Nell’s friend

(From “The Old Curiosity Shop”)

Little Nell and her grandfather lived in London quite by themselves. Yet Nell seldom felt lonely or unhappy, for her grandfather loved her very dearly. He was a kind man, but was daily growing older and weaker. The capitalist world is no place for children and old men who have no one to take care of them. Nell’s grandfather fell into the hands of a man who was as rich as he was wicked. One day the old man found he had lost all he had. Little Nell was now homeless, and they both became beggars. The child and her grandfather decided to leave London, where they had met with so much unkindness. They went travelling through England on foot, and as the old man was now quite weak both in body and mind, it was little Nell who took care of him as if he were her child. As long as they were in the country they always found bread and often shelter for the night, for the country folk were sorry for the pretty child and the helpless old man, but when they came to a large industrial town, no one took notice of them.

Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with fewer people about them, and the same indifference from all around. The lights in the streets and the shops made them feel still more lonely. Shivering with the cold and damp, the child needed all her firmness to walk slowly along. Why had they ever come to this noisy town? They were but an atom here in a mountain heap of misery. “If we were in the country now,” said the child, “we should find some good old tree and fall asleep under it. Here is a deep doorway, very dark but quite dry, and warm, too, for the wind does not blow under it. What’s that?”

A black figure suddenly emerged from the dark doorway, and stood still. It was the figure of a man. He was dirty with smoke, which, by contrast, made him look paler than he was. His sharp face was, however, naturally very pale, and overshadowed by long dark hair, yet its expression was neither fierce nor bad.

“How do you come to want a place of rest at this time of night?” he said to the old man. “Do you know how wet she is?” looking at Nell, “and that the damp streets are no place for her?”

“I know it well,” he replied, “But what can I do?”

The man looked at Nell again. “I can give you warmth,” he said after a pause, “nothing else. You see that red light there? It’s not far. Shall I take you there? You were going to sleep on cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes, nothing better.” Without waiting for any reply, he took Nell in his arms, and told the old man to follow.

“This is the place,” he said, stopping at a door to put Nell down and take her hand. “Don’t be afraid. There’s nobody here that will harm you.”

They entered a large building echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers and roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal plunged in water. In this gloomy place among the flame and smoke, a number of men laboured like giants. Others slept on heaps of coal and ashes. Others again, opening the white-hot furnace doors, put fuel on the flames.

Their friend showed Nell and the old man where they could lie down, while he took his post before the furnace door, resting his chin upon his hands and looking at the flames. It was yet night when Nell awoke; and he still sat as before.

“See,” he said, “that’s my friend.”

“The fire?” said the child.

“It has been alive as long as I have,” the man answered. “We talk together all night long.”

The child looked at him in surprise.

“It’s like a book to me,” he said, “the only book I ever learned to read, and many old stories it tells me. It’s my memory, that fire, and it shows me all my life. It was the same when I was a baby. My father watched it then.”

“Had you no mother?” asked the child.

“No, she was dead. Women work hard in our place. She worked herself to death.”

“Were you brought up here, then?” said the child.

“Summer and winter,” he replied, “secretly at first. So the fire nursed me - the same fire.”

“You are fond of it?” said the child.

“Of course, I am. My father died before it. I saw him fall down, just there, where those ashes are lying now.”

“Have you been here ever since?” asked the child.

“Ever since I came to watch it. I thought of those old times again, when I saw you sleeping by it. Lie down again, poor child, lie down again.”

The child continued to watch him for a little time, but soon fell asleep. When she awoke, the daylight was making the building look still darker. Her friend divided his breakfast of coffee and bread with the child and her grandfather. He showed them by which road they must leave the town. Before they reached the corner of the street, the man came running after them, and pressing Nell’s hand left something in it - two old smoke-black pennies.

I. Questions and tasks.

1. Where were Nell and her grandfather wandering?

2. Why did they become homeless beggars?

3. Whom did they meet one day?

4. Characterize their friend.

5. What did the fire mean to him?

6. Prove that the worker was a very noble man.

II. Retell the text in detail.