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for a little while in the air. The moon was shining down upon the old
gateway of the town, leaving the low archway very black and dark; and
with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear, she slowly approached
the gate, and stood still to look up at it, wondering to see how dark,
and grim, and old, and cold, it looked.
There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or
been carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what
strange people it must have looked down upon when it stood there,
and how many hard struggles might have taken place, and how many
murders might have been done, upon that silent spot, when there
suddenly emerged from the black shade of the arch, a man. The
instant he appeared, she recognised him - Who could have failed to
recognise, in that instant, the ugly misshapen Quilp!
The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on
one side of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of the
earth. But there he was. The child withdrew into a dark corner, and
saw him pass close to her. He had a stick in his hand, and, when he
had got clear of the shadow of the gateway, he leant upon it, looked
back - directly, as it seemed, towards where she stood - and
beckoned.
To her? oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an extremity
of fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come from her
hiding-place and fly, before he should draw nearer, there issued
slowly forth from the arch another figure - that of a boy - who carried
on his back a trunk.
'
Faster, sirrah!' cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and
showing in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come
down from its niche and was casting a backward glance at its old
house, 'faster!'
'
It's a dreadful heavy load, Sir,' the boy pleaded. 'I've come on very
fast, considering.'
'YOU have come fast, considering!' retorted Quilp; 'you creep, you dog,
you crawl, you measure distance like a worm. There are the chimes
now, half-past twelve.'
He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a
suddenness and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour that
London coach passed the corner of the road. The boy replied, at one.
'Come on then,' said Quilp, 'or I shall be too late. Faster - do you hear
me? Faster.'
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