Advancing toward the Dust-heap by an opposite path, very narrow, and just reclaimed from the mud by a thick layer of freshly-broken flints, there came at the same time Gaffer Doubleyear, with his bone-bag slung over his shoulder.  The rags of his coat fluttered in the east-wind, which also whistled keenly round his almost rimless hat, and troubled his one eye.  The other eye, having met with an accident last week, he had covered neatly with an oyster-shell, which was kept in its place by a string at each side, fastened through a hole.  He used no staff to help him along, though his body was nearly bent double, so that his face was constantly turned to the earth, like that of a four-footed creature.  He was ninety-seven years of age.  As these two patriarchal laborers approached the great Dust-heap, a discordant voice hallooed to them from the top of a broken wall.  It was meant as a greeting of the morning, and proceeded from little Jem Clinker, a poor deformed lad, whose back had been broken when a child.  His nose and chin were much too large for the rest of his face, and he had lost nearly all his teeth from premature decay.  But he had an eye gleaming with intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient and hopeful.  He had balanced his misshapen frame on the top of the old wall, over which one shriveled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a hob-nailed boot that covered a foot large enough for a plowman.

In addition to his first morning’s salutation of his two aged friends, he now shouted out in a tone of triumph and self-gratulation, in which he felt assured of their sympathy—­

“Two white skins, and a tor’shell-un!”

It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the dead-cat department of the Dust-heap, and now announced that a prize of three skins, in superior condition. had rewarded him for being first in the field.

He was enjoying a seat on the wall, in order to recover himself from the excitement of his good fortune.

At the base of the great Dust-heap the two old people now met their young friend—­a sort of great-grandson by mutual adoption—­and they at once joined the party who had by this time assembled as usual, and were already busy at their several occupations.

But besides all these, another individual, belonging to a very different class, formed a part of the scene, though appearing only on its outskirts.  A canal ran along at the rear of the Dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by—­with hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands—­the forlorn figure of a man, in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman.  And to a gentleman it still belonged—­but in what a position!  A scholar, a man of wit, of high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune withal—­now by a sudden turn of law bereft of the last only, and finding that none of the rest,