Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens (latest ebook reader TXT) 📖

‘Poor!’ she cried. ‘And what am I?’

‘Comparisons are odious,’ said the blind man. ‘I don’t know, I don’t care. I say that we are poor. My friend’s circumstances are indifferent, and so are mine. We must have our rights, widow, or we must be bought off. But you know that, as well as I, so where is the use of talking?’

She still walked wildly to and fro. At length, stopping abruptly before him, she said:

‘Is he near here?’

‘He is. Close at hand.’

‘Then I am lost!’

‘Not lost, widow,’ said the blind man, calmly; ‘only found. Shall I call him?’

‘Not for the world,’ she answered, with a shudder.

‘Very good,’ he replied, crossing his legs again, for he had made as though he would rise and walk to the door. ‘As you please, widow. His presence is not necessary that I know of. But both he and I must live; to live, we must eat and drink; to eat and drink, we must have money:—I say no more.’

‘Do you know how pinched and destitute I am?’ she retorted. ‘I do not think you do, or can. If you had eyes, and could look around you on this poor place, you would have pity on me. Oh! let your heart be softened by your own affliction, friend, and have some sympathy with mine.’

The blind man snapped his fingers as he answered:

‘—Beside the question, ma’am, beside the question. I have the softest heart in the world, but I can’t live upon it. Many a gentleman lives well upon a soft head, who would find a heart of the same quality a very great drawback. Listen to me. This is a matter of business, with which sympathies and sentiments have nothing to do. As a mutual friend, I wish to arrange it in a satisfactory manner, if possible; and thus the case stands.—If you are very poor now, it’s your own choice. You have friends who, in case of need, are always ready to help you. My friend is in a more destitute and desolate situation than most men, and, you and he being linked together in a common cause, he naturally looks to you to assist him. He has boarded and lodged with me a long time (for as I said just now, I am very soft-hearted), and I quite approve of his entertaining this opinion. You have always had a roof over your head; he has always been an outcast. You have your son to comfort and assist you; he has nobody at all. The advantages must not be all one side. You are in the same boat, and we must divide the ballast a little more equally.’

She was about to speak, but he checked her, and went on.

‘The only way of doing this, is by making up a little purse now and then for my friend; and that’s what I advise. He bears you no malice that I know of, ma’am: so little, that although you have treated him harshly more than once, and driven him, I may say, out of doors, he has that regard for you that I believe even if you disappointed him now, he would consent to take charge of your son, and to make a man of him.’

He laid a great stress on these latter words, and paused as if to find out what effect they had produced. She only answered by her tears.

‘He is a likely lad,’ said the blind man, thoughtfully, ‘for many purposes, and not ill-disposed to try his fortune in a little change and bustle, if I may judge from what I heard of his talk with you to-night.—Come. In a word, my friend has pressing necessity for twenty pounds. You, who can give up an annuity, can get that sum for him. It’s a pity you should be troubled. You seem very comfortable here, and it’s worth that much to remain so. Twenty pounds, widow, is a moderate demand. You know where to apply for it; a post will bring it you.—Twenty pounds!’

She was about to answer him again, but again he stopped her.

‘Don’t say anything hastily; you might be sorry for it. Think of it a little while. Twenty pounds—of other people’s money—how easy! Turn it over in your mind. I’m in no hurry. Night’s coming on, and if I don’t sleep here, I shall not go far. Twenty pounds! Consider of it, ma’am, for twenty minutes; give each pound a minute; that’s a fair allowance. I’ll enjoy the air the while, which is very mild and pleasant in these parts.’

With these words he groped his way to the door, carrying his chair with him. Then seating himself, under a spreading honeysuckle, and stretching his legs across the threshold so that no person could pass in or out without his knowledge, he took from his pocket a pipe, flint, steel and tinder-box, and began to smoke. It was a lovely evening, of that gentle kind, and at that time of year, when the twilight is most beautiful. Pausing now and then to let his smoke curl slowly off, and to sniff the grateful fragrance of the flowers, he sat there at his ease—as though the cottage were his proper dwelling, and he had held undisputed possession of it all his life—waiting for the widow’s answer and for Barnaby’s return.

Chapter 46

When Barnaby returned with the bread, the sight of the pious old pilgrim smoking his pipe and making himself so thoroughly at home, appeared to surprise even him; the more so, as that worthy person, instead of putting up the loaf in his wallet as a scarce and precious article, tossed it carelessly on the table, and producing his bottle, bade him sit down and drink.

‘For I carry some comfort, you see,’ he said. ‘Taste that. Is it good?’

The water stood in Barnaby’s eyes as he coughed from the strength of the draught, and answered in the affirmative.

‘Drink some more,’ said the blind man; ‘don’t be afraid of it. You don’t taste anything like that, often, eh?’

‘Often!’ cried Barnaby. ‘Never!’

‘Too poor?’ returned the blind man with a sigh. ‘Ay. That’s bad. Your mother, poor soul, would be happier if she was richer, Barnaby.’

‘Why, so I tell her—the very thing I told her just before you came to-night, when all that gold was in the sky,’ said Barnaby, drawing his chair nearer to him, and looking eagerly in his face. ‘Tell me. Is there any way of being rich, that I could find out?’

‘Any way! A hundred ways.’

‘Ay, ay?’ he returned. ‘Do you say so? What are they?—Nay, mother, it’s for your sake I ask; not mine;—for yours, indeed. What are they?’

The blind man turned his face, on which there was a smile of triumph, to where the widow stood in great distress; and answered,

‘Why, they are not to be found out by stay-at-homes, my good friend.’

‘By stay-at-homes!’ cried Barnaby, plucking at his sleeve. ‘But I am not one. Now, there you mistake. I am often out before the sun, and travel home when he has gone to rest. I am away in the woods before the day has reached the shady places, and am often there when the bright moon is peeping through the boughs, and looking down upon the other moon that lives in the water. As I walk along, I try to find, among the grass and moss, some of that small money for which she works so hard and used to shed so many tears. As I lie asleep in the shade, I dream of it—dream of digging it up in heaps; and spying it out, hidden under bushes; and seeing it sparkle, as the dew-drops do, among the leaves. But I never find it. Tell me where it is. I’d go there, if the journey were a whole year long, because I know she would be happier when I came home and brought some with me. Speak again. I’ll listen to you if you talk all night.’

The blind man passed his hand lightly over the poor fellow’s face, and finding that his elbows were planted on the table, that his chin rested on his two hands, that he leaned eagerly forward, and that his whole manner expressed the utmost interest and anxiety, paused for a minute as though he desired the widow to observe this fully, and then made answer:

‘It’s in the world, bold Barnaby, the merry world; not in solitary places like those you pass your time in, but in crowds, and where there’s noise and rattle.’

‘Good! good!’ cried Barnaby, rubbing his hands. ‘Yes! I love that. Grip loves it too. It suits us both. That’s brave!’

‘—The kind of places,’ said the blind man, ‘that a young fellow likes, and in which a good son may do more for his mother, and himself to boot, in a month, than he could here in all his life— that is, if he had a friend, you know, and some one to advise with.’

‘You hear this, mother?’ cried Barnaby, turning to her with delight. ‘Never tell me we shouldn’t heed it, if it lay shining at out feet. Why do we heed it so much now? Why do you toil from morning until night?’

‘Surely,’ said the blind man, ‘surely. Have you no answer, widow? Is your mind,’ he slowly added, ‘not made up yet?’

‘Let me speak with you,’ she answered, ‘apart.’

‘Lay your hand upon my sleeve,’ said Stagg, arising from the table; ‘and lead me where you will. Courage, bold Barnaby. We’ll talk more of this: I’ve a fancy for you. Wait there till I come back. Now, widow.’

She led him out at the door, and into the little garden, where they stopped.

‘You are a fit agent,’ she said, in a half breathless manner, ‘and well represent the man who sent you here.’

‘I’ll tell him that you said so,’ Stagg retorted. ‘He has a regard for you, and will respect me the more (if possible) for your praise. We must have our rights, widow.’

‘Rights! Do you know,’ she said, ‘that a word from me—’

‘Why do you stop?’ returned the blind man calmly, after a long pause. ‘Do I know that a word from you would place my friend in the last position of the dance of life? Yes, I do. What of that? It will never be spoken, widow.’

‘You are sure of that?’

‘Quite—so sure, that I don’t come here to discuss the question. I say we must have our