Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
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The Old Curiosity Shop
by Charles Dickens
October, 1996 [Etext #700]
*****The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Old Curiosity Shop*****
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The Old Curiosity Shop
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Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
By Charles Dickens
CHAPTER 1
Night is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave
home early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day,
or even escape for days or weeks together; but, saving in the
country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven be
thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the
earth, as much as any creature living.
I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my
infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating
on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The
mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp
or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full
revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is kinder
in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built castle
at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse.
That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that
incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy--is it
not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear
it! Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin's Court,
listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness
obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform)
to detect the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from
the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel
of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant
pleasure-seeker--think of the hum and noise always being present to his
sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on,
through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie,
dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest
for centuries to come.
Then, the crowds for ever passing and repassing on the bridges (on
those which are free of toil at last), where many stop on fine
evenings looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague
idea that by and by it runs between green banks which grow wider
and wider until at last it joins the broad vast sea--where some halt to
rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to
smoke and lounge away one's life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a
hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness
unalloyed--and where som
e, and a very different class, pause with
heaver loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old
time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all means of suicide
the easiest and best.
Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when
the fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the
unwholesome streams of last night's debauchery, and driving the
dusky thrust, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night
long, half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all
akin to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the
hot hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already,
while others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they
shall be watered and freshened up to please more sober company,
and make old clerks who pass them on their road to business,
Page 5
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
wonder what has filled their breasts with visions of the country.
But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story
I am about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals, arose
out of one of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of
them by way of preface.
One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in
my usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was
arrested by an inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but
which seemed to be addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft
sweet voice that struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round
and found at my elbow a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed
to a certain street at a considerable distance, and indeed in quite
another quarter of the town.
It is a very long way from here,' said I, 'my child.'
'I know that, sir,' she replied timidly. 'I am afraid it is a very long
way, for I came from there to-night.'
'Alone?' said I, in some surprise.
'Oh, yes, I don't mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I
had lost my road.'
'And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?'
'I am sure you will not do that,' said the little creature,' you are such
a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.'
I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the
energy with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child's
clear eye, and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into
my face.