“Oh!” said the dwarf after a little consideration. “Then I think they’ll come to you yet.”
“Do you think they will?” cried Kit eagerly.
“Aye, I think they will,” returned the dwarf. “Now when they do, let me know, d’ye hear? Let me know, and I’ll give you something. I want to do ’em a kindness, and I can’t do ’em a kindness unless I know where they are. You hear what I say?”
Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been agreeable to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf, who had been skulking about the room in search of anything that might have been left about by accident, had not happened to cry, “Here’s a bird. What’s to be done with this?”
“Wring its neck,” rejoined Quilp.
“Oh no, don’t do that,” said Kit, stepping forward. “Give it to me.”
“Oh yes, I dare say,” cried the other boy. “Come, you let the cage alone, and let me wring its neck will you. He said I was to do it. You let the cage alone will you.”
“Give it here, give it to me you dogs,” roared Quilp. “Fight for it you dogs, or I’ll wring its neck myself.”
Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other tooth and nail, while Quilp holding up the cage in one hand, and chopping the ground with his knife in an ecstacy, urged them on by his taunts and cries to fight more fiercely. They were a pretty equal match, and rolled about together exchanging blows which were by no means child’s play, until at length Kit, planting a well directed hit in his adversary’s chest, disengaged himself, sprung nimbly up, and snatching the cage from Quilp’s hands made off with his prize.
He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl dreadfully.
“Goodness gracious Kit, what is the matter, what have you been doing?” cried Mrs. Nubbles.
“Never you mind mother,” answered her son, wiping his face on the jack-towel behind the door. “I’m not hurt, don’t you be afraid for me. I’ve been a fightin’ for a bird and won him, that’s all. Hold your noise little Jacob. I never see such a naughty boy in all my days!”
“You have been fighting for a bird!” exclaimed his mother.
“Ah! Fightin’ for a bird,” replied Kit, “and here he is—Miss Nelly’s bird, mother, that they was a goin’ to wring the neck of. I stopped that though—ha ha ha! They wouldn’t wring his neck and me by, no no. It wouldn’t do mother, it wouldn’t do at all. Ha ha ha!”
Kit laughing so heartily, with his swollen and bruised face looking out of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother laughed, and then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and then they all laughed in concert, partly because of Kit’s triumph, and partly because they were very fond of each other. When this fit was over, Kit exhibited the bird to both children as a great and precious rarity—it was only a poor linnet—and looking about the wall for an old nail, made a scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with great exultation.
“Let me see,” said the boy, “I think I’ll hang him in the winder, because it’s more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there, if he looks up very much. He’s such a one to sing, I can tell you!”
So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the poker for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to the immeasurable delight of the whole family. When it had been adjusted and straightened a great many times, and he had walked backwards into the fireplace in his admiration of it, the arrangement was pronounced to be perfect.
“And now mother,” said the boy, “before I rest any more, I’ll go out and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.”
XIV
As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house was in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his passing it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable necessity, quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he could not choose but yield. It is not uncommon for people who are much better fed and taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been, to make duties of their inclinations in matters of more doubtful propriety, and to take great credit for the self-denial with which they gratify themselves.
There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp’s boy. The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy as if it had been so for months. A rusty padlock was fastened on the door, ends of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily against the half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in the closed shutters below, were black with the darkness of the inside. Some of the glass in the window he had so often watched, had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning, and that room looked more deserted and dull than any. A group of idle urchins had taken possession of the doorsteps: some were plying the knocker and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the keyhole, watching half in jest and half in earnest for “the ghost,” which an hour’s gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the late inhabitants, had already raised. Standing all alone in the midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house
