Dickens' Stories About Children Every Child Can Read, Charles Dickens [good book club books TXT] 📗

a Sunday. Observe the blood which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with which she is at work."

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

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

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

For some time her life and the life of the poor vacant old man passed quietly and happily. They traveled from place to place with Mrs. Jarley; Nell spoke her piece, with the wand in her hand, before the waxen images; and her grandfather in a dull way dusted the images when he was told to do so.

But heavier sorrow was yet to come. One night, a holiday night for them, Neil and her grandfather went out to walk. A terrible thunderstorm coming on, they were forced to take refuge in a small public house; and here they saw some shabbily dressed and wicked looking men were playing cards. The old man watched them with increasing interest and excitement, until his whole appearance underwent a complete change. His face was flushed and eager, his teeth set. With a hand that trembled violently he seized Nell's little purse, and in spite of her pleadings joined in the game, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain that the distressed and frightened child could almost better have borne to see him dead. It was long after midnight when the play came to an end; and they were forced to remain where they were until the morning. And in the night the child was wakened from her troubled sleep to find a figure in the room—a figure busying its hands about her garments, while its face was turned to her, listening and looking lest she should awake. It was her grandfather himself, his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright, counting the money of which his hands were robbing her.

Evening after evening, after that night, the old man would steal away, not to return until the night was far spent, demanding, wildly, money. And at last there came an hour when the child overheard him, tempted beyond his feeble powers of resistance, undertake to find more money to feed the desperate passion which had laid its hold upon his weakness by robbing the kind Mrs. Jarley, who had done so much for them. The poor old man had become so weak in his mind, that he did not understand how wicked was his act.

That night the child took her grandfather by the hand and led him forth. Through the strait streets and narrow outskirts of the town their trembling feet passed quickly; the child sustained by one idea—that they were flying from wickedness and disgrace, and that she could save her grandfather only by her firmness unaided by one word of advice or any helping hand; the old man following her as though she had been an angel messenger sent to lead him where she would.

The hardest part of all their wanderings was now before them. They slept in the open air that night, and on the following morning some men offered to take them a long distance on their barge on the river. These men, though they were not unkindly, were very rugged, noisy fellows, and they drank and quarreled fearfully among themselves, to Nell's inexpressible terror. It rained, too, heavily, and she was wet and cold. At last they reached the great city whither the barge was bound, and here they wandered up and down, being now penniless, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find among them a ray of encouragement or hope. Ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her utmost courage and will even to creep along.

They lay down that night, and the next night too, with nothing between them and the sky; a penny loaf was all they had had that day, and when the third morning came, it found the child much weaker, yet she made no complaint. The great city with its many factories hemmed them in on every side, and seemed to shut out hope.

Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were terrible to them. After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being driven away, they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and try if the people living in some lone house beyond would have more pity on their worn out state.

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. There appeared before them, at this moment, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveler on foot, who, with a bundle of clothing 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 ask 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. Encouraged by 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 beg his help.

He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.

It was the poor schoolmaster. No other than 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, silent, without even the presence of mind to raise her from the ground.

But, quickly recovering himself, he threw down his stick and book, and, dropping on one knee beside her, tried simple means as came to his mind, to restore her to herself; while her grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and begged her, with many words of love, to speak to him, were it only a whisper.

"She appears to be quite worn out," said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into his face. "You have used up all her strength, friend."

"She is dying of want," answered the old man. "I never thought how weak and ill she was till now."

Casting a look upon him, half-angry and half-pitiful, 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 walking when so unexpectedly overtaken. Toward this place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make way for God's sake, laid it down on a chair before the fire.

The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance, did as people usually do under such circumstances. Everybody called for his or her favorite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more air, at the same time carefully shutting out what air there was, by closing round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody else didn't do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by themselves.

The landlady, however, who had more readiness and activity than any of them, and who seemed to understand the case more quickly, soon came running in, with a little hot medicine, followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar, hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which, being duly given, helped the child so far as to enable her to thank them in a faint voice, and to hold out her hand to the poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, near her side. Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir a finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed; and, having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel, they sent a messenger for the doctor.

The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his watch, and felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.

"I should give her," said the doctor at length, "a teaspoonful, every now and then, of hot medicine."

"Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!" said the delighted landlady.

"I should also," observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath on the stairs, "I should also," said the doctor, in a very wise tone of voice, "put her feet in hot water and wrap them up in flannel. I should likewise," said the doctor, with increased solemnity, "give her something light for supper—the wing of a roasted chicken now———"

"Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire this instant!" cried the landlady. And so indeed it was, for the schoolmaster had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on so well that the doctor might have smelled it if he had tried; perhaps he did.

"You may then," said the doctor, rising gravely, "give her a glass of hot mulled port-wine, if she likes wine———"

"And a piece of toast, sir?" suggested the landlady.

"Ay," said the doctor, in a very dignified tone, "And a toast—of bread. But be very particular to make it of bread, if you please, ma'am."

With which parting advice, slowly and solemnly given, the doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom which agreed so closely with their own. Everybody said he was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's bodies needed; which there appears some reason to suppose he did.

While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep, from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready. As she showed extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her grandfather was below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at the thought of their being apart, he took his supper with her.