THIRD CHAPTER

by Charles Dickens

　　NOT as yet directly aiming at how it came to pass, I will come uponit by degrees. The natural manner, after all, for God knows thatis how it came upon me. My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infanthome was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound of father'sLancashire clogs on the street pavement above, as being differentin my young hearing from the sound of all other clogs; and Irecollect, that, when mother came down the cellar-steps, I usedtremblingly to speculate on her feet having a good or an ill-tempered look, - on her knees, - on her waist, - until finally herface came into view, and settled the question. From this it willbe seen that I was timid, and that the cellar-steps were steep, andthat the doorway was very low. Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon herfigure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high-pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression ofbony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling hereyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt andhungry. Father, with his shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on athree-legged stool, looking at the empty grate, until she wouldpluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some moneyhome. Then he would dismally ascend the steps; and I, holding myragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces),would feint and dodge from mother's pursuing grasp at my hair. A worldly little devil was mother's usual name for me. Whether Icried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or forthat I was hungry, or whether I squeezed myself into a warm cornerwhen there was a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, shewould still say, 'O, you worldly little devil!' And the sting ofit was, that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil.Worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed, worldly as towanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with which I inwardlycompared how much I got of those good things with how much fatherand mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going. Sometimes they both went away seeking work; and then I would belocked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I was at myworldliest then. Left alone, I yielded myself up to a worldlyyearning for enough of anything (except misery), and for the deathof mother's father, who was a machine-maker at Birmingham, and onwhose decease, I had heard mother say, she would come into a wholecourtful of houses 'if she had her rights.' Worldly little devil,I would stand about, musingly fitting my cold bare feet intocracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar-floor, - walkingover my grandfather's body, so to speak, into the courtful ofhouses, and selling them for meat and drink, and clothes to wear. At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal changecame down even as low as that, - so will it mount to any height onwhich a human creature can perch, - and brought other changes withit. We had a heap of I don't know what foul litter in the darkestcorner, which we called 'the bed.' For three days mother lay uponit without getting up, and then began at times to laugh. If I hadever heard her laugh before, it had been so seldom that the strangesound frightened me. It frightened father too; and we took it byturns to give her water. Then she began to move her head from sideto side, and sing. After that, she getting no better, father fella-laughing and a-singing; and then there was only I to give themboth water, and they both died.