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  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

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  The Old Curiosity Shop

  by Charles Dickens

  October, 1996 [Etext #700]

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  The Old Curiosity Shop

  Page 4

  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

  glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like

  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.