and demand that they should return to it. Being now
penniless, and no relief or prospect of relief appearing, they
retraced their steps through the deserted streets, and went back to
the wharf, hoping to find the boat in which they had come, and to be
allowed to sleep on board that night. But here again they were
disappointed, for the gate was closed, and some fierce dogs, barking
at their approach, obliged them to retreat.

'We must sleep in the open air to-night, dear,' said the child
in a weak voice, as they turned away from this last repulse; 'and
to-morrow we will beg our way to some quiet part of the country, and
try to earn our bread in very humble work.'

'Why did you bring me here?' returned the old man fiercely. 'I
cannot bear these close eternal streets. We came from a quiet part.
Why did you force me to leave it?'

'Because I must have that dream I told you of, no more,' said
the child, with a momentary firmness that lost itself in tears; 'and
we must live among poor people, or it will come again. Dear
grandfather, you are old and weak, I know; but look at me. I never
will complain if you will not, but I have some suffering indeed.'

'Ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!' cried the
old man, clasping his hands and gazing as if for the first time upon
her anxious face, her travel-stained dress, and bruised and swollen
feet; 'has all my agony of care brought her to this at last! Was I a
happy man once, and have I lost happiness and all I had, for
this!'

'If we were in the country now,' said the child, with assumed
cheerfulness, as they walked on looking about them for a shelter, we
should find some good old tree, stretching out his green arms as if
he loved us, and nodding and rustling as if he would have us fall
asleep, thinking of him while he watched. Please God, we shall be
there soon--to-morrow or next day at the farthest--and in the
meantime let us think, dear, that it was a good thing we came here;
for we are lost in the crowd and hurry of this place, and if any
cruel people should pursue us, they could surely never trace us
further. There's comfort in that. And here's a deep old
doorway--very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind don't
blow in here--What's that!'

Uttering a half shriek, she recoiled from a black figure which
came suddenly out of the dark recess in which they were about to take
refuge, and stood still, looking at them.

'Speak again,' it said; 'do I know the voice?'

'No,' replied the child timidly; 'we are strangers, and having
no money for a night's lodging, were going to rest here.'

There was a feeble lamp at no great distance; the only one in
the place, which was a kind of square yard, but sufficient to show
how poor and mean it was. To this, the figure beckoned them; at the
same time drawing within its rays, as if to show that it had no
desire to conceal itself or take them at an advantage. The form was
that of a man, miserably clad and begrimed with smoke, which, perhaps
by its contrast with the natural colour of his skin, made him look
paler than he really was. That he was naturally of a very wan and
pallid aspect, however, his hollow cheeks, sharp features, and sunken
eyes, no less than a certain look of patient endurance, sufficiently
testified. His voice was harsh by nature, but not brutal; and though
his face, besides possessing the characteristics already mentioned,
was overshadowed by a quantity of long dark hair, its expression was
neither ferocious nor bad.

'How came you to think of resting there?' he said. 'Or how,' he
added, looking more attentively at the child, 'do you come to want a
place of rest at this time of night?'

'Our misfortunes,' the grandfather answered, 'are the cause.'

'Do you know,' said the man, looking still more earnestly at
Nell, 'how wet she is, and that the damp streets are not a place for
her?'

'I know it well, God help me,' he replied. 'What can I do!'

The man looked at Nell again, and gently touched her garments,
from which the rain was running off in little streams. 'I can give
you warmth,' he said, after a pause; 'nothing else. Such lodging as
I have, is in that house,' pointing to the doorway from which he had
emerged, 'but she is safer and better there than here. The fire is
in a rough place, but you can pass the night beside it safely, if
you'll trust yourselves to me. You see that red light yonder?'

They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the
dark sky; the dull reflection of some distant fire.

'It's not far,' said the man. 'Shall I take you there? You
were going to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm
ashes --nothing better.'

Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their
looks, he took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.

Carrying her as tenderly, and as easily too, as if she had been
an infant, and showing himself both swift and sure of foot, he led
the way through what appeared to be the poorest and most wretched
quarter of the town; and turning aside to avoid the overflowing
kennels or running waterspouts, but holding his course, regardless of
such obstructions, and making his way straight through them. They had
proceeded thus, in silence, for some quarter of an hour, and had lost
sight of the glare to which he had pointed, in the dark and narrow
ways by which they had come, when it suddenly burst upon them again,
streaming up from the high chimney of a building close before
them.

'This is the place,' he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down
and take her hand. 'Don't be afraid. There's nobody here will harm
you.'

It needed a strong confidence in this assurance to induce them
to enter, and what they saw inside did not diminish their
apprehension and alarm. In a large and lofty building, supported by
pillars of iron, with great black apertures in the upper walls, open
to the external air; echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers
and roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal
plunged in water, and a hundred strange unearthly noises never heard
elsewhere; in this gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame
and smoke, dimly and fitfully seen, flushed and tormented by the
burning fires, and wielding great weapons, a faulty blow from any one
of which must have crushed some workman's skull, a number of men
laboured like giants. Others, reposing upon heaps of coals or ashes,
with their faces turned to the black vault above, slept or rested
from their toil. Others again, opening the white-hot furnace-doors,
cast fuel on the flames, which came rushing and roaring forth to meet
it, and licked it up like oil. Others drew forth, with clashing
noise, upon the ground, great sheets of glowing steel, emitting an
insupportable heat, and a dull deep light like that which reddens in
the eyes of savage beasts.

Through these bewildering sights and deafening sounds, their
conductor led them to where, in a dark portion of the building, one
furnace burnt by night and day--so, at least, they gathered from the
motion of his lips, for as yet they could only see him speak: not
hear him. The man who had been watching this fire, and whose task
was ended for the present, gladly withdrew, and left them with their
friend, who, spreading Nell's little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and
showing her where she could hang her outer-clothes to dry, signed to
her and the old man to lie down and sleep. For himself, he took his
station on a rugged mat before the furnace-door, and resting his chin
upon his hands, watched the flame as it shone through the iron
chinks, and the white ashes as they fell into their bright hot grave
below.

The warmth of her bed, hard and humble as it was, combined with
the great fatigue she had undergone, soon caused the tumult of the
place to fall with a gentler sound upon the child's tired ears, and
was not long in lulling her to sleep. The old man was stretched
beside her, and with her hand upon his neck she lay and dreamed.

It was yet night when she awoke, nor did she know how long, or
for how short a time, she had slept. But she found herself
protected, both from any cold air that might find its way into the
building, and from the scorching heat, by some of the workmen's
clothes; and glancing at their friend saw that he sat in exactly the
same attitude, looking with a fixed earnestness of attention towards
the fire, and keeping so very still that he did not even seem to
breathe. She lay in the state between sleeping and waking, looking
so long at his motionless figure that at length she almost feared he
had died as he sat there; and softly rising and drawing close to him,
ventured to whisper in his ear.

He moved, and glancing from her to the place she had lately
occupied, as if to assure himself that it was really the child so
near him, looked inquiringly into her face.

'I feared you were ill,' she said. 'The other men are all in
motion, and you are so very quiet.'

'They leave me to myself,' he replied. 'They know my humour.
They laugh at me, but don't harm me in it. See yonder there--that's
my friend.'

'The fire?' said the child.

'It has been alive as long as I have,' the man made answer. 'We
talk and think together all night long.'

The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise, but he had
turned his eyes in their former direction, and was musing as
before.

'It's like a book to me,' he said--'the only book I ever learned
to read; and many an old story it tells me. It's music, for I should
know its voice among a thousand, and there are other voices in its
roar. It has its pictures too. You don't know how many strange
faces and different scenes I trace in the red-hot coals. It's my
memory, that fire, and shows me all my life.'

The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help
remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and
muse.

'Yes,' he said, with a faint smile, 'it was the same when I was
quite a baby, and crawled about it, till I fell asleep. My father
watched it then.'

'Had you no mother?' asked the child.

'No, she was dead. Women work hard in these parts. She worked
herself to death they told me, and, as they said so then, the fire
has gone on saying the same thing ever since. I suppose it was true.
I have always believed it.'

'Were you brought up here, then?' said the child.

'Summer and winter,' he replied. 'Secretly at first, but when
they found it out, they let him keep me here. So the fire nursed
me-- the same fire. It has never gone out.'

'You are fond of it?' said the child.

'Of course I am. He died before it. I saw him fall down--just
there, where those ashes are burning now--and wondered, I remember,
why it didn't help him.'

'Have you been here ever since?' asked the child.

'Ever since I came to watch it; but there was a while between,
and a very cold dreary while it was. It burned all the time though,
and roared and leaped when I came back, as it used to do in our play
days. You may guess, from looking at me, what kind of child I was,
but for all the difference between us I was a child, and when I saw
you in the street to-night, you put me in mind of myself, as I was
after he died, and made me wish to bring you to the fire. I thought
of those old times again, when I saw you sleeping by it. You should
be sleeping now. Lie down again, poor child, lie down again!'

With that, he led her to her rude couch, and covering her with
the clothes with which she had found herself enveloped when she woke,
returned to his seat, whence he moved no more unless to feed the
furnace, but remained motionless as a statue. The child continued to
watch him for a little time, but soon yielded to the drowsiness that
came upon her, and, in the dark strange place and on the heap of
ashes, slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace chamber,
and the bed, a bed of down.

When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty
openings in the walls, and, stealing in slanting rays but midway
down, seemed to make the building darker than it had been at night.
The clang and tumult were still going on, and the remorseless fires
were burning fiercely as before; for few changes of night and day
brought rest or quiet there.

Her friend parted his breakfast--a scanty mess of coffee and
some coarse bread--with the child and her grandfather, and inquired
whither they were going. She told him that they sought some distant
country place remote from towns or even other villages, and with a
faltering tongue inquired what road they would do best to take.

'I know little of the country,' he said, shaking his head, 'for
such as I, pass all our lives before our furnace doors, and seldom go
forth to breathe. But there are such places yonder.'

'And far from here?' said Nell.

'Aye surely. How could they be near us, and be green and fresh?
The road lies, too, through miles and miles, all lighted up by fires
like ours--a strange black road, and one that would frighten you by
night.'

'We are here and must go on,' said the child boldly; for she saw
that the old man listened with anxious ears to this account.

'Rough people--paths never made for little feet like yours--a
dismal blighted way--is there no turning back, my child!'

'There is none,' cried Nell, pressing forward. 'If you can
direct us, do. If not, pray do not seek to turn us from our purpose.
Indeed you do not know the danger that we shun, and how right and
true we are in flying from it, or you would not try to stop us, I am
sure you would not.'

'God forbid, if it is so!' said their uncouth protector,
glancing from the eager child to her grandfather, who hung his head
and bent his eyes upon the ground. 'I'll direct you from the door,
the best I can. I wish I could do more.'

He showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town,
and what course they should hold when they had gained it. He
lingered so long on these instructions, that the child, with a
fervent blessing, tore herself away, and stayed to hear no more.

But, before they had reached the corner of the lane, the man
came running after them, and, pressing her hand, left something in
it-- two old, battered, smoke-encrusted penny pieces. Who knows but
they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels, as golden gifts that
have been chronicled on tombs?

And thus they separated; the child to lead her sacred charge
farther from guilt and shame; the labourer to attach a fresh interest
to the spot where his guests had slept, and read new histories in his
furnace fire.